The warlord, the prince, and the village people: Examining three early Anglo-Saxon burial sites from Buckinghamshire

This article is from Current Archaeology issue 435

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You can’t take it with you’ is a phrase that early Anglo-Saxons would have surely regarded with some bemusement. Their graves were often equipped with practical and personal items to accompany the deceased into their next life. At their simplest, these carefully curated collections might comprise a single pot, a knife, a brooch or two, a handful of beads – but, at the other end of the scale, ‘princely’ displays like those from Sutton Hoo, Taplow, and Prittlewell (see CA 190 and 352) represent potent statements of identity, influence, and access to exotic materials from a time of great population movement and cultural change. Grave goods also give us vital clues about the people who lived in the centuries immediately after the collapse of Roman administration in Britain. Finely worked artefacts defy ‘Dark Age’ stereotypes of this period, speaking of skill, sophistication, and far-reaching trade links that had not been severed by the end of imperial rule. Without written sources to preserve the voices of those who inhabited this transitional time, the objects that they were buried with hint at the experiences and interests of long-vanished communities: how they lived, how they expressed their identities, what they believed, and what was important to them.

Some of these illuminating insights form the focus of a new exhibition running at Discover Bucks Museum in Aylesbury. The SAXONS draws together evidence from three Buckinghamshire burial sites, all dating to the 6th and early 7th centuries, to explore what antiquarian finds and recent discoveries can tell us about different groups within early medieval society.

The Marlow ‘warlord’

The first individual encountered by visitors to the exhibition had been laid to rest in a solitary grave on a hilltop overlooking the River Thames near Marlow. His burial was first discovered by Sue Washington, a member of the Maidenhead Search Society metal-detecting club, in 2018 (CA 369). Crucially, after uncovering two bronze bowls and realising the significance of her find, Sue immediately stopped digging and contacted the Portable Antiquities Scheme. This decision preserved a wealth of contextual information within the grave, which could then be investigated through a targeted excavation by the Local Finds Liaison Officer Arwen Wood, followed by a fuller phase of fieldwork (including geophysical surveys of the surrounding area) in 2020, led by Dr Gabor Thomas of the University of Reading. In the years that followed, a successful crowdfunding campaign supported expert conservation of the grave goods by Drakon Heritage, and scientific analysis of the objects and the remains of the man that they had accompanied by the University of Reading. The results of this research are presented in The SAXONS, alongside the artefacts themselves, which have been donated to Discover Bucks by the landowner.

The isolated grave’s occupant was a man of around 40 years old; he was robustly built and tall even by modern standards at 6ft 4in (1.93m). This imposing figure had been provided with useful tools including a small iron knife and a firesteel (used with flints to make sparks), as well as copper-alloy tweezers and iron shears associated with personal grooming. There were also signs of his social status in the form of the bronze bowls that had first betrayed his presence – a smaller vessel, perhaps used for washing, and a larger, cauldron-like container, both of which were possibly made in what today is France or Germany – along with an elegant glass cone beaker.

Perhaps the most telling clue, however, was the weaponry that had accompanied the Marlow man to the grave. Spears are not uncommon finds in male burials of this period, and the Marlow burial produced two: one with a small head that suggests it was designed for throwing, and a larger one that had a butt spike so that it could be set firmly in the ground to face a charging foe. Much more unusual, however, was the exceptionally well-preserved sword. Swords were expensive, requiring much more work to create than spearheads, and the presence of such a weapon in the Marlow man’s grave suggests that he was an important individual. X-ray imaging of its 85cm-long (33.5in) blade has revealed its complex pattern-welded construction, while researchers have identified traces of horn surviving on the sword’s grip, as well as evidence of a leather-and-wood scabbard.