page_title: Shorwell helmet
section_title: Restoration
hierarchical_section_title: Shorwell helmet / Discovery / Restoration
caption_attribution_description: English: Façade of the British Museum This is a photo of listed building number 1130404.
context_page_description: The Shorwell helmet is an Anglo-Saxon helmet from the early to mid-sixth century AD found near Shorwell on the Isle of Wight in southern England. It was one of the grave goods of a high-status Anglo-Saxon warrior, and was found with other objects such as a pattern-welded sword and hanging bowl. One of only six known Anglo-Saxon helmets, alongside those from Benty Grange, Sutton Hoo, Coppergate, Wollaston, and Staffordshire, it is the sole example to derive from the continental Frankish style rather than the contemporaneous Northern "crested helmets" used in England and Scandinavia.
  The grave was discovered by members of a metal detecting club in May 2004, and excavated by archaeologists that November. Ploughing had destroyed much of the surrounding Anglo-Saxon cemetery, leaving this as the only individually identifiable grave. The helmet had fragmented into around 400 pieces, perhaps in part because of subsoiling, and was originally identified as a "fragmentary iron vessel". Only after it was acquired by the British Museum and reconstructed was it identified as a helmet. It remains in the museum's collection, but as of 2019 is not on display.
context_section_description: The "fragmentary iron vessel" was conserved at the British Museum. It had been located close to where the head of the body would have been, and was reconstructed on the chance that it might be a helmet. In this manner it joined the Roman helmet from Burgh Castle, mislabelled for two decades as "cauldron fragments", the Anglo-Saxon Pioneer helmet, first labelled a "bucket", and the Anglo-Saxon Coppergate helmet, thought at first to be a rock. The fragments were extensively corroded as well as distorted, complicating the restoration; layers of metal had also delaminated in places, requiring that the layers be adhered before they could be joined to adjacent fragments along the broken edges. The pieces were only lightly cleaned to preserve traces of organic remains, and X-rays were first used to sort the fragments by density and curvature. Approximately two-thirds of the helmet was then assembled and adhered, proving it for what it was. The unincorporated fragments were insufficient to account for the missing third of the helmet, suggesting that it had been damaged by ploughing.
  The Shorwell helmet is in the collection of the British Museum. As of 2018 it is not on display.
caption: The British Museum in London now owns the Shorwell helmet.
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