# data[].attributes.body
THE ROYAL MONEY BELT

As well as the splendid sword belt the king had a larger belt, one which he was probably wearing as he lay in his funerary ship.This belt was secured by a great gold buckle which is unmatched anywhere.

Materials and design: The buckle is over five inches long and weighs nearly a pound (14.75 oz.).  It is made of gold, silver and has been cast and then worked up with a chisel, file, and punch-hammer, to form the elaborate animal interlace design. The belt itself was made of leather.

Function:   Inside the royal purse was a collection of  37 gold coins, each one from different mints the kingdom of the Franks (what is now France and the Rhineland).  Whoever put this collection together added 3 gold blanks, bringing the number up to 40, as well as two gold ingots. This is a very odd collection of coins indeed and it is not at all clear why the number should have been deliberately rounded up to 40. It has been suggested that the ship had 40 oarsmen and two 2 helmsmen.  If so, the coin collection might have something to do with the maritime folk belief evident in later Old Icelandic saga sources that it was the custom for the captain of a vessel to carry a piece of gold for every member of his crew as kind of insurance against the displeasure of the deities of the sea.

http://www.wuffings.co.uk/MySHPages/SHTreasure/SHMoneyBelt.htm

# data[].attributes.body
THE SWORD BELT

Picture description:

Materials: Gems, gold, silver

Design: It is the technical innovation of the 'beaded' gold cell - a thickening of the cell-wall between the gems on the inside of the curves - which enables the success of this ambitious design, by enhancing its fluidity and freeing the designer-craftsmen from the sharper angles inherent in cell-walls of uniform thickness.

Ornaments: Gems, 2 pairs of mounts, buckle, T-shaped mount.

Functions: decorative.

# data[].attributes.body
THE ROYAL HELM

Picture Description:

In the picture there is a Helmet. All that was left after thirteen centuries were rusted fragments, but now it has been restored and it is in quite good conditions.

Materials:

The helmet is made of iron and bronze.

Design: The helm is made from a crested iron cap with full face mask, cheek guards and a neck guard behind. Either end of the eyebrow-pieces of the helm's face are the protective boar's heads
Ornaments: Although a fully functional fighting helm, it is adorned all over with gilt and tinned bronze plates embossed with various designs. It also also decorated with garnet inlays under the eyebrow pieces and is obviously of great ceremonial importance.

Function: The Sutton Hoo helm can be aptly described as a beadugrima 'battle mask'. It seems likely that at this stage in the development of English kingship, before crowns became the essential royal headgear, this type of highly adorned, full-faced helmet, or  beadugrima 'battle mask', signaled that its wearer was the king.

# data[].attributes.body
THE ROYAL SHIELD

The royal shield is a round golden plate with studs that decorate it. It needed to protect our great lord.

In the picture there is a lord and a shield.

Materials:

# data[].attributes.body
THE ROYAL SWORD HILT

Picture description: It is the pommel of the Sword.

Materials: it is in part gold pure and organic material (probably wood or horn)

Design: It is of the early 'cocked hat' type and its closest parallels have been found in what is now Sweden. There is blue and black chequered pattern of millefiori glass inlays (made by rods of different coloured glass laid in together and then sliced to form gems)

Ornaments:  On either side of the top of the scabbard was found a perfect pair of mounts shaped like flat topped pyramids.

Function: Both decorative and functional.

# data[].attributes.body
THE ROYAL SWORD BLADE

When it emerged in 1939 after some 1300 years underground, the sword was rusted and also broken by the fall of the burial chamber roof,  but its gold- and gem-adorned hilt fittings and belt mounts sparkled intact.

Materials: The blade is just under three feet long, and is still sheathed in its wool-lined scabbard of wood, leather and textile. The scabbard has been preserved by the oxides of the rusting blade to which it is now fused into one solid oxidized mass. The blade was forged from eight bundles of seven fine iron rods, either twist-forged with alternating twists or left untwisted, all hammered together back to back on an anvil to form the superb blade

Design: The blade is visible under X-ray, which reveal it to have been of a very high quality pattern-welded type.

Function: Its quality and the materials it's made of mean that it was a true weapon, a war-blade, and not just for ceremonial purposes.

# data[].attributes.body
THE ROYAL BURIAL-CHAMBER.

Picture description:

Materials:

Design:

Ornaments:

Function:

# data[].attributes.body
THE GHOST SHIP OF THE WUFFINGS

The function oh thew original ship was to bury people, it was a funeral-vessel. The rite of ship- or boat-burial is very much a Northern, especially Anglo-Scandinavian phenomenon.

It was made of wood and its estimated original dimensions are that it was at least 89 feet long and up to14 feet in the beam, with a prow perhaps 12.5 feet above the keel amidships.

The Sutton Hoo ship appears to also to have been sail-powered.