The Lost Art of the Anglo-Saxon World

anoxic (oxygen-depleted)

The results of experiments undertaken by Bill Cooke showed that cotton and woollen textiles become so tender during burial that after only three weeks in a biologically active soil at 20ºC, they can disintegrate under their own weight.

turn the status and meanings that the embroidery acquires are fluid, altering according to the context and narrative of the embroidery over the course of its ‘life’.

For each set of relationships the context changes: raw materials – variously of animal, vegetable or mineral – originating from different places, possibly different continents, are brought together under one roof. The workshop combines the raw materials together to form a finished embroidery which is passed on to the person who commissioned it.

was the human group, not just its owner, that was entwined with the object, whether in a closely knit group or as part of a larger social network.

The fragments researchers see today are not what people saw – either literally or metaphorically – at the time they were made, used, recycled or deposited.

suggests that biography does not stop with deposition; instead the sherd acquires a ‘second life’ when the object is rediscovered.

Of particular note for the study of embroidery are instances of early medievalists who extend the idea of the object life cycle from the original ‘use and discard’ model to the ‘multiple life cycle’ model, extending from re-use to post-excavation

early 7th-century cuff from Sutton Hoo (known as ‘Sutton Hoo B’) (Fig. 5)

the development of style and technique, but concerning the wider social and political contexts within which early medieval embroidery played an important material cultural role: creating relationships, enhancing memory, and cementing and strengthening affiliations, power and authority.