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The Sutton Hoo whetstone sceptre: a study in iconography and cultural milieu

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Michael J. Enright
Michael J. Enright
Affiliation:
Wayne State University
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Extract

The discovery of the early-seventh-century Sutton Hoo ship burial in 1939 and the examination and analysis of the ship's contents in the years following have provided archaeologists and historians with a number of fascinating artifacts which remain the subject of great interest and debate. One of these objects in particular has aroused both admiration and puzzlement, namely the whetstone sceptre. In form the sceptre is an ornate, four-sided, stone bar 22.8 ins. long. Though made from the material commonly used to sharpen knives and swords there is no sign that it was ever used for that purpose, the very gentle smoothing of its sharp edges being such as would result from normal handling. And, again, symbolically important as it would have been in its character as a whetstone, it is too elaborate and too cumbersome ever to have been used as one. The stone bar is 2 ins. wide in the middle, narrows slightly towards the ends and terminates in two roughly spherical knobs. Each of these knobs has a stubby conical projection, and the lower and longer knob is tipped with a small bronze saucer secured to it by a cage of thin bronze ribs and several strands of wire. This is the bottom of the sceptre and it is possible to visualize the saucer resting on the thigh or kneecap of a seated king.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 11 , December 1982 , pp. 119 - 134
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

1 The basic works which I have used are Bruce-Mitford, Rupert et al. , The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial (London, 1975) 1, 444 and 695–717Google Scholar, and Bruce-Mitford, Rupert, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology: Sutton Hoo and Other Discoveries (London, 1974), pp. 1–72Google Scholar, and The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial: a Handbook, 2nd ed. (London, 1972), pp. 22–3Google Scholar. My description is based on the plates and references in these sources.

My study was completed shortly before Bruce-Mitford, Rupert et al. , The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial 11 (London, 1978)Google Scholar became available to me. After reading the excellent section on the sceptre I have decided that there is no substantial reason to change anything that I have written. Much that appears in this sumptuous volume seems to confirm my own views. The non-Germanic context of the sceptre is more fully appreciated and attribution of the stag to a Celtic workshop of the north or west is important new evidence which supports the thesis presented above. Likewise Bruce-Mitford, Rupert, The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial: a Handbook, 3rd ed. (London, 1979)Google Scholar, was not yet available to me.

2 Hauck, Karl, ‘Halsring und Ahnenstab als herrschaftliche Würdezeichen’, Herrschaftsftzeichen und Statssymbolik, ed. Schramm, Percy Ernst (Stuttgart, 1954) 1, 145–213, esp. 198–213Google Scholar; Wilhelm Berges and Adolf Gauert, ‘Das “Szepter” von Sutton Hoo’, Ibid. pp. 260–81; Hauck, Karl, ‘Herrschaftszeichen eines wodentischen Konigtums’, Jahrbuch für frankische Landesjorschung 14 (1954), 9–66Google Scholar; Cohen, Sidney L., Viking Fortresses of the Trelleborg Type (Copenhagen, 1965), pp. 63–7Google Scholar, and ‘The Sutton Hoo Whetstone’, Speculum 41 (1966), 466–70Google Scholar; and Simpson, Jacqueline, ‘The King's Whetstone’, Antiquity 53 (1979), 96–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Berges, and Gauert, , “‘Szepter’“, p. 277Google Scholar, cited Bruce-Mitford, Handbook, p. 23.

3 Berges and Gauert, ‘“Szepter’”, p. 277, cited Bruce-Mitford, , Handbook, p. 23.Google Scholar

4 This is especially the case with Cohen's two studies in which he attempts to link the sceptre with Thor, four-headed deities and four-sided temples. Given the nature of the evidence he presents, Cohen's constant and emphatic references to his view as being a ‘positive identification’ and a ‘final identification’ are quite out of place (Viking Fortresses, pp. 64–5, and ‘The Sutton Hoo Whetstone’, p. 467), Simpson, on the other hand, bases her interpretation solidly on the later literary sources, but these are simply insufficient for the purpose: she cites only one case in which a king is mentioned as having a whetstone – which he throws at a bird; the significance of this for kingship as such is highly debatable.

