By Evelyn Hill

The Staffordshire hoard

The Staffordshire hoard is a collection of many different pieces of gold, jewels and metals from Anglo Saxon times.

The Staffordshire hoard was dug up in a field in Staffordshire.

I saw the hoard in the Museum in Birmingham.

What is the Staffordshire hoard?

These people are people who dig up items from the past.

They clean them then put them on display.

The Archaeologists

Cleaning the itemsWhen they first dig them up they are covered in mud.

They x-ray the mud if they don’t know what’s in there.

They used thorns to pick out the mud. The reason they used thorns is so they didn’t scratch the object. Then they used a paint brush to gently brush off the bits of mud. Finally they put them in plastic bags with raffle tickets so that they don’t get mixed up.

I couldn’t show you all of the items so I chose two of my favourites.

The snakes are made of gold. We are not sure what they were used for but we think they were jewellery.

I like them because I like animals.

The snakes

They didn’t find the blade of the sword but they did find the handle.

The swords were used for fighting, only the king and his soldiers had them.

The Swords