Susan Elaine "Sue" Brunning is an archaeologist specialising in Early Medieval material culture, particularly swords, and is the curator of Early Medieval Europe Collections at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

Career

Brunning completed her PhD in 2013 at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

with a thesis titled 'The 'Living' Sword in Early Medieval Northern Europe: An Interdisciplinary Study'. Brunning is the curator of Early Medieval Europe Collections at the British Museum and was involved in the 2014 exhibition of the

Sutton Hoo Sutton Hoo is the site of two early medieval cemeteries dating from the 6th to 7th centuries near the English town of Woodbridge. Archaeologists have been excavating the area since 1938, when a previously undisturbed ship burial containing a ...

collections. She advises on the importance and value of archaeological finds recorded via the

Portable Antiquities Scheme The Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) is a voluntary programme run by the United Kingdom government to record the increasing numbers of small finds of archaeological interest found by members of the public. The scheme begun in 1997 and now covers m ...

, such as a silver sword-belt mount found in

Culmington Culmington is a village and civil parish in south Shropshire, England, about east of Craven Arms and north of Ludlow. The village is about above sea level, beside the River Corve, just east of the B4365 road. The 2011 Census recorded the par ...

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...

, declared as

treasure Treasure (from la, thesaurus from Greek language ''thēsauros'', "treasure store") is a concentration of wealth — often originating from ancient history — that is considered lost and/or forgotten until rediscovered. Some jurisdictions leg ...

in line with the

Treasure Act 1996 The Treasure Act 1996 is a UK Act of Parliament, defining which objects are classified as treasure, legally obliging the finder to report their find. Provisions The Act is designed to deal with finds of treasure in England, Wales and Northern Ire ...

in 2019. She was elected as a Fellow of the

Society of Antiquaries of London A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societ ...

on 11 November 2018.

Select publications

*Brunning, S. 2015. "'(Swinger of) the Serpent of Wounds': Swords and Snakes in the Viking Mind", in Michael D.J. Bintley and Thomas J.T. Williams (eds) ''Representing Beasts in Early Medieval England and Scandinavia''. Boydell. *Brunning, S. 2016. "A 'DIVINATION STAFF' FROM VIKING‐AGE NORWAY: AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM", ''Acta Archaeologica'' 87(1), 193–200. *Brunning, S. 2019. ''The Sword in Early Medieval Northern Europe; Experience, Identity, Representation''. Boydell & Brewer.

References

External links

Sue Takes on the Sutton Hoo Helmet I (Curator's Corner Season 6 Episode 5)Hands on with the Sutton Hoo sword I (Curator's Corner Season 5 Episode 1) with Sue BrunningSue's favourite Anglo-Saxon sword I (Curator's Corner Season 4 Episode 4)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brunning, Sue Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London British women archaeologists 21st-century British archaeologists People associated with the Portable Antiquities Scheme Employees of the British Museum