̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Anglo-Saxon

An early medieval money mystery is solved

ta385 — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Byzantine bullion fuelled Europe’s revolutionary adoption of silver coins in the mid-7th century, only to be overtaken by silver from a mine in Charlemagne’s Francia a century later, new tests reveal. ̽��ֱ��findings could transform our understanding of Europe’s economic and political development.

Face of Anglo-Saxon teen VIP revealed with new evidence about her life

ta385 — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 05:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��face of a 16-year-old woman buried near Cambridge in the 7th century with the ‘Trumpington Cross’ has been reconstructed following analysis of her skull. ̽��ֱ��striking image is going on display at MAA, with new scientific evidence showing that she moved to England from Central Europe as a young girl, leading to an intriguing change in her diet.

Anglo-Saxon kings were mostly veggie but peasants treated them to huge BBQs

ta385 — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 13:00:00 +0000

Very few people in England ate large amounts of meat before the Vikings settled, and there is no evidence that elites ate more meat than other people, a major new bioarchaeological study suggests. But its sister study also argues that peasants occasionally hosted lavish meat feasts for their rulers. Their findings overturn major assumptions about early medieval English history.

Trumpington Cross goes on display for the first time

sjr81 — Thu, 01 Feb 2018 11:57:35 +0000

Read more about the unusual burial of one of England's earliest converts to Christianity.

Extremely rare, early Christian gold cross, gifted to Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

̽��ֱ��skeleton of the teenage girl, and the remnants of her burial, as discovered by Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� archaeologists in 2011.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Æthelred the Unready, King of the English: 1,000 years of bad press

amb206 — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 09:30:00 +0000

A silver penny struck more than ten centuries ago (on display in the Fitzwilliam Museum) shows Æthelred, King of the English. ̽��ֱ��obverse shows the king in profile and the reverse a Christian cross. Thousands of similar coins have survived. Many are in collections in Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm. This coinage is material evidence of ‘Dane-geld’, money paid to England’s enemies in attempts to forestall Viking invasions of England.

Inevitably remembered as ‘the Unready’, Æthelred died exactly 1,000 years ago on 23 April 1016 – 50 years before the Norman Conquest. ̽��ֱ��same date in April is recorded as the day of the death of William Shakespeare (in 1616) and also celebrated each year as St George’s Day.

Born around 968, son of King Edgar and Queen Ælfthryth, Æthelred died in London, a place that had recently been established as political and commercial centre of England. He was the first monarch to be buried in the old cathedral of St Paul which much later became one of the most notable casualties of the great fire of London.

Æthelred’s nickname is a pun that may date from as early the 11th century. Æthelred means ‘noble-counsel’ while the noun unræd means ‘an ill-considered or treacherous plan. “ ̽��ֱ��nickname degenerated from ‘Æthelred unræd’ into ‘Æthelred the Unready’, and ‘Æthelred no-counsel’, giving rise to further stories about him,” says Professor Simon Keynes.

Keynes, a historian in the Department of Anglo-Saxon Norse and Celtic, has worked extensively on the Anglo-Saxon period – especially the charters and coinage that offer new windows into a time of turmoil. He was the organiser and keynote speaker at a conference last week.

Æthelred was just a boy aged around 12 years when he became King of the English, and his long rule was marred by repeated incursions from the Danes. Far from keeping English shores safe from attack, the vast amounts of money paid to the Danes (estimated at £250,000 – a huge sum at the time) simply whetted their appetite for English riches. They took the money and continued their raids. In 1016 England became, for some 50 years, part of an empire of the North Sea.

From the 6th century onwards, England had converted to Christianity while the Danes continued to worship Norse deities. Æthelred believed that this placed God on his side – but prayer proved useless. So did reprisals on Danish settlers. Fruitless attempts to bribe or defeat the Vikings sealed Æthelred’s reputation as a disastrous king who deserved to fail. Sellar and Yeatman’s 1930s classic 1066 and All That echoes this sentiment: the “Wave of Danes” who overran the country were “undoubtedly a Good Thing”.

