Our Services

The Anglo-Saxon Laboratory is a service for archaeologists who excavate sites of the 5th to 11th centuries.

We provide advice on all aspects of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian archaeology and have particular skills in post-excavation analysis, research and publication.

Work is tailored to meet the needs of the client. In most cases this means collaboration with the site director and staff, but we also have the capacity to manage the whole post-excavation process. We can:

• put together a team of experienced archaeological consultants, including artefact researchers,
  conservators, IT specialists and illustrators

• guide the project through MAP2 procedures

• analyse the evidence and place it in the context of current archaeological and historical research, including theoretical studies concerning gender, social relations, trade and status

• take the material through to publication in website and/or book form.

Archaeologists also approach us for:

• reports on individual artefacts

• catalogues and reports on collections of finds

• statistical analysis of finds

• advice on chronology

• analysis of burial ritual

• editing of texts

Through our international work on textiles (www.textileresearch.com), we have an extensive network of contacts both inside and outside Britain. We are therefore able to provide reports on foreign artefacts excavated in Britain and we also act as a portal through which archaeologists outside Britain can gain access to British expertise.
Contact pwr@aslab.co.uk

A glass intaglio from a 7th-century pendant necklace from a grave at Saltwood, Kent. Any pendant necklace is an indicator of wealth and/or status, but this intaglio has particularly significant imagery. It was probably carved in Constantinople in the late 5th or early 6th century and it depicts a woman, almost certainly the Virgin Mary, with arms raised in prayer (orans) and flanked by crosses. It is one of the earliest Anglo-Saxon symbols of Christianity.

The link on the home page shows another Saltwood pendant, made from a gold coin (a solidus).

Photo courtesy of Oxford-Wessex Archaeology Joint Venture and CTRL (UK) Ltd