It’s a cold afternoon in the dying embers of November and the Suffolk countryside is beginning to embrace winter. The paths through the gentle slopes of Sutton Hoo are wet underfoot, their stony surfaces rendered useless by the autumn leaf cover and the general humidity of the air.
There’s even a veil of mist close to the grass beyond the mounds of the Royal Cemetery, where the land slips through the trees towards the broad bend of the Deben River. And the pallor of year-end sunlight plays its part, bending downward through the increasingly bare branches.
Surprise – and me with the angle of the sun have You can think of yourself in a different time by holding my hand to your face. But apart from the low growl of the tractor on the farm next door, this could easily be the seventh century and all would be quiet on the East Anglia front.
In fact, it’s so quiet that I have the place to myself. Almost. There is no one here except a retired couple walking their dog in this perfect idyllic landscape. It is truly an extraordinary situation. Because there is a growing claim that Sutton Hoo is Britain’s most important ancient site; It is a crucial piece of the past, telling a living story of our country, holding a torch to the undocumented gloom of the so-called Dark Ages.
This is a story that continues to unfold, of Anglo-Saxon warlords establishing new kingdoms on the far edges of a changing Europe. But an archaeological dig at nearby Rendlesham this summer uncovered something surprising: the supposed ruins of a temple used by the kings of East Anglia.
This tirelessly beautiful village is thought to be their center of power. Sutton Hoo, just four miles south-west of the A1152, was their cemetery. An important part of the history of the Dark Ages is coming to light.
“[The site] “It resembles buildings seen as temples or cult houses elsewhere in England,” Professor Christopher Scull, of University College London, told The Telegraph last month. “It may have been used for pre-Christian worship by the first kings of the East Angles. The results of these excavations at Rendlesham vividly reveal the power and wealth of the East Anglia kings and the complexity of the society they ruled.”
Of course, this isn’t the first discovery to cause excitement here. Sutton Hoo first hit the headlines in the summer of 1938, when the site’s owner – recently widowed judge Edith Pretty – called local amateur archaeologist Basil Brown to see if he could solve the riddle of the giant earthen mounds at its south end. his property.
It didn’t take long for Brown to determine that the largest of these artificial mounds contained the metal remains of what had once been a sizable naval ship. A ship whose length, at a careful estimate, is given as 89 ft (27 m). A ship in which a king was buried.
What happened on this British dig – soon to be joined by more senior figures from Ipswich Museum, Cambridge University and the British Museum before the Second World War interrupted it – is story enough in itself. So much so that it was turned into a movie called The Dig in 2021, starring Ralph Fiennes as Basil Brown and Carey Mulligan adding emotion to the sad story of Edith Pretty, who would die only four years later.
But the larger narrative is one that had remained hidden for 1,300 years at that point. And as I approach him down those slippery November trails, I can barely see him.
Although the Royal Cemetery has been returned to nature to some extent since various excavations – it spreads out like a sort of unkempt pasture behind a small hedge – its shape and scale are immediately apparent to the naked eye. The first you encounter is Mound Two; a large earthen swelling that tells you that you have reached the cemetery.
There are 18 such stacks in total; Including the most important of these, the First Mound, which waits a little further behind. It is best viewed by climbing the 81 steps to the top of the observation tower that rises at the far southern corner of the property; This is a clever addition to the Sutton Hoo area, established in 2021.
The picture is even clearer when viewed from here. To date, only three Anglo-Saxon ship graves have been unearthed in the UK. All three were found in Suffolk. The first was discovered in 1862 during an excavation at Snape Common, near Aldeburgh. The other two are directly below you, on the two largest mounds of Sutton Hoo.
From the observation deck, you can appreciate the effort put in. Behind the tower there is a slope, land descending towards Deben. While the warriors did their duty, the veins in their necks swollen, their Anglo-Saxon brows dripping with sweat, the boats had to be pulled to the same riverbank by rope, by hand and by nerves.
