Benty Grange grave goods. A 1940 letter from T. D. Kendrick to Bruce-Mitford's army camp had assigned him his position, and responsibility for the Sutton Hoo discoveries—"Brace yourself for the task", the letter concluded. Upon his return, he therefore took to studying the comparison material; his work in 1947 included the excavation of the Valsgärde 11 boat-grave in Sweden alongside Sune Lindqvist, and the trip to Sheffield, intended to shed light on the Sutton Hoo helmet through comparison with the only other Anglo-Saxon helmet then known. Permission was obtained from the curator and trustees of the Weston Park Museum for the proposed work, and, by February 1948—when, shortly before the centennial of its excavation, Bruce-Mitford exhibited it to the Society of Antiquaries of London—the Benty Grange helmet was brought to London. Work at the British Museum was overseen by keeper of the research laboratory Harold Plenderleith, who in some cases, particularly with the boar, did the work himself; additional input was provided by Bruce-Mitford, the technical attaché and authority on ancient metalwork Herbert Maryon, and the archaeologist and art historian Françoise Henry. In the hundred years following its exposure to the air the helmet had continued to corrode, and certain parts had become indiscernible. The boar was unrecognizable, and the silver rivets and cross were almost completely obscured. A strong needle was used to pick off the encrustation, revealing the underlying features. During this process, the boar, hitherto thought solid, snapped in two. Bruce-Mitford termed this occurrence "fortunate", for it revealed the boar's inner structure. Frederic Charles Fraser examined the remnants of horn at the Natural History Museum, and conducted experiments softening and shaping modern horn. Typology The Benty Grange helmet is dated to the first half of the 7th century AD, on the basis of its technical construction and decorative style. It is one of six Anglo-Saxon helmets, joined by the subsequent discoveries from Sutton Hoo, York, Wollaston, Shorwell, and Staffordshire. These are all, other than the Frankish Shorwell helmet, examples of the "crested helmets" known in Northern Europe in the 6th through 11th centuries AD. Such helmets are characterized by prominent crests and rounded caps, traits shared by the Benty Grange example, and other than a Viking Age fragment found in Kiev, uniformly originate from England or Scandinavia; contemporary continental helmets were primarily spangenhelm or lamellenhelm. The ultimate form of the helmet is unparalleled among surviving Anglo-Saxon and