The Mythbusting Sword from the Bedale Hoard
February 15, 2018
By Dr Sue Brunning Written sources from Viking period Britain create the impression that gold-hilted swords were typical weapons for high status warriors. Alfred the Great (871–99) described royal retainers wielding them; his father Æthelwulf (839–58) gifted one to the Holy See in Rome; and his grandson Eadred (946–59) bequeathed another. In the poem about …
Viking Age stone sculpture in the East Midlands
February 2, 2018
By Paul Everson How do you make new discoveries of archaeological material dating from the Anglo-Scandinavian era in the East Midlands: the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries? And how do you contribute to scholarly and popular understanding of the Viking Age in England? For myself and my friend and long-term academic collaborator, David Stocker, the …
Repton in the Viking Age
June 16, 2017
One of the aims of our project is to find out more about what happened in the East Midlands in the Viking Age. A key site near to our Nottingham base is Repton, in Derbyshire. This was an important centre of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, and the burial site of several of its kings. It was …