This object, found in the early 7th-century Sutton Hoo ship burial, is thought to be either a whetstone or a sceptre, perhaps similar to the thuuf mentioned at the end of HE 2.16. Colgrave-Mynors notes: "An object found at Sutton Hoo in the burial ship ... is supposed by some to be a royal standard of some kind ... Bede probably got the word tufa from Vegetius [Dē Re Militārī 3.5]. The Old English word thuf (tuft of feathers or foliage) with which he equated it, suggests that the standard was bushy or covered with foliage..." (p. 192, n. 3).
This object, found in the early 7th-century Sutton Hoo ship burial, is thought to be either a whetstone or a sceptre, perhaps similar to the thuuf mentioned at the end of HE 2.16. Colgrave-Mynors notes: "An object found at Sutton Hoo in the burial ship ... is supposed by some to be a royal standard of some kind ... Bede probably got the word tufa from Vegetius [Dē Re Militārī 3.5]. The Old English word thuf (tuft of feathers or foliage) with which he equated it, suggests that the standard was bushy or covered with foliage..." (p. 192, n. 3).
See:
"Whetstone from the Sutton Hoo ship burial." British Museum.
"Whetstone or Sceptre?" Medieval Histories (7 November 2013). Web.