{"id":1214,"date":"2009-09-25T22:40:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-25T22:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1214"},"modified":"2009-09-25T22:40:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-25T22:40:00","slug":"did-a-pagan-bury-the-staffordshire-hoard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1214","title":{"rendered":"Did a ‘Pagan’ Bury the Staffordshire Hoard?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The “Staffordshire Hoard” is a cache of 7th-century Anglo-Saxon sword jewels and other items recently found in England<\/a> (and a great boost for metal-detector sales, no doubt).<\/p>\n

The caption on one slide <\/a>of the golden hoard suggests that because a gold cross was folded in on itself before burial, the person who buried the treasure might well have been (wait for it) a “pagan.”<\/p>\n

England was becoming Christian by then, although the Norse were not. But I think he (?), whether Pagan or Christian, might as well have been looking at the cross as so much gold rather than superstitiously thinking he would be smitten if he deformed it.<\/p>\n

Here is another slide show<\/a>. Magnificent stuff. How long until we see Ren Faire reproductions?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The “Staffordshire Hoard” is a cache of 7th-century Anglo-Saxon sword jewels and other items recently found in England (and a great boost for metal-detector sales, no doubt). The caption on one slide of the golden hoard suggests that because a gold cross was folded in on itself before burial, the person who buried the treasure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[20,21],"class_list":["post-1214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-archaeology","tag-england"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-jA","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13362,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13362","url_meta":{"origin":1214,"position":0},"title":"Yet It’s Not October: Paganism in the News (Part 1)","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 5, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"I have been seeing a flush of Pagan-related articles in Anglosphere news media lately, so many that it feels like October, which is usually the only time we are noticed.((Possibly with a smaller peak around Yule.)) One reason may be upcoming coronation of King Charles III.((I might as well say\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/critic-cover.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7677,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7677","url_meta":{"origin":1214,"position":1},"title":"Massive 2015 Year-End Link Dump! Something for Everyone!","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Some of the links that I saved that never turned into blog posts . . . \u2022 The Internet loves quizes, so \"What Kind of Witch Would You Be?\" (answer: hearth witch). I always suspect that the answer is based on just one question, while the others are there just\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theoutdoorwire.com\/image_archive\/2210514.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5670,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5670","url_meta":{"origin":1214,"position":2},"title":"Is the Church of England Desperate or Just Confused about Paganism?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"With the obvious news peg of summer solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, the Telegraph reports on a rather odd initiative from the Church of England. The article begins, The church is training ministers to create \u201ca pagan church where Christianity [is] very much in the centre\u201d to attract spiritual believers. Ministers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4562,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4562","url_meta":{"origin":1214,"position":3},"title":"Giant Green Goddess","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Northumberlandia is the name of a new sculpture made at the site of a former open-pit coal mine in northern England. The work is described as \"goddess-like,\" but please, not Pagan: There was no intention to make a Pagan figure or mimic any ancient fertility symbols, despite her breasts which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.telegraph.co.uk\/multimedia\/archive\/02322\/Northumberlandia-1_2322661b.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.telegraph.co.uk\/multimedia\/archive\/02322\/Northumberlandia-1_2322661b.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.telegraph.co.uk\/multimedia\/archive\/02322\/Northumberlandia-1_2322661b.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":251,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=251","url_meta":{"origin":1214,"position":4},"title":"Almost pagan Thanks to Nick\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 25, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Almost pagan Thanks to Nick Freeman, whose paper, \"The Shrineless God: Paganism, Literature, and Art in Forties England,\" will appear in the next issue of The Pomegranate, I have been watching and reading some classics of literary, if not self-consciously religious, small-p paganism. One was the film A Canterbury Tale,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":412,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=412","url_meta":{"origin":1214,"position":5},"title":"New classicsThe Independent (UK) newspaper\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"New classicsThe Independent (UK) newspaper reports that a group of ancient, seemingly unreadable documents might contain both Classic works of literature and ancient Christian gospels.Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}