[Justin H. Núñez]

In the garnet decorated pieces, Does anyone know if the gold divisions are overlaid, or are they cells, and the garnets cut to the shape of the cells?
If the garnets were cut, how on earth did they cut them to such shapes?

I think that if you look at Patrick Barta's web page at TEMPL.com and his tutorial of his reacreation of the Sutton Hoo sword that should answer your questions. I cannot think that it would be done any different then as in now, by a true artisan at least and Barta is the best.

To me, the guard in the above photo looks like it has become bent, but I'm no expert!!![/quote]

I too feel like the guard has bent. Whether through the years on accident or on purpose by some other ancient who wanted a bent gaurd...? Look at the slight bulges on the sides, that is exactly how metal looks when it has bent.

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

[Stephen Curtin]

This is an incredible find,man I wish I was one of the lucky so and sos who get to work with these beautiful artifacts.

[Bruce Tordoff]

Hi guys, just to pick up on the comments about the 'so called' Seax hilt plate as pictured earlier, having had the priveledge of visiting the musuem in Birmingham with fellow forumite Paul Mortimer last week, we looked very closely at this very object. It does appear to be too small, judging by the blade profile shaped slot, to be for a single edged sword. It (the slot), is only marginaly wider than the blade of a Katana or Sabre. It seems more likely it is for a Lang Seax of some discription.
If, like other examples from swords of the period, the upper sandwich plate is thin in contrast with this lower one, it will be interesting to see if the corresponding component is with this hoard, as there are many of these in the collection.
It is also noteworthy that several of the filigree pommels appear to be way smaller than those from other sword examples of the period and again may be from Seaxes. My personal favourites are the two cloisonne hilt collars that are VERY similar in style to the zoomorphic interlace work on the Sutton Hoo shoulder clasps. I fully intend to make a speculative replica of these on my new Thorkil seax blade. For the scabbard I will use a piece from the find that looks reminiscent of the garnet seax scabbard fittings from the Childeric finds.
Attached is a pic of my artists representation.
Cheers,
Bruce

[K J Seago]

by the looks of your sketch, its a posher seax than any i've ever seen, and only seemingly fit for a high king- do you have good enough kit to go with such a royal Seax???

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

[Bruce Tordoff]

Jeroen, My apologies for my inappropriate description, By lang seax, I meant the Scandinavian type as found in the Vendel, Valsgarde graves and the many Gotlandic examples, so, in your appraisal i feel we are in agreement. I didn't mean the very long Sword like seaxes. Again, my bad.
For my recreation i was planning on doing a Vendelesque scabbard as well.
Long, Broad, Narrow, its all a question of relativity I guess.
Bruce.

[Justin H. Núñez]

This period is not area of expertise (if I have an area of expertise) but two things are coming to my mind is pondering this hoard.

First, could it be that we are seeing more examples of a style with a much broader range than previous thought? Didn't everybody think that with the Sutton Hoo Hoard we had found one of a kind of pieces but now we are seeing pieces from a different find that are almost exactly the same. Again this is not my usual area so please forgive my ignorance of other pieces of if i am stating an already determined premise.

Second, it seems like, as with almost all finds old or new, that we are in a hurry to proclaim that such and such a piece cannot be x because only type piece y existed; or that it could not have come from location w because only location q produced that type. Could it not be that we are seeing the opposite? My archaeology professor used to say an archaeologist will almost always say "We think that..." because of the problem of sample size and that until we gather ALL of the artifact then we can say that x is definitely not y, but until then we should keep our minds completely open to anything new. Maybe they did produce x and x1 at location w and we are simply seeing it for the first time. Besides, isn't the hardest thing to prove is a negative?

Again, pardon my ignorance about this period and especially do not mean to step on anybody's toes. I marvel at what has been found and like all of us, wish I was rich enough to commission one of everything from Patrick Barta, or imagine what would happen if you gave Jake Powning a few years with those pieces too...!

Happy swording!