“Throughout history, Æthelred’s payment of Dane-geld has been used as a short hand for drastic mismanagement and poor decision making,” says Keynes. “But there is another, more complex, picture to be painted of Æthelred’s reign, and the ways that he and his councillors tackled the considerable challenges that they faced as they sought to administer a kingdom and protect their respective interests.”

Much of what we know about Æthelred’s reign comes from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle - an account by an anonymous chronicler of each year’s notable events. ̽��ֱ��Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is far from impartial: its verses were composed by court poets, or skalds, who celebrated the deeds of the leaders of the Viking armies. “ ̽��ֱ��story told in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and retold many times thereafter, is very superficial. But there is plenty of other evidence for the period, and the deeper one looks, the more complex and interesting it all becomes,” says Keynes.

Keynes says that no single body of evidence is richer than the 130 charters that survive Æthelred’s reign. More properly called ‘royal diplomas’, these charters are documents that record agreements made at assemblies held four or five times a year. Such meetings, which took place at major festivals, such as Easter and Pentecost, were an opportunity for both ceremony and business. ̽��ֱ��charters, written in Latin, were witnessed by prominent members of the church and key land-owners.

“In comparison to the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, which is a wonderfully vivid narrative in the vernacular, the diplomas are dry and seemingly impenetrable documents – and it’s true that individually they appear to yield little. But considered collectively, they offer an opportunity to reach below the surface of recorded events,” says Keynes.

̽��ֱ��majority of the charters issued during Æthelred’s reign represent grants of land. Others give detailed details of the forfeiture of land into the king’s hands or confirm the entitlement of a religious house to lands and privileges which have been lost.

“Royal diplomas were highly valuable documents in their own right. It was the possession of the charter itself which gave an individual the right to the land described even if the individual in question was not named. Not surprisingly copies and forgeries were made – which, for the historian, makes puzzling them out even harder,” says Keynes.

“ ̽��ֱ��diplomas also have long lists of witnesses which, when tabulated and analysed, enable one to detect interesting changes in the composition of the king’s councillors over the course of Æthelred’s long reign – suggesting perhaps who was gaining in power and who was declining.”

Exeter Cathedral holds one of the most beautiful surviving charters, written in ink on parchment. Æthelred's diploma for Bishop Ealdred of Cornwall (994) confirms Ealdred's status as bishop of Cornwall, at St Germans, and states that he is to have the same rights as the other bishops have in their own dioceses. “This charter was probably the outcome of a determination on the part of Archbishop Sigeric to set things in order,” says Keynes.

“ ̽��ֱ��English were under severe Viking attack, and this was one way of making arrangements more pleasing in the sight of God. ̽��ֱ��diploma was issued at a royal assembly, and was witnessed by a number of bishops, ealdormen, abbots, and thegns - in other words by the great and good of the land.”

Coinage offers another window into Aethelred’s reign and management of money is likely to have been on the agenda at royal assemblies. In a collaboration with the late Mark Blackburn, Keeper of Coins and Medals at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Keynes took a keen interest in the coinage of Æthelred’s reign. “Coinage was struck at as many as 80 minting places across England. It was produced in huge quantities for export as part of the tribute money paid to Viking armies and the army tax paid to a standing mercenary force,” he says.

“Variations in coin designs over time suggest that Æthelred and those working with him developed and maintained a system of staggering complexity. To control the economy, the authorities recalled coins of one type from circulation and exchanged them for coins of a new type. ̽��ֱ��designs tell their own stories. ̽��ֱ��earliest types feature the hand of God issuing from a cloud, perhaps to signify divine approval. Later the emphasis shifted to the king’s portrait and he is shown initially bare-headed and later wearing a helmet.”

̽��ֱ��rarest of the coins struck in Æthelred’s time is a short-lived Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) type. Worldwide, just 24 survive, one of which is in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum and displayed in the Rothschild Gallery. What makes this coin so remarkable is the absence of king’s portrait: the obverse features the Lamb of God and the reverse a dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit. “ ̽��ֱ��design represents a desperate appeal for peace, in perilous times,” says Keynes.

In portraying Æthelred’s reign as a time of turmoil, historians have drawn on a sermon given by one of the king’s most powerful advisors. Archbishop Wulfstan’s message to the English people is full of gloom: “For it is clear and manifest in us all that we have previously transgressed more than we have amended, and therefore much is assailing this people. Things have not gone well now for a long time at home or abroad, but there have been devastation and famine, burning and bloodshed in every district again and again.”

