any substantial crest piece. The fragment of the cheek guard joined another found in 1939, together completing "a hinge plate for one of the moving parts of the helmet, which could not be done previously." Meanwhile, although a "surface flake" from the crest was discovered, its placement did not affect the overall length of the crest. The lack of significant crest finds instead "reinforce[d] scepticism of the long plaster insertions in the original reconstruction." Current reconstruction The current reconstruction of the Sutton Hoo helmet was completed in 1971, following eighteen months of work by Nigel Williams. Williams had joined the British Museum in his teens after studying at the same Central School of Arts and Crafts as Maryon, yet in contrast to Maryon, who completed the first restoration in his 70s and "with the use of only one eye," Williams reconstructed the helmet while in his mid-20s. In 1968, with problems evident in the first reconstruction that were left unresolved by the re-excavations at Sutton Hoo, the decision was made to reexamine the evidence. "After several months' consideration" it was decided to disassemble the helmet and construct it anew. The cheek guards, face mask and neck guard were first removed from the helmet and x-rayed, revealing the wire mesh covered in plaster and overlaid by fragments. The wire was then "rolled back like a carpet", and a saw used to separate each fragment. The remaining plaster was chipped away with a scalpel and needles. The final piece of the helmet, the skull cap, was next cut in half by pushing off the crest with long pins inserted through the bottom of the plaster head and then slicing through the middle of the head. The central plaster core was then removed, and the remaining "thin skin of plaster and iron" separated into individual fragments as had been the ear flaps, neck guard and face mask. This process of separation took four months and left the helmet in more than 500 fragments. The result was "terrifying" to Williams. "One of only two known Anglo-Saxon helmets, an object illustrated in almost every book on the early medieval period, lay in pieces." After four months of disassembly, work began on a new construction of the helmet. This work was advanced largely by the discovery of new joins, marked by several breakthroughs in understanding. The new joins were mostly found by looking at the backs