5 As Hauck notes, while commenting on the new relationship between stag, ring and whetstone, ‘der Stein-Stab istzwar dadurch noch einzigartiger, aber zugleich noch schwerer verstandlich geworden’ (‘Zum ersten Band der Sutton Hoo Edition’, FS 12 (1978), 447).Google Scholar

6 See Antj (1941), 73; AntJ 7 (1927), 323–4Google Scholar; Proc. of the Soc. of Antiquaries of Scotland 58 (1923–1924), 17Google Scholar; Thomas, Charles, ‘The Interpretation of the Pictish Symbols’, ArchJ 120 (1963), 48 and pl. 11Google Scholar; and Petch, D. F., ‘Archaeological Notes for 1956, no. 25’, Lincolnshire Architectural and Archaeol. Soc. Reports and Papers 7 (1957), 17–19Google Scholar. The only, brief, discussion of the Lochar Moss stone which I know of is in Ross, Anne, Pagan Celtic Britain (London, 1967), p. 369 and pl. 87aGoogle Scholar. Ross notes that the features of this head ‘closely resemble those of the so-called Maponus head, even to the peculiar twist in the long narrow nose’. If correct, this would be important evidence. For further remarks on the smaller hones, see Bruce-Mitford, , Aspects, pp. 7 and 45 and nn. 225–7Google Scholar. For good illustrations of the Llandudno and Lough Curran stones, see Ibid. pls. 7c and d.

7 Bruce-Mitford, , Handbook, p. 23.Google Scholar

8 See Bruce-Mitford, , Aspects, p. 7Google Scholar. For illustrations of typical finds, see Lindqvist, Sune, Uppsala Högar och Ottarshögen(Uppsala, 1936), figs. 96, 97 and 105Google Scholar; Stolpeand, H.Arne, T. J., La Nécropole de Vendel (Stockholm, 1927), pis. VII, XI and XVGoogle Scholar. For Irish examples, see Macalister, R. A. S., ‘The Excavation of Lochpairc Crannog’, Proc. of the R. Irish Acad., Sect. C 32 (1915), 150 and figs. 1, 2 and 3Google Scholar. One hone from this site was 17¾ ins. long and appears to have had an ‘attachment of iron’ at one end. Exactly what this was is unknown.

9 Evison, Vera J., ‘Pagan Saxon Whetstones’, AntJ 55 (1975), 70–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Bruce-Mitford, , Aspects, p. 47Google Scholar, and Handbook, pp. 74–5 and 86: ‘The jewelry already shows, in the first half of the seventh century, a Hiberno-Saxon, or more properly a Celto-Saxon. aspect.’

11 Evison, ‘Saxon Whetstones’, pp. 78–9; Eagles, B. N. and Evison, Vera J., ‘Excavations at Harrold, Bedfordshire, 1951–1953’, Bedfordshire Archaeol.Jni 5 (1970), 42–4Google Scholar; and Ellis, S. E., ‘The Petrography and Provenance of Anglo-Saxon and Medieval English Honestones With Notes on Some Other Hones’, Bull, of the Brit. Museum (Nat. Hist.), Mineralogy 2 (1969), 158–62.Google Scholar

12 Ibid.

13 Jacobsthal, Paul, Early Celtic Art (Oxford, 1944) 1, 8–9 and 165–6, and II, pl. 12Google Scholar. This monument has often been discussed. See also Powell, T. G. E., The Celts (London, 1958), pp. 133–6 and 269Google Scholar and, for a good illustration, pl. 60. (The new ed. of this work (1980) was not available at the time of writing.)