̽��ֱ��forces ranged against Æthelred were impressive and implacable. In 994 a Viking fleet of more than 90 ships came up the Thames to London. In 1009 the Vikings came again. Almost ten centuries later, in the 1920s, a group of battle axes and spearheads, dating from around 1000, was found in the river close to old London Bridge. Vivid reminders of the raiders who sailed up the estuary to strike at the heart of England, they are on display at the Museum of London.

̽��ֱ��eight battle axes, with their fearsome curving edges, also pose a question: how could the king and his councillors overcome a threat of such a kind?

In September 1666 the great fire of London destroyed St Paul’s cathedral, taking Æthelred’s tomb with it. Today Æthelred is remembered in the cathedral coffee shop where a stone commemorates all the tombs known to be lost. “It’s quite touching to see Æthelred’s name close to the place where he was buried in 1016 and where he lay for the next 650 years,” says Keynes. “It’s highly unlikely that he will never shake off the damage done to him by his soubriquet – but it’s well worth continuing to challenge the accepted versions of the history of a fascinating period.”

Coins from Æthelred’s reign are displayed at the Fitzwilliam Museum in the Rothschild Gallery. Æthelred's charter for Bishop Ealdred of Cornwall (994) is available for consultation at Exeter Cathedral on request.

Inset image: Æthelred's diploma for Bishop Ealdred of Cornwall (994) (Exeter Cathedral Archive).

He was just a boy when he became King of the English and his reign was marked by repeated attacks by the Danes. Æthelred, who died 1,000 years ago on 23 April 1016, is remembered as ‘the Unready’. But his nickname masks a more complex picture.

Throughout history, Æthelred’s payment of Dane-geld has been used as a short hand for drastic mismanagement. But there is another, more complex, picture to be painted of Æthelred’s reign.

Simon Keynes

Fitzwilliam Museum Aethelred II, Helmet type, Cambridge, Cnit CM.33-1935

Silver penny from the reign of King Æthelred

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Opinion: From Medieval kings to modern politics: the origins of England’s North-South divide

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 15:11:35 +0000

̽��ֱ��medieval world has a powerful hold over our modern imaginations. We continually revisit this murky period of history in fictional frolics such as Game of Thrones, and stirring series including ̽��ֱ��Last Kingdom. Echoes of the so-called “dark ages” even carry as far as today’s politics – particularly when it comes to discussions about devolution.

Indeed, as Westminster begins to relinquish political powers to England’s newly-formed city regions, some have claimed that these territories should be defined by historical precedent, rather than administrative practicalities.

But how close are we to our medieval roots, and are our connections with the past really strong enough to influence modern-day decisions? To find out, we need to take a closer look at what’s left of the Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Viking kingdoms of yore.

Ancient Elmet

̽��ֱ��Leeds city region. harkeytalk/Wikimedia commons

Perhaps the most obvious links between past and present can be found simply by looking at the names of places on a map. Take, for example, the Leeds city region – one of the first regions to be granted new powers over transport and skills development.

This region encompasses the villages, towns and cities between Harrogate in the north, Barnsley in the south, Bradford in the west and York in the east, with Leeds at its heart. But it’s not the first time Leeds has been the centre of a regional power base; it was also at the core of the early medieval kingdom of Elmet.

A map of the Old North, based on information from Celtic Culture by John Koch Notuncurious/Wikimedia commons, CC BY-SA

This shadowy kingdom was under the control of Celtic rulers, who spoke a language akin to Welsh. It was later conquered by Edwin, an Anglo-Saxon king, in the 7th century and became part of his empire. Today, the kingdom is recalled in place names, and the parliamentary constituency of Elmet and Rothwell.

Yet despite these geographical similarities, this connection is tenuous – the modern Leeds city region also encompasses parts of North Yorkshire that would not have been in Elmet. And it’s unlikely that administrators had the medieval kingdom in mind when they were drawing the boundaries.

