Sutton Hoo

Sutton Hoo. A site containing up to 20 Anglo-Saxon burial barrows (c. ad 400–700) on the east bank of the Deben estuary in south-east Suffolk, opposite Woodbridge. Since 1982 archaeologists have shown that the barrow area, almost 10 acres, was superimposed on an extensive burial field in use since the 2nd millennium bc, and possibly associated with a stock-rearing society. The region as a whole is rich in ‘find spots’ over 2½ millennia: Sutton Hoo is here centrally situated, and the barrows given a context as a ‘compound’. In 1938 three barrows were excavated, one of which had been a boat-burial. In pre-ad 800 Europe the only other group of comparable burials is at Vendel-Valsgärde in central Sweden. In 1939 the largest barrow, some 120 feet in length and over 12 feet high, was opened. The depth of its extraordinarily rich deposit, almost certainly the inhumation of a king, possibly Raedwald who died about ad 625, had protected it from robbery. The deposit lay in the centre of a 90-foot-long rowing boat, the largest known from this era. The objects, of supreme local craftsmanship in gold, of lesser craftsmanship in eastern Mediterranean silver, and including a whetstone sceptre and a mysterious ‘iron standard’, immeasurably widened knowledge of ‘Dark Age’ culture. While a fragmented helmet had been unusually wrought from one piece of iron, the shield boss and sword pommel can only be paralleled by Swedish finds. Though virtually all traces of a corpse had been dissolved by the acidic sand, the evaluation of the furnishings required the expertise of 96 investigators over 30 years. This revelation of the Germanic world of the ‘Age of Migrations’ stands comparison with the tomb of Tutankhamun. The finds have now been returned to Sutton Hoo.

David Denis Aldridge