Anglo-Saxon culture and the Silk Road

I have quite often written about evidence for the interrelated patterns of trade and cultural contact that bound Anglo-Saxon England not only to Europe but the Near East and indeed to territories beyond. 

This is brought out splendidly in a beautifully illustrated and informative article from Current Archaeology and available on The Past website. It is based around the current British Museum exhibition Silk Road which has  drawn together a spectacular array of exhibits from across the British Isles and across the world. The article also draws on the most recent research and paint an impressive picture of remarkable cultural interaction in the period. The idea of Anglo-Saxon mercenaries returning to England with the latest fashion ideas for military man from Byzantium Is both visually and also mentally stimulating. The striking thought that the cloisonné work with garnets that we associate with Sutton Hoo is part of a shared tradition that extended as far east as Korea is fascinating, but also perfectly credible once the evidence is presented. 

The article can been at From Samarkand to Sutton Hoo: Exploring the impact of the Silk Roads on early medieval Britain and Ireland  

Living the life of an Anglo-Saxon

By chance yesterday I came across a series of videos recreating life as led on the western borders of Wessex in the later seventh century. More specifically they are envisaged as being set in the year 662. They are very impressive and informative, and the work of Alec Newland who appears in them.

The political background and frontier issues between Wessex and the Romano-British are set out in The Anglo-Saxon Invasion of Romano-British Devon 661 A.D. | Fyrd Recruitment and Skirmish Warfare . Beyond that scene-setting the videos include such things as building a house, which is spread over six installments, the all important craft of smithing, harvesting timber and other woodland resources by coppicing, making a bed, cultivating a vegetable garden, and making a straw bee-hive. They can all be found at Gesiþas Gewissa | Anglo-Saxon Heritage

I would highly recommend them as revealing much about Anglo-Saxon daily life and as being useful teaching aids. They would mutually enhance a visit to the reconstruction of the near contemporary village at West Stow in Suffolk.

When I found them I was in fact about doing an online article about a number of videos that record daily life on small holdings in the Carpathians today. Whilst the families there have a lot of ‘mod cons’ they also live a very traditional routine of husbandry, and watching them reminds me of scenes in medieval manuscripts. Scything and raking to make hay and wielding a hoe to set, cultivate and harvest root crops, utilising the woodland, assisting in timber building work, do not change over the centuries, even if other things do. The result is fascinating to watch. I will write further about this similarity and continuity of life experience in another post but would recommend especially Life in the Mountains of Young Boy I commented on the Gesiþas Gewissa website about these similarities and recommended that as a contemporary companion piece.