14 Jacobsthal, , Art, p. 166Google Scholar, and Powell, , The Celts, p. 269Google Scholar. The pillar also seems to be related artistically to the Kermaria stone in Brittany and to the Turoe stone in Ireland; see Powell, T. G. E., Prehistoric Art (New York, 1966), 206–11Google Scholar; Duignan, Michael, ‘The Turoe Stone: its Place in Insular La Tène Art’, Celtic Art in Ancient Europe, ed. Duval, P.-M. and Hawkes, Christopher (London, 1976), pp. 201–13.Google Scholar

15 Art, p. 8.

16 The pillar's affinity with Etruscan cippi would also make this likely; see Jacobsthal, Paul, ’Imagery in Early Celtic Art’, PBA 27 (1941), 303–19 and pl. 12.Google Scholar

17 For capable discussion and illustrations, see Ross, , Pagan Celtic Britain, esp. pp. 92–3Google Scholar and pls. 16b, 16c, 26a and 26c. When taken with various other kinds of evidence, as Ross notes, such features strongly suggest that the motif of severed head on pillar constitutes a phallic symbol. This observation holds true for the sceptre, where the imagery is comparable and accentuated by the use of red paint.

18 It explains why hair was so often related to the life-force and why primitive peoples often swore by their head-hair and beards. What grows from the head is inevitably believed to be issuing from what is inside the head. Democritus explained the growth of deer horns from this viewpoint and I suggest that the abnormally large antlers on the sceptre stag are best interpreted on this principle; see Onians, R. B., The Origins of European Thought about the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time and Fate (Cambridge, 1951), p. 237.Google Scholar

19 Ross, , Pagan Celtic Britain, p. 61Google Scholar, and Lambrechts, Pierre, L' Exaltation de la tête dans la pensée et dans I'art des Celtes (Brugge, 1954).Google Scholar

20 Ed. and trans. Tierney, J. J., ‘The Celtic Ethnography of Posidonius’, Proc. of the R. Irish Acad., Sect. C 60 (1960), 250.Google Scholar

21 Ross, , Pagan Celtic Britain, pp. 64 and 66.Google Scholar

22 Ibid. p. 66.

23 See Ross, Pagan Celtic Britain, pl. 16a, and Powell, , Art, pp. 206–7Google Scholar. Such monuments may well have been inspired by the practice of placing heads on pillars and standing stones.

24 Ed. and trans. Stokes, Whitley, ‘The Battle of Allen’, Revue celtique 24 (1903), 65.Google Scholar

25 The Mabinogion, trans. Gwyn, and Jones, Thomas (repr. London, 1975), p. 40.Google Scholar

26 Three Fragments of Irish Annals, ed. and trans. O'Donovan, John (Dublin, 1860), pp. 213–15.Google Scholar

27 For a discussion of Entremont and its sanctuary, see Benoît, Fernand, ‘The Celtic Oppidum of Entremont, Provence’, Recent Archaeological Excavations in Europe, ed. Bruce-Mitford, Rupert (London, 1975), pp. 227–59.Google Scholar

28 Benoît, F., ‘Les “têtes sans bouche” 'Entremont’, Cahiers de préhistoire el d' archéologie 8 (1964), 68–81.Google Scholar

29 For a good illustration, see Cana, Proinsias Mac, Celtic Mythology (London, 1970), p. 104.Google Scholar

30 For these two references, see Silva Gadelica, ed. and trans. O'Grady, Standish H., 2 vols. (London, 1892) 11, 209Google Scholar, and Ancient Irish Tales, ed. Cross, T. P.and trans. Slover, C. H. (repr. Dublin and New York, 1969), p. 566Google Scholar. Although neither of these texts dates from the early medieval period, it seems to me that they can be offered as evidence, since the practice described was apparently commonplace. One would expect warriors to congregate around fortresses and to find fortress-related pillars convenient for sharpening edged weapons – at least as a prior operation to the fine honing.

