Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Buckets

Online Corpus of Anglo-Saxon buckets

‘Buckets’ are an enigmatic and relatively rare type of object found in 5th to 7th-century Anglo-Saxon graves. The term ‘bucket’ suggests a utilitarian vessel holding c. 10 litres of liquid, and therefore is misleading in more than one respect. The Anglo-Saxon vessels are constructed of wooden staves and copper-alloy or iron bindings, some of them no more than mug-sized, and few are as large as 20 cm in diameter. The fact that some ‘buckets’ have elaborately decorated bindings and that they were mostly found in well-equipped graves of both men and women suggests that buckets were status symbols rather than every-day household equipment.

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