Pursuing the past

To find a more convincing connection between modern politics and medieval monarchs, we need to go beyond mere borders and explore cultural, political and genetic links. For instance, the advocates of Yorkshire devolution trace their heritage back to medieval times – and even earlier. There’s certainly some evidence to support their longstanding connection with the region.

̽��ֱ��People of the British Isles project analysed the DNA of more than 2,000 people whose grandparents came from the same rural areas. ̽��ֱ��resulting genetic groups have been compared with 7th-century kingdoms, indicating some local stability in population over many centuries. What’s more, these ancestral links hold cultural and political force: a recent study showed how much “Yorkshireness” is still a key element of the identity of those living in the county.

We can trace Yorkshire’s political identity back to the days of Edwin, a highly successful Anglo-Saxon king. Edwin belonged to the ruling dynasty of the Deirans, whose power base originally lay in eastern Yorkshire. Edwin expanded into the west of the county and overshadowed his northern Northumbrian neighbours, the Bernicians. He also established looser control over other parts of Britain. Not merely a warrior, Edwin was baptised in York and venerated as a saint. After his death, the Deirans lacked a strong champion. They were dominated by their northern neighbours and absorbed into a greater Northumbrian kingdom.

̽��ֱ��original Northern Powerhouse

̽��ֱ��Kingdom of Northumbria. Wikimedia Commons

Bordered to the south by the River Humber, the Kingdom of Northumbria encompassed northern England and some parts of southern Scotland. Dating from the 7th century, it is said to be the first concrete instance of the North-South divide: the early medieval writer Bede described separate spheres of Northumbrian and southern English politics.

This northern Anglo-Saxon kingdom fragmented during the turbulence of the Viking Age. ̽��ֱ��core area was gradually incorporated into England, while the northern districts became part of Scotland. Nevertheless, Northumbrian identity evolved into a northern separatism that recurred in later times. This in turn generated a sense of northern cultural difference that is familiar today; “pies and prejudice”, in Stuart Maconie’s words.

But while large kingdoms were liable to disintegrate in turbulent times, local and regional networks have tended to remain relatively stable. They formed the building blocks of larger political units and some, like Yorkshire, went on to become modern-day counties.

A key question for modern politics is how the new devolution deals will complement these deeply-rooted identities. ̽��ֱ��case of Yorkshire highlights the tension between the new city regions, the old counties and an ancient northern identity. Medieval allegiances could be multi-layered, and encompass local, regional and national loyalties. ̽��ֱ��same balance is at stake in the modern devolution agenda.

Fiona Edmonds, Senior Lecturer in Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

̽��ֱ��opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Fiona Edmonds (Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic) discusses devolution and the medieval kingdoms of England.

Chris Jones

̽��ֱ��Vikings are coming

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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̽��ֱ��archaeology of childhood

sjr81 — Sat, 30 Jan 2016 00:41:49 +0000

Hide and Seek: Looking for Children in the Past opens today and runs until January 29, 2017, at Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, bringing together collections held by the ̽��ֱ�� and Cambridgeshire County Council.

Unprecedented in its scope and ambition, Hide and Seek examines why so little is known about the life of children when children have outnumbered adults for most of human history.

Some of the objects on display will be familiar: Roman and medieval dolls are exhibited next to a children’s sledge and a Roman baby’s feeding bottle. Other exhibits, however, are not immediately recognisable as children’s objects at all: pots with small fingerprints, a tiny handmade axe made 400,000 years ago, gold-work as fine as a human hair; each have stories to tell about the children whose lives were intertwined with the objects now on display in the 21st century.

By looking carefully at all of this evidence, exhibition curator Jody Joy hopes the year-long show will redress our paucity of understanding about the ways in which youngsters interacted with both the adult and childhood worlds around them.

“Hide and Seek looks for glimpses of children’s lives in East Anglia and across England, from a child’s footprint made one million years ago, to toys and artefacts from the 20th century,” said Joy. “Children’s stories so rarely feature in the narratives that museums present. This exhibition aims to redress the balance.

“It is difficult to find children in the past, but not impossible. Throughout the show we present new research and interpretations to help provide a better understanding of children’s lives and to challenge our own assumptions about children and childhood.

