BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Anglo-Saxons in the Byzantine Army

English graves may contain evidence of Byzantine mercenaries

Painting of the Battle of Nineveh (c. 627 CE) between the Sassanid and Byzantine Armies, by Fresco by Piero della Francesca c. 1452. Piero della Francesca, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

While elite sixth-century CE graves in England may be famous for what they tell us about Anglo-Saxon culture, they might also bear evidence that the peoples of the British Isles were more connected to the ancient world than previously assumed. According to two British scholars, grave goods at several important sites could only have come from the eastern reaches of the Byzantine Empire, where they were likely picked up while Anglo-Saxon warriors served as mercenaries in the Byzantine war against the Sassanids.

FREE ebook: From Babylon to Baghdad. Ancient Iraq. Learn about Iraq and its cultural heritage. Download now.

First Name:*

Last Name:*

Email Address: * * Indicates a required field.

SUBMIT

If you don’t want to receive the Bible History Daily newsletter, uncheck this box.

Treasures from the Eastern Front

Although the eastern origins of a number of grave goods from Sutton Hoo, Taplow, Prittlewell, and other ancient English burial sites have long been known, scholars have typically assumed these items arrived in England through trade. However, St John Simpson, Curator for Ancient Iran and Arabia at the British Museum, and Helen Gittos, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Oxford, have challenged this assumption. Speaking with The Guardian, Simpson suggests that many of these grave goods—including Sassanid seals, silver drachmas, and Eurasian-style armor—are not the sorts of things that would have ended up in England through traditional trade networks.

According to Simpson, the most likely explanation for how these goods ended up in Anglo-Saxon graves is that these elites were mercenaries in the Byzantine-Sassanid war during the reigns of the Byzantine emperors Tiberius II (r. 578–582) and Maurice (r. 582–602). At the time, “the Byzantines were recruiting across western Europe for effectively a new model mobile army,” Simpson told The Guardian. The Anglo-Saxon nobility likely joined up for “a combination of adventure and pay.” Lending credence to the theory is a statement in the military handbook of Emperor Maurice that Britons made good soldiers, especially in the woods.

Discussing a copper flagon excavated in a burial chamber in Prittlewell that bears a Sassanid-style roundel, Simpson said the unique roundel puts the flagon’s iconography “firmly within a Sassanid design language, suggesting that it was made farther east, in a Sasanian workshop.” Coupled with other grave goods from Sutton Hoo and elsewhere that show Sassanian-inspired designs, these finds, continued Simpson, “strengthen the idea that these individuals returned from Syria aligned even more closely with the late antique fashions of Byzantine-Sasanian elite warrior society.”

Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Rare Evidence for Roman Crucifixion Found in Second-Century Britain

Frankincense and Other Resins Were Used in Roman Burials Across Britain

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library:

Jesus’ Tomb Depicted on a Byzantine Gold Ring from Jerusalem

Illuminating Byzantine Jerusalem