Sutton Hoo purse-lid

"[1] About seven and a half inches long, it is decorated with beautiful ornament in gold and garnet cloisonné enamel, and was undoubtedly a symbol of great wealth and status.

The Roman legions withdrew from Britain in about 410 CE, by which time there is already evidence that groups of Germanic people were living alongside the native Romano-British population, probably as auxiliary troops.

[4] The lid formed part of an ensemble of richly decorated fittings to the clothing and weapon worn by the body that were probably made as a set.

[4] The burial "can be seen as a dramatic expression of the aspirations of East Anglian royalty", within which the ensemble of regalia "is a careful construct; it situates the owner in a dual inheritance of coin-distributing, sceptre-wielding late Roman consuls, and Germanic warrior culture, with its rich iconography of powerful animals, gods and victors.

It is possible that the heraldic composition of the men and the wolves alludes to the family name of the Sutton Hoo ship burial – the Wuffingas, or Wolf's People.

The first and also the largest mound, originally excavated in 1939 by Basil Brown, contained a 90-foot-long (27 m) ship, and is supposedly the burial site of Rædwald, the leader of the Wuffing dynasty.

The original excavation records of the mound were destroyed during World War II, and only pictures of the rivets in the sand remain as evidence.