“14th century illustrations from an illuminated manuscript show us that children in the 1300s enjoyed sledging and skating just as much as we do now. But we also want to show that evidence for the lives of children can be found beyond the obvious.”

To that end, the exhibition also looks past the artefacts of childhood such as toys, children’s clothes and burials. Local crime records, for example, reveal the sorry tale of 13-year-old Thomas Bradley from Burwell in Cambridgeshire, who in 1843 was sentenced to 15 years’ transportation to Australia for setting fire to stacks of corn and straw.

Likewise, an indenture document for ten-year-old Amey Basin, signed on May 11, 1764, outlines her apprenticeship to Thomas Wayman Sr, a dairyman, until she reached 21 or was married; and explains the responsibilities and expectations of apprentices and their employers in 18th century England.

Other exhibits, such as a pair of 19th century children’s handcuffs and a coroner’s report regarding the death of three-year-old Michael Higgins in 1837, illuminate the innumerable perils facing children throughout history.

“It was dangerous being a child in the past,” added Joy. “From prehistory until the Victorian period, 30-50 per cent of children did not survive to adulthood. Disease, germs and household accidents all took their toll.”

Perhaps some of the most challenging and uncomfortable exhibits in display are the artefacts speaking of the death and burial of children.

In 1990, the grave of a one-year-old Roman child was found in Cambridgeshire. Now on display at the museum, the body had been carefully placed in a lead coffin much too large for the infant inside. A wooden box full of ceramic figures was placed on top of the coffin before burial, although it is unknown whether these were intended as toys or religious items. Sometimes, the evidence on display raises more questions than answers.

Concluding the exhibition, the remains of an Anglo-Saxon girl (hidden behind a partition), challenges visitors to consider the often grey area between childhood and adulthood.

In 2010, the body, believed to be aged between 12-15 years old, was unearthed alongside the finest grave goods from an extraordinary 5th-6th century burial site. It is rare to find child burials from the Anglo-Saxon period despite children outnumbering adults and despite the high infant mortality rate. Archaeologists think children may have been buried in different ways to adults, and the fragile bones of infants do not survive long in the soil.

̽��ֱ��burial site was discovered in Oakington, just north of Cambridge. Excavators were surprised to find an exceptionally high proportion of child burials. Nearly half of the burials discovered belonged to individuals under the age of 12, and 27 per cent of the 128 burials were children under six; many containing small vessels which researchers are now analysing to identify their contents and understand more about the young children who were buried with them.

Added Joy: “ ̽��ֱ��skeleton is of an individual we would regard as a child, but she has been buried as if she were an adult. Ongoing research, new discoveries and excavations help us develop our understanding of children’s lives. Each new discovery can enrich our understanding of what life was like for children in the past.”

Other key exhibits include:

Baby feeding bottles from the Roman and Victorian periods
A bracelet for a Roman child
19th century samplers, stitched by three generations from the same family
Some of the oldest marbles ever found in England

Hide and Seek: Looking for Children in the Past runs from January 30, 2016 to January 29, 2017. ̽��ֱ��exhibition has been funded by a generous grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. It is a joint project between Cambridgeshire County Council and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Entry is free.

A sledge made from a horse’s jaw, the remains of a medieval puppet, the coffin of a one-year-old Roman child, and the skeleton of an Anglo-Saxon girl will all go on display in Cambridge today as part of a unique exhibition illuminating the archaeology of childhood.

It was dangerous being a child in the past. From prehistory until the Victorian period, 30-50 per cent of children did not survive to adulthood. Disease, germs and household accidents all took their toll.

Jody Joy

Chatteris Museum.

Tin toys from the 1930s–1950s.

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Where to find a dragon in Cambridge

jeh98 — Wed, 24 Jun 2015 08:00:00 +0000

Scroll to the end of the article to listen to the podcast.

Earth, water, air and fire. If you were to pick an element that you most associate with dragons, you would probably choose the last – fire. And though the jaws of all the dragons to be found lurking in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) are devoid of flames, they do speak to the immense power of the dragon to ignite cultural imagination in all corners of the globe.

From the Anglo-Saxons of Old England, to the lamas of Tibet and the jungles of Borneo, dragons have been carved, stitched and emblazoned on countless artefacts of human creativity and endeavour.

