Medieval: The Sutton Hoo Gold Buckle

Gold Belt Buckle

In the Sutton Hoo exhibit of Anglo-Saxon artifacts in the British Museum there is an exquisite and awe-inspiring gold belt buckle. It astonishes me the care that went into creating this elaborate and rich piece. The details are remarkable. Standing in front of it, I attempted to figure out the interlacing animals, but found it too difficult and gave up, so I can only imagine how large and long the task would have been to create the interlacing. The creator of the buckle was a master of his craft, and I most certainly hope he gained what he deserved in creating such "a masterpiece of early medieval craftsmanship," as the plaque in the museum calls it.

A large Anglo-Saxon burial site in Suffolk, Sutton Hoo was discovered and excavated in 1939, just before World War Two commenced. The burial mound contained a large burial ship dated back to the early 7th century. Germanic peoples often buried or cremated their dead, particularly nobles such as chiefs, and possessions in ships or boats. I find it interesting the symbol of the ship in this burial image. "The boat may symbolize a journey...sending the deceased to the next realm regardless of whether they are cremated or inhumed, buried on land or sent out to sea," this PhD student's blog article states on the subject of ship-burials. This particular ship-burial, as stated by Wikipedia, "is of a primary importance to early medieval historians because it sheds light on a period of English history that is on the margin between myth, legend, and historical documentation." The burial, containing a treasure trove of Anglo-Saxon weapons and "expensive luxury objects" (www.britishmuseum.org), was obviously the burial site of an important figure, believed to be Raedwald, king of East Anglia. 

Described in this article as ostentatious, the belt buckle itself is enough to say that its owner must have been of high rank with a desire to impress. Belt buckles in Anglo-Saxon England were used to fasten belts and "were a means of expressing a man's wealth and status" (www.britishmuseum.org). As this one is made of gold, weighs over 400 grams, and actually has a small container, complexly opening and closing at the back, where a relic or such might have been stored.

As I stated in my post on the Lewis Chessmen, medieval art, particularly secular Germanic medieval art, had a lot of interlacing and knots, often also depicting animals among or even as the interlacing. Yet another sign of wealth and status, the interlacing on the gold belt buckle exemplifies the typical interlacing used in medieval art. The interlacing even depicts animals, thirteen total, such as serpents weaving around in complex knots and animals devouring other animals. The museum plaque describes the buckle as "a superlative example of this type of animal ornament, which was popular with many Germanic peoples at the time." Yet, despite the seemingly messy knots, it is important to note that the decoration actually is quite ordered and symmetrical, as pointed out in part of this article, comparing this orderliness to the order of Anglo-Saxon poetic form.