Sutton Hoo
In all these decorative respects, two Scandinavian helmets, from Valsgärde 7 and Gamla Uppsala, are uniquely similar to the Sutton Hoo example. The Valsgärde 7 crest has a "cast chevron ornament"; the helmet "is 'jeweled', like the Sutton Hoo helmet, but showing a greater use of garnets"; and it contains figural and interlace "pressblech" patterns, including versions of the two figural designs used on the Sutton Hoo helmet. Unlike on the Sutton Hoo helmet, the Valsgärde 7 rider and fallen warrior design was made with two dies, so that those on both dexter and sinister sides are seen moving towards the front, and they contain some "differing and additional elements." The Valsgärde 7 version of the dancing warriors design, however, contains "only [one] major iconographic difference," the absence of two crossed spears behind the two men. The scenes are so similar that it was only with the Valsgärde 7 design in hand that the Sutton Hoo design could be reconstructed. The Gamla Uppsala version of this scene is even more similar. It was at first thought to have been struck from the same die, and required precise measurement of the original fragments to prove otherwise. Though the angles of the forearms and between the spears are slightly different, the Gamla Uppsala fragment nonetheless provides "the closest possible parallel" to the Sutton Hoo design. Taken as a whole, the Valsgärde 7 helmet serves "better than any of the other helmets of its type to make explicit the East Scandinavian context of the Sutton Hoo helmet." Its differences, perhaps, are explained by the fact that it was in the grave of a "yeoman-farmer," not royalty. "Royal graves strictly contemporary with [it] have not yet been excavated in Sweden, but no doubt the helmets and shields such graves contained would be nearer in quality to the examples from Sutton Hoo." It is for this reason that the Gamla Uppsala fragment is particularly interesting; coming from a Swedish royal cremation and with "the dies seemingly cut by the same hand," the helmet may originally have been similar to the Sutton Hoo helmet.