But on closer inspection, a more appropriate element to associate with these mythical reptiles may indeed be water.

Sporting arguably the finest beard in the MAA, this dragon formed the fearsome figurehead of a canoe. On display in the Maudslay gallery, it was found in the Baram River District of Borneo by alumnus of Christ’s College and influential anthropologist, Dr Alfred Cort Haddon, during his fieldwork expedition to Malaysia and the Torres Strait Islands in 1898.

In the folklore of Borneo, the dragon is a goddess of the underworld. She protects the living, guards over the dead, and is associated with earth, water, thunder and lightning. One particular folktale tells of a dragon that guards a precious jewel on the top of Mount Kinabalu, the highest point of the island.

This fellow, and his mighty fine facial hair, has been temporarily removed for conservation but will be back to take his place in the museum soon.

A few paces across the gallery take you all the way from the coasts of Borneo to the former Kingdom of Derge, high in the Himalayan peaks of Tibet, and takes our watery connection in a slightly different direction. This extremely rare piece of Derge ware is an iron water bottle covered in silver and gold ornamentation and bound with brass. ̽��ֱ��hexagonal spout rises from the mouth of a sea monster at the base, and anyone looking closely at the handle will notice that it is in the form of a dragon.

̽��ֱ��dragon, or zhug, is a deity in Tibetan mythology. Influenced by the dragons of Chinese and Indian culture, Tibetan dragons are believed to have control over the rainfall and represent water. ̽��ֱ��dragon keeping a close eye on this water container was presented to Frederick Williamson, a Cambridge graduate and Political Officer of the British Raj, by the Prime Minister of Tibet in 1933 and deposited in the museum by his wife, Margaret, in 1976.

Stepping further back in time, we find dragons that were traded across the seas by Anglo-Saxons between the 5th and 11th centuries.

̽��ֱ��museum's collection of Anglo-Saxon brooches, some with dragon-like creatures engraved on the front, were among the first in Britain to have testing carried out on their garnets – decorative pieces of red gemstone. ̽��ֱ��results of this testing have provided evidence that the Anglo-Saxons were trading with India.

Serpentine or dragon-like shapes were common in Anglo-Saxon art as they were easy to work into the interlaced designs that were popular during the period. Beyond just being carved on jewellery and armour, the association between dragons and treasure was particularly strong in Anglo-Saxon writing – even entering proverbial sayings such as the maxim “draca sceal on hlæwe, frod, frætwum wlanc” (a dragon must be in a mound, old and proud in his ornaments).

Students in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (ASNAC) come face-to-face with dragons in a number of courses, according to Dr Richard Dance. Probably the most famous of these is the dragon that defeats the eponymous hero of Beowulf in the epic poem’s dramatic finale.

Ða se gæst ongan gledum spiwan,

beorht hofu bærnan; bryne-leoma stod

eldum on andan; no ðær aht cwices

lað lyft-floga læfan wolde.

Wæs þæs wyrmes wig wide gesyne,

nearo-fages nið nean and feorran,

hu se guð-sceaða Geata leode

hatode and hynde: hord eft gesceat,

dryht-sele dyrnne ær dæges hwile.

(Beowulf – XXXIII. Project Gutenberg.)

̽��ֱ��stranger began then to vomit forth fire,

To burn the great manor; the blaze then glimmered

For anguish to earlmen, not anything living

Was the hateful air-goer willing to leave there.

̽��ֱ��war of the worm widely was noticed,

̽��ֱ��feud of the foeman afar and anear,

How the enemy injured the earls of the Geatmen,

Harried with hatred: back he hied to the treasure,

To the well-hidden cavern ere the coming of daylight.

(Beowulf – XXXIII. Project Gutenberg.)

“A major theme in heroic and epic literature is obtaining treasure and giving it out to the people – treasure was particularly important in a pre-monetary economy. Dragons, often depicted jealously guarding their hoard, represent the obverse of generosity, like a bad king figure,” says Dance.

“Beowulf is the longest Anglo-Saxon poem that we know of, and it is complex, carefully wrought and evocative. It’s good poetry as well as being a good poem — a finely crafted piece of treasure in its own right. A lot of words and the way it arranges its ideas are recognisably poetic compared to Old English prose”.

