In 2009, a metal detectorist discovered a hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver in a field in Staffordshire. Hence, it quickly became known as ‘The Staffordshire Hoard’. It was, and remains, the biggest collection of Anglo-Saxon gold (4 kg) and silver (1.7 kg) ever discovered and comprised of more than 4000 fragments that equated to over 600 discrete objects and larger pieces. The Staffordshire Hoard is co-owned by Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent City Councils and is cared for on behalf of the nation by Birmingham Museums Trust and The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery. Over the intervening years, most of the larger and recognisably important pieces have now been identified and catalogued. We now also know an exceptional amount about their probable methods of manufacture, artistic styles, date, and function. This paper focuses on what is now known to be one of the most fragmented yet magnificent of its objects, a Helmet that has been declared as being ‘fit for a king’, but which was found scattered into well over 1000 disparate fragments. Fragments that are now considered to make up around one-third of the Hoard’s total of finds and compose this single high-status Golden Helmet. Too damaged and incomplete to be re-joined or displayed in a form that delivers to the casual observer a true sense of the majesty of the original. Thus, the museums responsible for the collection commissioned an experimental reconstruction project to create two of the helmets for display in their shared Hoard collections.

2009 年，一名金属探测器在斯塔福德郡的一块田地里发现了一批盎格鲁-撒克逊金银。因此，它很快就被称为“斯塔福德郡宝库”。它曾经是、现在仍然是迄今为止发现的最大的盎格鲁-撒克逊金（4 公斤）和银（1.7 公斤）藏品，由 4000 多个碎片组成，相当于 600 多个离散物体和更大的碎片。斯塔福德郡宝藏由伯明翰市议会和特伦特河畔斯托克市议会共同拥有，并由伯明翰博物馆信托基金和陶器博物馆和艺术画廊代表国家负责管理。在接下来的几年里，大多数较大且公认的重要作品现已被识别和编目。我们现在还对它们可能的制造方法、艺术风格、日期和功能了解得非常多。本文重点关注目前已知的碎片最多但最宏伟的物品之一，即一顶据称“适合国王佩戴”的头盔，但被发现散落成 1000 多个不同的碎片。目前认为这些碎片约占宝藏总发现量的三分之一，并构成了这顶地位很高的金头盔。损坏太严重且不完整，无法重新连接或以一种能够让不经意的观察者真正感受到原作威严的形式展示。因此，负责收藏的博物馆委托进行了一项实验性重建项目，以制作两个头盔，以便在他们共享的 Hoard 收藏中展示。