It would also be a great honor. Especially in the case of the First Mound. There is no definitive evidence of the identity of the king buried here; The acidic Suffolk soil had swallowed Basil Brown’s remains centuries before he entered his grave.
However, analysis of coins found on the ship’s outline narrows the tomb to 610-635 AD; the wealth of artefacts found elsewhere in the mound, and (to echo Professor Scull) wealth and power. suggest – point to a man: Raedwald from East Anglia.
Here was a ruler who valued wealth and power. Although written 200 years after his reign, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, one of the main sources for the events of the Dark Age of Britain, describes him as a bretwalda; a “King of England”. This is supported by the work of the monk-historian Venerable Bede, who lived much closer to Raedwald’s time (672-735) and wrote about the East Anglican monarch’s victory at the Battle of the River Idle (as it is now called). Nottinghamshire) around 617.
This was a seismic struggle; A victory over Aethelfrith of Northumbria. And although this came at a personal cost to Raedwald (his son Raegenhere was killed that day), the East Anglian managed to seize lands belonging to the Northumbrian crown and place his vassal Edwin on the throne.
Bede gives us more information: Raedwald ruled East Anglia between (roughly) 599 and his death in 624; It says he was the first East Anglia king to convert to Christianity, probably in 605. However, it adds color and shadow to the words on the page of his alleged tomb.
The bronze helmet found in pieces near where the body was found (now carefully reconstructed and on display in the British Museum) is an artifact of immeasurable value. It sings of skilled craftsmanship at a time when Britain had moved away from the high standards of the Roman centuries; Part pragmatic piece of armor to provide real protection in battle, part embellished half-crown with a dragon motif, designed to show off the royal status of its wearer.
He was not alone in the grave either. There was a sword, its patterned blade still in its sheath. There was a surprisingly intricate gold clasp and a similar hand-forged purse lid for a coin purse. And there were items that spoke of deep-rooted trade connections: a set of 10 silver bowls from the Byzantine Empire on the far side of the Mediterranean; a pair of silver spoons from the same area.
More valuable pieces were uncovered in 2000 when initial preparatory work for the new visitor center revealed a second burial site; a sixth-century bronze drinking vessel decorated with Syrian or Nubian friezes of naked warriors in battle was found here. On it is written a message in ancient Greek: “Use this well, Master Count, many happy birthdays.”
Apparently the dead can talk to those they left behind. And in Sutton Hoo they talk about a Dark Age Britain that was not closed off to the world on its own backwater island, but open to mainland Europe and the Middle East; committed to both and in ready conversation with both.
In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to describe the Sutton Hoo mounds as the “Pyramids of England”; The tombs that fill the gaps in our knowledge are long after the powerful men and, in the case of Mound 14, the women buried within them have faded from memory.
Has Sutton Hoo eclipsed Stonehenge to become Britain’s most important ancient site, with new archaeological findings on the Rendlesham road? Maybe. Maybe not. This depends primarily on how you define “antique.” Sutton Hoo, at its peak a century after the fall of Rome, lies at the outer edge of this term; The noble blocks of Stonehenge, stacked (probably) on top of each other on Salisbury Plain between 2600 and 2400 BC, are clearly prehistoric.
You could argue that even comparing the two is an apples and oranges situation; that a gap of three thousand years makes such discussions worthless. But with Wiltshire’s landmark spoiled by overtourism and the noise of A303 traffic just yards away, Sutton Hoo retains an air of mystery while increasingly revealing more of its secrets.
What will come next? Further research will shed light on whether the Rendlesham site was Raedwald’s betting sanctuary – with altars to both old pagan gods and “new” Christian gods – as Bede described it. And there is no definitive answer as to who lies in the Second Mound (Raedwald’s son Raegenhere, who died in the battle, is one possibility). But no matter how much Suffolk throws away the soil from now on, the story will continue, a distant era will seep into ours.
Fundamentals
Tickets to Sutton Hoo (01394 389 700) cost £15 per adult. Museums are only open on weekends in winter; The entire site is open year-round.