Vast amounts were invested in royal and elite monuments, while cemeteries as a whole cannot account for more than a fraction of the population. Death was as socially riven as the realm of the living. Ideals are expressed in normative mortuary monuments and in texts the archaeological record, together with relatively few skeptical texts, testifies to realities. That's a more valuable outcome, in my view.'ĭespite the lack of human remains, it's still been possible to glean personal information about the inhabitant.Ancient Egypt offers a paradigm contrast between ideals of respectful care for the dead, on the one hand, and realities of medium- and long-term neglect, destruction and reuse on the other. But the 1939 excavation carried out by Basil Brown and the other archaeologists was done so well that its results went on to transform our understanding of this time in history, and the lives and beliefs of the people who lived then. Ultimately, Brunning doesn't think the identity is so important: 'Modern science may have solved the mystery about whether someone was buried here at all. However, more recent analysis detected phosphate in the soil – an indicator that a human body once lay at rest there.
This led to early speculation over whether the Sutton Hoo ship burial was actually a cenotaph – an empty tomb or a monument erected in honour of a person whose remains are elsewhere. When it was unearthed in 1939, any bodily remains were claimed by the acidic local soil to leave only a human-shaped gap among the treasures within. Unfortunately, we'll never know the true identity of the grave's inhabitant. He may have held power over neighbouring kingdoms too, which may have earned him a good send off.' 'We can't name that king for certain, but a popular candidate is Raedwald, who ruled the kingdom of East Anglia around this time in the early seventh century. 'It's this effort, coupled with the quality and the quantity of the grave goods from all over the known world at that time, that has made people think that an Anglo-Saxon king may have been buried here. Ship burials were rare in Anglo-Saxon England – probably reserved for the most important people in society – so it's likely that there was a huge funeral ceremony. She highlights the effort and manpower that would have been necessary to position and bury the ship – it would have involved dragging the ship uphill from the River Deben, digging a large trench, cutting trees to craft the chamber, dressing it with finery and raising the mound. Sue Brunning, Curator of Early Medieval European Collections, says the burial was the final resting place of someone who had died in the early seventh century, during the Anglo-Saxon period – a time before 'England' existed. But who was it? And what can the Sutton Hoo excavation tell us about Anglo-Saxon society? This was clearly the grave of an important person – someone meant to be remembered. The archaeologists and landowner Edith Pretty were dumbfounded.
DEATH TOMB KINGDOM OF THE DEAD FULL
More than a grave, it was a spectacular funerary monument on an epic scale: a 27m (88.6ft) long ship with a burial chamber full of dazzling riches.Īs Basil and a team of archaeologists dug deeper, they unearthed fine feasting vessels, deluxe hanging bowls, silverware from distant Byzantium, luxurious textiles, gold dress accessories set with Sri Lankan garnets and the iconic helmet with human mask. Amateur archaeologist Basil Brown famously made the discovery of a lifetime back in 1939, when he brushed away the Suffolk soil and revealed the richest intact early medieval grave in Europe.
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