Newly discovered Anglo-Saxon gold horde

Medievalist

Just came across this on the Guardian website and felt an overwhelming need to share. All I can say is.......wow!
This has to be one of the most spectacular finds over the past decade. It's all in such beautiful condition too. It was found in Staffordshire by a farmer using a metal detector. Not exactly great news in the fight against metal detectors, but it's definitely one amazing find.

It'll be really interesting if anyone can figure out where the artefacts originated.

Prepare to drool all over your keyboard while looking at the pictures
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2009/sep/24/heritage-archaeology?picture=353374324

Nebit

yeah it's kinda hard to fight off the MD deb8 when a find such as this comes along. :mad:
it is a terrific find though!

Fighting Irish

I don't think england are trying to fight off metal detectorists, they are trying to work along side them

Azelfafage

One of the best places to find Anglo-Saxon gold might be deep underneath Viking Dublin.

The Venerable Bede said:

"And All the greatest Saxon princes went to Ireland to be educated.....free of charge."

That was 3 centuries before the Vikings arrived.

The Irish monks told us that too....lots of times.

Dublin was a Saxon town long before it was a Viking town.

The following link is a study in modern Irish ignorance of our own past:

http://www.archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=16


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Riamfada

interesting post as Im about to give a talk on Anglo-Saxon settlement in Ireland in about 3 hours. But can I just say one Gundlingen house does not an Anglo Saxon settlement make. If they were here they were at religious centers.

Doozie

Azelfafage wrote: »

One of the best places to find Anglo-Saxon gold might be deep underneath Viking Dublin.

The Venerable Bede said:

"And All the greatest Saxon princes went to Ireland to be educated.....free of charge."

That was 3 centuries before the Vikings arrived.

The Irish monks told us that too....lots of times.

Dublin was a Saxon town long before it was a Viking town.

The following link is a study in modern Irish ignorance of our own past:

http://www.archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=16


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Hey, any chance you could go into more detail on this? Where/what Irish monks said to point to an Anglo-Saxon presence, and where the actual proof is that this is so? I read the link and it doesn't really confirm anything only suggests what Simpson alluded to from the Copper Alley Excavations. Also, I think it might be an exageration to suggest there may have been an Anglo-Saxon 'town'. I assume you would mean settlement if anything.

Grimes wrote: »

interesting post as Im about to give a talk on Anglo-Saxon settlement in Ireland in about 3 hours. But can I just say one Gundlingen house does not an Anglo Saxon settlement make. If they were here they were at religious centers.

Did it say they were Gundlingen houses? Have you any more info on this too?
Thanks

netwhizkid

Medievalist wrote: »

It was found in Staffordshire by a farmer using a metal detector. Not exactly great news in the fight against metal detectors, but it's definitely one amazing find.

Why the hate against Metal detectors?

Medievalist

Grimes wrote: »

interesting post as Im about to give a talk on Anglo-Saxon settlement in Ireland in about 3 hours. But can I just say one Gundlingen house does not an Anglo Saxon settlement make. If they were here they were at religious centers.

Grimes, was that at Tionol by any chance? There seemed to be an interesting line up. Annoyed I couldn't make it over the weekend. Any chance you could give us a boards exclusive run down on your talk? The Anglo-Saxons seem to be continuously overlooked in favour of the more fashionable Vikings these days

boneless

Azelfafage wrote: »

One of the best places to find Anglo-Saxon gold might be deep underneath Viking Dublin.

The Venerable Bede said:

"And All the greatest Saxon princes went to Ireland to be educated.....free of charge."

That was 3 centuries before the Vikings arrived.

The Irish monks told us that too....lots of times.

Dublin was a Saxon town long before it was a Viking town.

The following link is a study in modern Irish ignorance of our own past:

http://www.archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=16


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.

I remember this well. However, Linzi later told me that the press just jumped on that one point of the excavation; she actually underplayed the "Saxon" part of the house. She just made comparisons to the style of construction to ones in Britain. But as we know, why let the truth get in the way of a good story. She was spot quoted and misquoted.

