It is uniquely from a presumed royal burial, at a time when the monarchy was defined by the helmet and the sword. Helmets, perhaps because they were worn by rulers so frequently, may have come to be identified as crowns. Though many intermediate stages in the typological and functional evolution are yet unknown, the earliest European crowns that survive, such as the turn-of-the-millennium crown of Saint Stephen and of Constance of Aragon, share the same basic construction of many helmets, including the Coppergate example, contemporaneous with the one from Sutton Hoo: a brow band, a nose-to-nape band, and lateral bands. A divine right to rule, or at least a connection between gods and leader—also seen on earlier Roman helmets, which sometimes represented Roman gods—may have been implied by the alteration to the sinister eyebrow on the Sutton Hoo helmet; the one-eyed appearance could only have been visible in low light, such as when its wearer was in a hall, the seat of the king's power. Context and parallels Unique in many respects, the Sutton Hoo helmet is nevertheless inextricably linked to its Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian contexts. It is one of only six known Anglo-Saxon helmets, along with those found at Benty Grange (1848), Coppergate (1982), Wollaston (1997), Shorwell (2004) and Staffordshire (2009), yet is closer in character to finds in Sweden at Vendel (1881–1883) and Valsgärde (1920s). At the same time, the helmet shares "consistent and intimate" parallels with those characterised in the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, and, like the Sutton Hoo ship-burial as a whole, has had a profound impact on modern understandings of the poem. Helmets Within the corpus of sixth and seventh century helmets, the Sutton Hoo helmet is broadly classified as a "crested helmet," distinct from the continental spangenhelm and lamellenhelm. 50 helmets are so classified, although barely more than a dozen can be reconstructed and a few are so degraded that they are not indisputably from helmets. Excepting an outlier fragment found in Kiev, all crested helmets originate from England or Scandinavia. Of the crested helmets the Sutton Hoo helmet belongs to the Vendel and Valsgärde class, which themselves derive from the Roman infantry and cavalry helmets of the fourth and fifth century Constantinian workshops. Helmets were found in graves 1, 12 and 14 at Vendel (in addition to partial helmets in graves 10 and 11), and in graves 5, 6, 7 and 8 at Valsgärde.