The Staffordshire Hoard is one of the great discoveries of British archaeology, an unparalleled treasure of the early Anglo-Saxon period. Chanced upon in summer 2009, in an ordinary field north of Birmingham, its hundreds of objects of the 6th to 7th centuries AD amount to a total of 4kg of gold and 1.7kg of silver. An archaeological excavation at the site was followed by a dedicated research project to understand why this trove of warriors and kings was buried, and what part it had played in the bloody cauldron of conflict that shaped early England.