Papers from the Staffordshire Hoard Symposium

A Symposium was held at the British Museum in March 2010. Twenty seven papers were delivered and there was much useful discussion. Summaries of many of the papers, together with some of the discussion and subsequent thoughts, will be added to this page over the next few months. In some cases, the embedded images have been processed to allow for a zooming image interface.

Records for the objects in the Hoard are being added slowly, in a skeleton format, which will be enhanced as more data becomes available following research, conservation and time being available to update them. These can all be accessed via our database record for the hoard. The current iteration of the Hoard's website, is going to be superseded shortly by one that has been in development by the Partnership since before Christmas. The old site will still be available via this page and we will shortly be pulling in Flickr images for the Hoard to these pages.

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To be or not to be…Irish?

Denmark’s most famous literary prince was probably from Ireland, according to a British expert. While scholars generally agree that William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet was based on the story of Amleth by 12th century Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus, a new theory suggests that the original inspiration for the work came from closer to home.

Saxo’s story in turn is also thought to have been based on the 10th and 11th century sagas of Icelandic author Snow Bear, with the name Amleth (an anagram of Hamlet) coming from the character Amlothi who appears in the earlier stories.

However, Dr Lisa Collinson from the University of Aberdeen claims to have clear evidence that Amlothi was in fact Irish, making reference to the story of Admlithi (with a silent ‘d’) from the eighth or ninth century. The tale tells of a taboo-breaking Irish king who kills his son in a bloody finale.

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Was the great Dane Irish? That is the question

Medieval Scandinavian expert traces name Hamlet to Gaelic tale The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel

Not "O Hamlet" but O'Hamlet: Shakespeare's Prince of Denmark, according to literary research, derives his peculiar name from ancient Irish origins.

The identity of the Prince of Denmark has fascinated scholars for centuries, with disputes about the name's Jutish, Icelandic or Latin etymology jostling for academic pre-eminence.

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