Iron Man Helmet Draw

[Hayley Sweigard]

Thehelmet and the other artefacts from the site were determined to be the property of Edith Pretty, owner of the land on which they were found. She donated them to the British Museum, where the helmet is on permanent display in Room 41.[4][5]

The helmet was buried among other regalia and instruments of power as part of a furnished ship-burial, probably dating from the early seventh century. The ship had been hauled from the nearby river up the hill and lowered into a prepared trench. Inside this, the helmet was wrapped in cloths and placed to the left of the head of the body.[7][8] An oval mound was constructed around the ship.[9] Long afterwards, the chamber roof collapsed violently under the weight of the mound, compressing the ship's contents into a seam of earth.[10]

It is thought that the helmet was shattered either by the collapse of the burial chamber or by the force of another object falling on it. The fact that the helmet had shattered meant that it was possible to reconstruct it. Had the helmet been crushed before the iron had fully oxidised, leaving it still pliant, the helmet would have been squashed,[11][12][13] leaving it in a distorted shape similar to the Vendel[14] and Valsgrde[15] helmets.[16]

What scant information is known about King Rdwald of East Anglia, according to the Anglo-Saxon historian Simon Keynes, could fit "on the back of the proverbial postage stamp".[21] Almost all that is recorded comes from the eighth-century Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum by the Benedictine monk Bede,[26] leaving knowledge of Rdwald's life, already poorly recorded, at the mercy of such things as differing interpretations of Ecclesiastical Latin syntax.[27] Bede writes that Rdwald was the son of Tytila and grandson of Wuffa, from whom the East Anglian Wuffingas dynasty derived its name.[21] In their respective works Flores Historiarum and Chronica Majora, the thirteenth-century historians Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris appear to place Tytila's death, and Rdwald's presumed concurrent succession to the throne, in 599.[note 1] Yet as reasonable as this date sounds, these historians' demonstrated difficulty with even ninth-century dates leaves ample room for doubt.[28][29]

In any event, Rdwald would have ascended to power by at least 616, around when Bede records him as raising an army on behalf of Edwin of Northumbria and defeating thelfrith in a battle on the east bank of the River Idle.[30] According to Bede, Rdwald had almost accepted a bribe from thelfrith to turn Edwin over, before Rdwald's wife persuaded him to value friendship and honour over treasure.[30][31] After the ensuing battle, during which Bede says Rdwald's son Rgenhere was slain,[31] Rdwald's power was probably significant enough to merit his inclusion in a list of seven kings said by Bede to have established rule over all of England south of the River Humber, termed an imperium;[note 2] the ninth-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle expanded Bede's list to eight and applied the term bretwalda or brytenwalda,[42] literally "ruler of Britain" or "ruler of the Britains".[43][44][note 3]

Bede records Rdwald converting to Christianity while on a trip to Kent, only to be dissuaded by his wife upon his return; afterwards he kept a temple with two altars, one pagan and one Christian.[21][31][47] In the likely event that this was during thelberht's rule of Kent, it would have been sometime before thelberht's death around 618.[31][47] Rdwald's own death can be conservatively dated between 616 and 633 if using Bede,[30] whose own dates are not unquestioned.[48] Anything more specific relies on questionable post-Conquest sources.[30] Roger of Wendover claims without attribution that Rdwald died in 624.[30] The twelfth-century Liber Eliensis places the death of Rdwald's son Eorpwald, who had by then succeeded his father, in 627, meaning Rdwald would have died before then.[30] If relying solely on Bede, all that can be said is that Rdwald died sometime between his circa 616 defeat of thelfrith along the River Idle, and 633, when Edwin, who after Rdwald died converted Eorpwald to Christianity, died.[30]

The proposed range of years, and accordingly the regal attributions, was modified by later studies that took the specific gravity of some 700 Merovingian gold coins,[74] which with some predictability were minted with decreasing purity over time, to estimate the date of a coin based on the fineness of its gold.[75] This analysis suggests that the latest coins in the purse were minted between 613 and 635 AD, and most likely closer to the beginning of this range than the end.[76][77][78] The range is a tentative terminus post quem for the burial, before which it may not have taken place; sometime later, perhaps after a period of years, the coins were collected and buried.[79] These dates are generally consistent, but not exclusive, with Rdwald.[80]

