Sutton Hoo 

Sutton Hoo is an extensive and widely publicized archeological find near the eastern coast of Great Britain (known to historians as East Anglia), on bluffs overlooking the River Deben. The site is dated between 625 and 670 CE. It consists of 19 or 20 burial mounds, plus a major cemetery near dating to the same time in which are located what are called Adeviant burials. These are burials that contain the remains of men either executed, or killed in battle. The remains in the common cemetery at Sutton Hoo appear disfigured, or mutilated. This suggests they may have been victims of execution.

The major burial mounds were reserved for members of a higher caste. Many had been robbed prior to the first archeological expedition mounted at Sutton Hoo in 1939. One of the most important discoveries at Sutton Hoo was the uncovering of a ship that was 27 meters long and was buried beneath a mound. It was unsuccessfully penetrated, sometime during the 16^th century, by robbers who didn’t manage to steal anything, which means that this was a very important find. When buried initially, a long trench was dug into the bluffs above the river. The ship was then placed into the trench and a burial chamber was added to the top of the ship. Then the entire structure was buried under a massive mound.

The first archeologist to excavate the site was a man by the name of Basil Brown. He began excavations in 1939 and what he found  revolutionized the study of Anglo-Saxon history in Great Britain. He found the mound, in which the ship had rested, minus the timbers that had rotted away in the acidic soil. The timbers left dark stains in the soil though, so he could measure how big the ship was, and what it looked like. In the burial chamber, they found many treasures that indicated trade all over pre-medieval Europe with places as far away as Byzantium. Although the Anglo-Saxons that are buried at Sutton Hoo are thought to have been pagans, there were also extensive amounts of Christian relics found there as well. The identity of the man buried in the largest ship is not known for sure, and probably never will be, but the wealth of the burial indicates a person of great prestige. Many historians and archeologists speculate that he is an East Anglian king by the name of Raedwald, who died in battle around the year 624 or 625 CE.

After Basil Brown finished up his excavation work, a colleague by the name of Bruce Mitford did follow up research on the site for more than forty years. The site was last excavated by Martin Carver in 1983. The reason for the excavations and ongoing research at Sutton Hoo was not the recovery or display of precious gold and silver relics, or about the identity of the man buried there, but to further knowledge of the people who built the burial mounds. They were a people in migration from continental Europe at this time (most likely modern-day Denmark, Holland, and northern Germany). They began migrations across the North Sea around the 6^th century CE and continued through the 7^th century. By studying the culture of the people that were at Sutton Hoo in 625, modern day Brits are actually learning about their own ancestors.

Sources:

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/1001Robjent.htm

http://rubens.anu.edu.au/student.projects/hoo2/burial.html

The Age of Sutton Hoo, The Seventh Century in North-Western Europe. Ed. by M.O.H. Carver

The Boydell Press: Woodbridge, England, 1992.

Green, Charles. Sutton Hoo, the Excavation of a Royal Ship Burial. Barnes and Noble

Inc.: New York, 1963.

Written by Matt Iffert