31 ‘Halsring’, pp. 200 and 206 and pis. 12b and 12c. For a brief discussion of this type of tore, see now Capelle, Torsten, ‘Ein Silberhalsring der späten römischen Kaiserzeit’, Antike und Universalgeschichte: Festschrift für Hans Erich Stier, ed. Stiehl, R. and Lehmann, G. A. (Münster, 1972), pp. 289–94 and pls.Google Scholar

32 Edwards, A. J. H., ‘A Massive Double-linked Silver Chain’, Proc. oftheSoc. of Antiquaries of Scotland 73 (1938–1939), 326–7 and pl. 98Google Scholar; R. B. K. Stevenson, ‘Pictish Chain, Roman Silver and Bauxite Beads’, Ibid. 88 (1954–6), 228–30; Laing, Lloyd, The Archaeology of Late Celtic Britain and Ireland c. 400–1200 A.D. (London, 1975). pp- 58–9Google Scholar; and Henderson, Isabel, The Picts (London, 1967), pp. 212–13 and pl. 18.Google Scholar

33 Laing, , Archaeology, p. 58.Google Scholar

34 Stevenson, ‘Pictish Chain’, pp. 326–7.

35 Henderson, , The Picts, p. 159.Google Scholar

36 Ross, Anne, ‘Chain Symbolism in Pagan Celtic Religion’, Speculum 34 (1959), 39–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 Lives of Saints from the Book ofLismore, ed. and trans. Stokes, Whitley, Anecdota Oxoniensia 5 (Oxford, 1890), 48 and 195.Google Scholar

38 Cited Ross, ‘Chain Symbolism’, p. 44, n. II.

39 Blanchet, Adrien, Manuel de numismatique francaise (Paris, 1912), pp. 34 and 51Google Scholar. Cf. Déchelette, Joseph, Manuel d' archéologie préhistorique, celtiqueelgallo-romaine (Paris, 1914) 11.3, 1301–5.Google Scholar

40 Kendrick, T. D., ‘The Sutton Hoo Finds’, Brit. Museum Quarterly 13 (1939), 128Google Scholar; and Bruce-Mitford, , Aspects, p. 6Google Scholar, and Handbook, p. 23.

41 Simpson, ‘The King's Whetstone’, pp. 96–101. Carefully analysed, the examples cited merely demonstrate that whetstones could be used as weapons and thrown at the enemy. Any relationship with kings, as such, rests on a series of assumptions which need to be demonstrated.

42 Corpus Poeticum Boreale, ed. and trans. Vigfusson, Gudbrand and Powell, F. York (Oxford, 1883) 1, 168–74Google Scholar; Davidson, H. R. Ellis, Cods and Myths of Northern Europe (Harmondsworth, 1973), pp. 78–9Google Scholar; ‘Weland the Smith’, Folklore 69 (1958), 145–59Google Scholar and < ‘The Smith and the Goddess’, FM 3 (1969), 216–27Google Scholar; and Motz, Lotte, ‘The Craftsman in the Mound’, Folklore 88–9 (1977–1978), 46–60.Google Scholar

43 Among many studies see O'Maille, Tomas, ‘Medb Cruachna’, Zeitschriftfiir celtische Philologie 17 (1928), 124–46Google Scholar; Cana, Proinsias Mac, ‘Aspects of the Theme of King and Goddess in Irish Literature’, Étudesceltiques 7 (1955), 76–114 and 357–413Google Scholar, and 8 (1958), 58–65; Binchy, D. A., ‘The Fair of Tailtiu and the Feast of Tara’, Ériu 18 (1958), 113–38, at 127–38Google Scholar; and Weisweiler, Josef, Heimat und Herrschaft, Wirkung und Ursprung eines irischen Mythos (Halle, 1943), esp. pp. 86–120Google Scholar. On this theme in an historical context, see Binchy, D. A., Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Kingship (Oxford, 1970)Google Scholar, and Byrne, Francis John, Irish Kings and High Kings (London, 1973).Google Scholar

44 Joynt, Maud, ‘Echtra Mac Echdach Mugmedóin’, Eriu 4 (1910), 91–111Google Scholar, and Stokes, Whitley, ‘Echtra Mac Echdach Muigmedóin’, Revue celtique 24 (1903), 190–202Google Scholar. Cf. The Metrical Dindshenchas, ed. Gwynn, Edward (Dublin, 1903–1935) iv, 134–43Google Scholar. On dating, see Bromwich, Rachel, ‘Celtic Dynastic Themes in the Breton Lays’, Études celtiques 9 (1961), 445–9 and nn.Google Scholar