Dance explains that the words “draca” (dragon) and “wyrm” (serpent, reptile) are used fairly interchangeably in the poem to refer to the hero’s final foe.

“When the dragon appears towards the end of the poem we see that, very early on in written culture, the fantasy fiction idea of a dragon that we have today is already formed. Looking at dragons in modern fiction you can see that our ideas of what a dragon is depend quite closely on the ways they are presented in medieval literature like Beowulf, especially via the works of authors like J. R. R. Tolkien, himself an Anglo-Saxon scholar,” says Dance.

Dr Judy Quinn of ASNAC, who researches Old Norse poetry, says that Scandinavian and Icelandic poems demonstrate how productive a symbol the dragon remained for poets in the medieval period.

“Poets were drawn to the legend of dragons such as Fáfnir and Níðhöggr found in the Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda – a 13th century Icelandic anthology of traditional anonymous verse. ̽��ֱ��proverb ‘dragons often rise up on their tails’ is recorded in the 12th century Icelandic poem Málsháttakvæði,” says Quinn. “ ̽��ֱ��dreki or dragon most often encountered in medieval Scandinavian poetry is a ship, named for the dragon shape carved out of the prow of Viking-Age war-ships.”

Whether in it, or on it, or providing a useful container for it, the dragons of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology have a long and storied relationship with water. Which is perhaps unsurprising given how the fire-breathing lizards of our imaginations started life in many cultures and mythologies – as serpents, sea monsters, or river deities.

But to find the most unusual connection between the MAA’s dragons, we need to turn to an even more essential element – tea.

Medieval England, between the 16th and 18th centuries, gives us an exhibit affectionately nicknamed “Dragon in a cup”. One of the highlights of the MAA’s permanent Archaeology of Cambridge display, this piece of stained glass depicts St John the Evangelist. At the end of an outstretched arm, St John holds a poisoned chalice – with a tiny dragon peeping over the rim. It is a fairly common motif for St John to be depicted in this way, bearing an ominous cup of dragon – although the dragon in question looks far too friendly to be poisoning anybody.

For the next stop on our tea cup quest, we’re off to Borneo by canoe again to find another intricately carved prow, known to the museum staff as George.

Part-crocodile, part-dragon, George is afflicted by a condition that most tea-lovers will be able to sympathise with – he sees tea cups wherever he goes.

And finally, once more to Tibet and this tea cup decorated with a long, green dragon. Donated to the museum by the Williamsons, this cup is part of a large collection of Tibetan artefacts, including a teaspoon and a folding tea table both decorated with images of dragons.

All that remains is for someone to discover a dragon using a tea cup and the MAA’s collection will truly be complete.

You can meet all of these dragons, and many more of their friends prowling the treasures at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology – from Javanese Batik cloth, to Japanese netsuke.

During the summer, children can embark on their own animal adventure and try their hand at finding all of the exhibits in the museum’s Animal Safari Trail.

Admission to the museum is free and it is open every day except Mondays.

Next in the Cambridge Animal Alphabet: E is for an animal that takes pride of place among the medieval manuscripts in the Parker Library, and is the subject of vital conservation research in Thailand's 'Golden Triangle'.

Inset images: Figurehead of a canoe, accession number Z 2403 ( ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge); Derge iron water bottle, accession number D 1976.115 ( ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge); Viking ships (Jos van Wunnik); Circular panel of glass, showing a saint with a dragon in a chalice, accession number Z 16318 ( ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge); Head for front of canoe, accession number Z 2698 ( ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge); China tea cup ( ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge).

The Cambridge Animal Alphabet series celebrates Cambridge's connections with animals through literature, art, science and society. Here, D is for Dragon. Watch out for fire-breathers among the treasures of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, in Anglo-Saxon proverbs, and in fantasy literature from medieval Scandinavia to the present day.

When the dragon appears in Beowulf we see that, very early on in written culture, the fantasy fiction idea of a dragon that we have today is already formed

Richard Dance

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Derge iron water bottle. Accession number: D 1976.115.

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