Sutton Hoo

Anglo-Saxon

Ship-Burial Site

Anglo-Saxon cemeteries of the 6th and early 7th

centuries • Sutton Hoo is near Woodbridge in

Suffolk

• Sutton Hoo is the name of an area spread along the bluffs on the eastern bank of the River Deben opposite the harbour of Woodbridge

• The word "hoo" means "spur of a hill."

• It consists of a group of around 20 earthen burial mounds

• The rivers of the area formed paths of entry to East Anglia during the continental migrations to Britain of the 5th and 6th centuries, following the end of Roman imperial rule, and their control was important both in Roman and Anglo-Saxon times.

• It was excavated in 1939, the finding, so evocative and illuminating of the origins of the English nation, was made on the very eve of the Second World War

• It is of a primary importance to early medieval historians because it sheds light on a period of English history which is on the margin between myth, legend and historical documentation

• It is central to understanding of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of East Anglia and of the period in a wider

perspective. • This burial site had escaped from

being totally plundered, a fact that was another of the wonderful coincidences of the Sutton Hoo legend.

• The treasure was buried on the property of Mrs Edit May Pretty

• She decided to bequeath the treasure as a gift to the whole nation, so that the meaning and excitement of her discovery could be shared by everyone.

• The Sutton Hoo area has been a rich source of Roman archeological findings

• Within thirty years after the use of the Sutton Hoo cemetery culminated in the ship-burial, an important early monastery was founded by royal grant

• By the early tenth century the entire region was part of an early administrative region or regio known as the "Wicklaw'.

• This was no general burying-ground, but was reserved for a select group of individuals buried with objects denoting unusual wealth or prestige.

• Most had been cremated, and each barrow was raised to commemorate one particular person.

• It was used in this way for about 50–60 years during the last quarter of the sixth and the first quarter of the 7th centuries.

• Most of the barrows include ashes of a man and a horse

• Some of the buried died in battle (warriors), others were executed (servants, sacrifices)

• objects imported from the eastern Mediterranean area

• Bronze ewer (vizeskanna)

• Bowls

• Iron cups

• Ivory boxes

• Gaming-pieces

• Drinking vessels

• Belt-buckels (övcsat)

• Leather bags

• Chatelaine (övlánc)

• Pattern welded swords

• Shields

• Cauldrons(üst)

• Animal ribs , remains of food offerings

• Bronze brooches

• Dress fasteners

• Fragments of embroidered cloth

• English bue glass cups

• Shoulder-clasps (válpánt)

• Shields and shield-fittings

• Drinking horns and mounts

• Helmets

• Silver spoonsleather shoes

• Cushion/pillos stuffed with feathers

• Maplewood cups

The mounds furthermore contained

Illustrations of some of the findings

• Inhumation graves containing a man and horse together, signifying an equestrian role, are known from England and Germanic Europe

• Mound 7 was the remains of a grand cremation, in which horse, cattle, red deer, sheep and pig had been burnt with the deceased

• Although the material evidences reveal that rituals were not identical in all of the sites, the association of these objects and the ship in the grave shows an immediate connection between them

The Ship-burial site

• Although practically none of the original timber survived, the excavated form of the ship in Mound 1 presented a very perfect image

• A stain in the sand had replaced the wood but had preserved many details of the construction, and nearly all of the iron planking rivets remained in their original places.

• The ship was about 27 m long, widening to about 4.4 m in the beam with an inboard depth of about 1.5 m.

• It had been a seagoing craft of excellent craftsmanship

Who was in the ship?

• This question is unanswerable• But given…

– the exceptionally high quality of the materials (imported and commissioned) and the resources needed to assemble them

– the imperial authority which the gold body equipment was intended to convey

– the community involvement required in this unusual ritual at a cemetery reserved for an elite

– the nearness of Sutton Hoo to a near-contemporary centre of royal power at Rendlesham

– and the probable date-horizons

the identification with Raedwald (Riler of East Anglia from c 600 AD until his death in c 624 AD. ) still has widespread popular acceptance.

Origins of the precious burial ornature

• The findings are very similar to Swedish examples, but are of superior quality

• The gold and garnet objects found in the upper body space are among the true wonders of Sutton Hoo.

• Precious metal objects are the works of a master-goldsmith of his age who had access to an East Anglian armoury containing the objects used as pattern sources.

• In some graves there were coins places in a purse. Possibly like the Roman obolus they were to pay the forty ghostly oarsmen in the afterworld, or were a funeral tribute, or an expression of allegiance.

• In one of the graves a silver dish probably of Italian origin was found, with the relief image of a female head in late Roman style worked into the bowl

• There were also exotic coloured hangings or spreads, including some (possibly imported) woven in patterns using a Syrian technique

• From the gathering together of such possessions, and the combination or transformation of their themes and techniques in new productions, the

synthesis of Insular art emerges. Drawing on Irish, Pictish, Anglo-Saxon, native

British and Mediterranean artistic sources, Insular art is a fusion more complex than the purely Anglo-Irish expressed by the

term "Hiberno-Saxon" art.

Sandinavian connections• It is debated whether the custom of furnished burial was explicitly

pagan, or whether it was reaching a natural culmination when Christianity began to make its mark

• Beowulf, the great surviving example of heroic Old English poetry, describes funerals that are similar to the Sutton hoo one

• Beowulf is a work of heroic lore, not a scholarly history. However, the real eastern Swedish connections of the Sutton Hoo material reinforce this link

• The selection and arrangement of goods in these graves come to suggest that the Scandinavian connections of the Sutton Hoo ship-burial is more direct than the general overlap between English and north continental art of the period

• A possible explanation for these Swedish connections lies in the well-attested northern custom by which the children of leading men were often brought up not at home, but by some distinguished friend or relative

And a proof

• Above you see a helmet of a warrior found in Sutton Hoo

• Below is a Vendel era helmet from Sweden

And another one• Shield from Sutton Hoo

with shield fitting reassembled

• Vendel era shiled from Sweden directly comparable to the British finding

The treasure from the Sutton Hoo ship-burial site is exhibited in…

• The British Museum in London

• The Ipswich Museum, Suffolk, in an Anglo-Saxon Gallery

• The Sutton Hoo House (now Tranmer House)

• The National Trust visitor centre near the Sutton Hoo cemetery