45 Joynt,‘Echtra’, pp. 110–11.

46 Stokes, ‘Echtra’, pp. 196–7.

47 Ibid. pp. 202–3. The relationship between smith and goddess goes far into the pre-Christian past, as is evidenced by archaeological remains. See, e.g., the altar of Sucellos and Nantosuelta from Sarrebourg depicted in Ross, , Pagan Celtic Britain, p. 245Google Scholar. Sucellos typically carries a hammer and is known as ‘the Good Striker’.

48 Ed. Kuno, Meyer, ‘The Laud Genealogies and Tribal Histories’, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 8 (1912), 304Google Scholar; the translation is that of Murphy, Gerard, Saga and Myth in Ancient Ireland (Dublin, 1961), p. 49.Google Scholar

49 Goodchild, R. G., ‘A Priest's Sceptre from the Romano-Celtic Temple at Farley Heath, Surrey’, AntJ 18 (1938), 391–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 Goodchild, R. G., ‘The Farley Heath Sceptre’, AntJ 27 (1947), 84.Google Scholar

51 Handbook, p. 22. There is a close parallel to the bearded heads on the sceptre in the cloisonné face in the hip of the bird from the Swedish-style Sutton Hoo shield; see Bruce-Mitford, , Aspects, p. 45Google Scholar and pl. 7a. The ‘stop’ or ‘pellet’ below the beard on this face might also be seen as comparable to the ‘medallion’ on the sceptre head-frames. It should be noted that such pear-shaped bearded faces are also found in Irish art and that the pellet or ‘bulb’ at the end of beards is a feature of both Irish and Scandinavian art; see Macalister, R. A. S., ‘Report on Excavation Recently Conducted in Killeen Cormac, Co. Kildare’, Proc. of the R. Irish Acad., Sect. C 38 (1928–1929), 247–61Google Scholar and pi. jo, fig. 3, and Gjaerder, Per, ‘The Beard as an Iconographical Feature in the Viking Period and the Early Middle Ages’, Ada Archaeologica 35 (1964), 95–114Google Scholar. For a similar treatment of the head-hair on an Irish carving, see Ross, Pagan Celtic Britain, pl. 39a.

52 ‘Herrschaftszeichen’, pp. 46–59.

53 ‘The King's Whetstone’, p. 100.

54 ‘The Sutton Hoo Whetstone’, p. 469.

55 Ed. and trans. Gwynn, Lucius, ‘De Sil Chonairi Móir’, Ériu 6 (1912), 134 and 139Google Scholar; see also Draak, Maartje, ‘Some Aspects of Kingship in Pagan Ireland’, Stud. in the Hist. of Religions 4 (1959), 654–5.Google Scholar

56 The importance of this pillar is especially clear in a reference in a text called Coir Anmann, which relates that a famous ruler got his name from the stone: ‘Nuada Find fail thereafter. He was a fair [find] man, and he used often to visit the Stone of Fal, playing with it and courting; for the prophets had foretold to him that he would be king of Ireland: wherefore he was called Nuada the Fair of Fál thereafter’, Irische Texte III.2 (ed. Stokes, Whitley and Windisch, E. (Leipzig, 1897), 326–7)Google Scholar. Ireland could be called the ‘Plain of F´l’ or the ‘Island of F´l’, its inhabitants the ‘men of Fal’ and its king the ‘ruler of F´l1. In later tradition the stone was sometimes called ‘the member of Fergus’, king of Ulster at the beginning of the T´in, or the ‘Stone of Knowledge’. See Alwyn, and Rees, Brinley, Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales (London, 1961), p. 146.Google Scholar

57 Bruce-Mitford, , Ship Burial, pp. 715–17.Google Scholar

58 Henderson, , The Picts, pp. 117–27.Google Scholar