paid in recompense for the death of a nobleman; its wearer thus wore the price of a nobleman's life on his belt, a display of impunity that could be associated with few others besides a king. The helmet displays both wealth and power, with a modification to the sinister eyebrow subtly linking the wearer to the one-eyed Germanic god Odin. Two other items, a "wand" and a whetstone, exhibit no practical purpose, but may have been perceived as instruments of power. The so-called wand or rod, surviving only as a gold and garnet strip with a ring at the top, associated mountings, and traces of organic matter that may have been wood, ivory, or bone, has no discernible use but as a symbol of office. On the other hand, the whetstone is theoretically functional as a sharpening stone, but exhibits no evidence of such use. Its delicate ornamentation, including a carved head with a modified eye that parallels the possible allusion to Odin on the helmet, suggests that it too was a ceremonial object, and it has been tentatively identified as a sceptre. Syncretism Further evidence for the burial's association with Rædwald has been adduced from the presence of items with both Christian and pagan significance. The burial is in most respects emphatically pagan; as a ship-burial, it is the manifestation of a pagan practice predating the Gregorian reintroduction of Christianity into Britain, and may have served as an implicit rejection of the encroaching Frankish Christianity. Three groups of items, however, have clear Christian influences: two scabbard bosses, ten silver bowls, and two silver spoons. The bowls and scabbard bosses each display crosses, the former with chasing and the latter with cloisonné. The spoons are even more closely associated with the Catholic Church, inscribed as they are with a cross, and the names ΠΑΥΛΟΣ (Paulos) and ΣΑΥΛΟΣ (Saulos), both of which were used by Paul the Apostle. Even if not baptismal spoons, invoking the conversion of Paul—a theory which has been linked to Rædwald's conversion at Kent—they are unmistakably associated with Christianity. Others Rædwald may be the easiest name to attach to the Sutton Hoo ship-burial, but for all the attempts to do so, these arguments have been made with more vigour than persuasiveness. The desire to link a burial with a known name, and a famous one, outstrips the evidence. The burial is certainly a commemorative display of both