The presence of items identified as regalia has been used to support the idea that the burial commemorates a king.[81] Some jewellery likely had significance beyond its richness.[82] The shoulder-clasps suggest a ceremonial outfit.[83][84] The weight of the great gold buckle is comparable to the price paid in recompense for the death of a nobleman; its wearer thus wore the price of a nobleman's life on his belt, a display of impunity that could be associated with few others besides a king.[82][85] The helmet displays both wealth and power, with a modification to the sinister eyebrow subtly linking the wearer to the one-eyed Germanic god Odin.[86]

Two other items, a "wand" and a whetstone, exhibit no practical purpose, but may have been perceived as instruments of power.[87] The so-called wand or rod, surviving only as a 96 mm (3.8 in) gold and garnet strip with a ring at the top, associated mountings, and traces of organic matter that may have been wood, ivory, or bone, has no discernible use but as a symbol of office.[88] On the other hand, the whetstone is theoretically functional as a sharpening stone, but exhibits no evidence of such use.[89] Its delicate ornamentation, including a carved head with a modified eye that parallels the possible allusion to Odin on the helmet,[90] suggests that it too was a ceremonial object, and it has been tentatively identified as a sceptre.[91][note 5]

Rdwald may be the easiest name to attach to the Sutton Hoo ship-burial, but for all the attempts to do so, these arguments have been made with more vigour than persuasiveness.[26] The desire to link a burial with a known name, and a famous one, outstrips the evidence.[107][2] The burial is certainly a commemorative display of both wealth and power, but does not necessarily memorialise Rdwald, or a king;[108][109][110] theoretically, the ship-burial could have even been a votive offering.[111] The case for Rdwald depends heavily on the dating of the coins, yet the current dating is only precise within two decades,[80] and Merovingian coin chronologies have shifted before.[111]

The case for Rdwald depends on the assumption that modern conceptions of Middle Age wealth and power are accurate. The wealth of the Sutton Hoo ship-burial is astonishing because there are no contemporaneous parallels,[112][113] but the lack of parallels could be a quirk of survival just as much as it could be an indicator of Rdwald's wealth. Many other Anglo-Saxon barrows have been ploughed over or looted,[114] and so just as little is known about contemporary kingliness, little is known about contemporary kingly graves;[115][116][117] if there was any special significance to the items termed regalia, it could have been religious instead of kingly significance, and if anything of kingly graves is known, it is that the graves of even the mere wealthy contained riches that any king would be happy to own.[118][119][120] Distinguishing between graves of chieftains, regents, kings, and status-seeking arrivistes is difficult.[121] When Mul of Kent, the brother of King Cdwalla of Wessex, was killed in 687, the price paid in recompense was equivalent to a king's weregild.[122] If the lives of a king and his brother were equal, their graves might be equally hard to tell apart.[123][124]

Rdwald thus remains a possible but uncertain identification.[107][125] As the British Museum's former director Sir David M. Wilson wrote, while Rdwald may have been buried at Sutton Hoo, "the little word may should be brought into any identification of Rdwald. After all it may or even might be Sigeberht who died in the early 630s, or it might be his illegitimate brother if he had one (and most people did), or any other great man of East Anglia from 610 to 650."[48]

Weighing an estimated 2.5 kg (5.5 lb), the Sutton Hoo helmet was made of iron and covered with decorated sheets of tinned bronze.[126][127] Fluted strips of moulding divided the exterior into panels, each of which was stamped with one of five designs.[128][129] Two depict figural scenes, another two zoophormic interlaced patterns; a fifth pattern, known only from seven small fragments and incapable of restoration, is known to occur only once on an otherwise symmetrical helmet and may have been used to replace a damaged panel.[130][131]

The existence of these five designs has been generally understood since the first reconstruction, published in 1947.[132][note 8] The succeeding three decades gave rise to an increased understanding of the designs and their parallels in contemporary imagery, allowing possible reconstructions of the full panels to be advanced, and through the second reconstruction their locations on the surface of the helmet to be redetermined.[131][139][140][141] As referred to below, the designs are numbered according to Rupert Bruce-Mitford's 1978 work.[131]

The core of the helmet was made of iron and consisted of a cap from which hung a face mask and cheek and neck guards.[126][142] The cap was beaten into shape from a single piece of metal.[143][note 9] On either side of it were hung iron cheek guards, deep enough to protect the entire side of the face, and curved inward both vertically and horizontally.[146] Two hinges per side, possibly made of leather, supported these pieces,[147] allowing them to be pulled flush with the face mask and fully enclose the face.[148]

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