Nebit

netwhizkid wrote: »

Why the hate against Metal detectors?

This will tell you all you need to know really

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055672868

Azelfafage

Love metal dectors and JCBs.

Otherwise the past is buried forever and ever.

Never to hit the surface.

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Doozie

Azelfafage wrote: »

Love metal dectors and JCBs.

Otherwise the past is buried forever and ever.

Never to hit the surface.

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Hmm...what a weird view of archaeology

Riamfada

Simpson published in a temple bar excavation report of a few sunken floored structures and an gundlingen style house under Viking Dublin along with a possible AS bone comb.Judging by recent material it's not impossible that this is AS added to the recent discovery of a full blown AS settlement (don't ask for details from me but wait for the publication) AS graves are popping up everywhere especially along the east coast most interestingly sites at colp, raheenmadra and westreave all showing AS influnces such as pennanular burial enclosures , knives in burial contexts and people burried in clothing.

boneless

It is really amazing the number of possible Anglo Saxon sites that appear to be turning up in the record. Considering that at an MA seminar last year, I was basically told, after proposing the redefining of the archaeological record with regard to possible biases, that the evidence was slim if not almost non-existent with regard to pennanular Anglo-Saxon burials. I suppose that the 'Mapping Death' project, (O'Brien, Breathneacht, Johnston, Potterton et al), must have assembled all the evidence in order to increase the representation in the record. Fair play to them. They started the ball rolling on this facet of early Medieval burial. This gave lots of people ideas as to further study. I always maintained that some early Christian sites were being wrongly assessed.

Azelfafage

Doozie wrote: »

Hey, any chance you could go into more detail on this? Where/what Irish monks said to point to an Anglo-Saxon presence, and where the actual proof is that this is so?

Just read Faith Wallis's book:

"Bede: The Reckoning of Time".

Mind bogglingly scholarly.

As was Bede himdelf.

Find it here:

http://books.google.ie/books?id=yFsw-Vaup6sC&dq=bede:the+reckoning+of+time+faith+wallis&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=ggyjjezT2R&sig=9yrrzJHfLXpYQSwIjSJOZz2WWIc&hl=en&ei=o6UNS4i2Bdy4jAfXiu3MAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=&f=false


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Riamfada

If anyone is interested try to get your hands on

1996: D.Phil. (University of Oxford). Corpus Christi College
Post Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England: The Burial Evidence Reviewed. E O'Brien. It has a fantastic chapter on Anglo Saxon burial evidence up until the mid 90's. Mapping Death are having a converence this weekend to discuss the new material.

Azelfafage

Ireland's greatest historian was a woman and a nun.
That is probably why she is so neglected.

Her name was Mary Francis Cusack....knicknamed "The Nun of Kenmare"

In 1868 she published "An Illustrated history of Ireland".

Buy it here.

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-History-Ireland-C-F-Cusack/dp/0517629143

This is a verbatim quote from it:

"An Irish poet,who died in 742, is said to have played a clever trick on the "foreigners" of Dublin.

(My one comment: Dublin is not supposed to have existed in 742.)

He composed a poem for them,and then requested payment for his literary labours.The Galls,who were probably Saxons,refused to meet his demands,but Rumrann said he would be content with two pinguins (pennies) from every good man ,and one from every bad one............A considerable number of Saxons were now in the country;and it is said that a British King,named Constantine,who had become a monk,was at that time Abbot of Rahen,in the King's County,and that in Cell-Belaigh there were seven streets of foreigners.
Gallen, in the King's County,was called Galin of the Britons,and Mayo was called Mayo of the Saxons,from the number of monasteries therein,founded by members of these nations."

So much for "Viking Dublin".

Dig down Dubliners........ and you will find Saxons.

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Azelfafage

I linked to somebody called C.F. Cusack with the same named book.

I wonder why a person named Cusack would bring out an identical title.

I don't wonder.

Anyway.

This is a reference to the REAL book:

http://www.flipkart.com/illustrated-history-ireland-ad-400/0559094000-h0w3fg96of

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