Sutton Hoo is the site of two Anglo-Saxon cemeteries dating from the 6th to 7th centuries near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England. Archaeologists have excavated the site since the discovery of a previously undisturbed ship burial containing a wealth of artifacts in 1938. Sutton Hoo illuminates the culture of the Anglo-Saxons during a period that lacks historical documentation.
Burial ship (Sutton Hoo ship)
Although practically none of the original timber survived, the form of the ship was perfectly preserved. Stains in the sand had replaced the wood but had preserved many construction details. Nearly all of the iron planking rivets were in their original places. It was possible to survey the original ship, which was found to be 27 metres (89 ft) long, pointed at either end with tall rising stem and stern posts and widening to 4.4 metres (14 ft) in the beam amidships with an inboard depth of 1.5 metres (4 ft 11 in) over the keel line.
From the keel board, the hull was constructed clinker-fashion with nine planks on either side, fastened with rivets. Twenty-six wooden ribs strengthened the form. Repairs were visible: this had been a seagoing vessel of excellent craftsmanship, but there was no descending keel. The decking, benches and mast were removed. In the fore and aft sections along the gunwales, there were oar-rests shaped like the Old English letter "thorn", indicating that there may have been positions for forty oarsmen. The central chamber had timber walls at either end and a roof, which was probably pitched.
The objects in the burial chamber
David M. Wilson has remarked that the metal artworks found in the Sutton Hoo graves were "work of the highest quality, not only in English but in European terms". Sutton Hoo is a cornerstone of the study of art in Britain in the 6th–9th centuries. George D. S. Henderson has described the ship treasures as "the first proven hothouse for the incubation of the Insular style". The gold and garnet fittings show the creative fusion of earlier techniques and motifs by a master goldsmith. Insular art drew upon Irish, Pictish, Anglo-Saxon, native British and Mediterranean artistic sources: the 7th-century Book of Durrow owes as much to Pictish sculpture, British millefiori and enamelwork and Anglo-Saxon cloisonné metalwork as it does to Irish art. The Sutton Hoo treasures represent a continuum from pre-Christian royal accumulation of precious objects from diverse cultural sources, through to the art of gospel books, shrines and liturgical or dynastic objects.
The mound was found to contain a uniquely rich Anglo-Saxon ship-burial in the centre of which was a chamber containing grave goods including jewellery, silver bowls, drinking vessels, clothing and weaponry. In 2016, researchers at the British Museum found that lumps of bitumen or tar found in Mound 1 closely chemically matched examples from the area now in modern-day Syria. It is not clear what the tar was used for: "embalming, medicine and... water-proofing" are all possibilities.
Basil Brown and Charles Phillips: 1938–1939
In 1937, Pretty decided to organise an excavation of the mounds. Through the Ipswich Museum, she obtained the services of Basil Brown, a self-taught Suffolk archaeologist who had taken up full-time investigations of Roman sites for the museum. In June 1938, Pretty took him to the site, offered him accommodation and a wage of 30 shillings a week, and suggested that he start digging at Mound 1.
Because it had been disturbed by earlier grave diggers, Brown, in consultation with the Ipswich Museum, decided instead to open three smaller mounds (2, 3 and 4). These only revealed fragmented artefacts, as the mounds had been robbed of valuable items. In Mound 2 he found iron ship-rivets and a disturbed chamber burial that contained unusual fragments of metal and glass artefacts. At first, it was undecided as to whether they were Early Anglo-Saxon or Viking objects. The Ipswich Museum then became involved with the excavations; the finds became part of the museum's collection.