by It is a cold afternoon among the dying embers of November, and the Suffolk countryside is beginning to embrace winter. The paths that cross the gentle slopes of Sutton Hoo are wet underfoot, their stony surfaces made uselessly slippery by a combination of autumn leaf mulch and the general humidity of the air.
There is even a blanket of mist that lingers close to the grass, beyond the mounds of the Royal Cemetery, where the earth slides between the trees to the wide bend of the River Deben. And the pale light of the New Year’s day plays its part, bending down through the increasingly bare branches.
I squint and, with the angle of the sun, have a, putting my hand to my face, and you might think you’re in a different moment. If it weren’t for the hum of a tractor on the farm next door, it could easily be the 7th century… and all quiet on the East Anglian front.
In fact, it’s so quiet that I have the place to myself. Almost. Apart from a retired couple walking their dog through this perfectly pastoral landscape, there is no one else here. A truly remarkable situation. Because there is an increasingly strong argument that Sutton Hoo is the most important ancient site in Britain; a crucial portion of the past that tells a vivid story of our country, shining a torch into the undocumented darkness of the supposed Middle Ages.
It is a story – of Anglo-Saxon warlords forging new kingdoms on the fringes of a changing Europe – that continues to unfold. This summer, an archaeological dig in nearby Rendlesham uncovered something surprising: the supposed remains of a temple used by the kings of East Anglia.
It is believed that this tirelessly beautiful town was his seat of power. Sutton Hoo, just four miles south-west on the A1152, was his burial ground. An important chapter in the history of the Dark Ages shines to light.
“[The site] “It is similar to buildings in other parts of England that are considered temples or houses of worship,” Professor Christopher Scull of University College London told The Telegraph last month. “It is possible that the first kings of the eastern angles used it for pre-Christian worship. The results of these excavations at Rendlesham speak vividly of the power and wealth of the East Anglian kings and the sophistication of the society they ruled.”
Of course, this is not the first time a discovery here has generated excitement. Sutton Hoo originally made headlines in the summer of 1938, when the site’s owner, the recently widowed Magistrate Edith Pretty, called local amateur archaeologist Basil Brown to see if he could solve the riddle of the giant earthen mounds at the south end of your property.
It did not take long for Brown to establish that the largest of these artificial mounds contained the metallic remains of what had once been a large seagoing ship. A ship that a careful estimate gave a length of 89 feet (27 m). A ship in which a king had been buried.
The events of that very English excavation (more senior figures from Ipswich Museum, Cambridge University and the British Museum would soon be involved, before the Second World War was interrupted) are a story enough in themselves. So much so that, in 2021, it was made into a film, The Dig, with Ralph Fiennes as Basil Brown and Carey Mulligan infusing emotion into the sad story of Edith Pretty, who would die just four years later.
But the larger narrative is one that had remained hidden – at the time – for 1,300 years. And, approaching him on those slippery November paths, I can see him without difficulty.
Although the Royal Cemetery has, to some extent, reverted to nature since those various excavations (it stretches out behind a small fence like some kind of overgrown grass), its shape and scale are immediately evident to the naked eye. It is Mound Two that you encounter first: a large rise of land that tells you that you have reached the cemetery.
There are 18 such lumps in total, including the most important, Mound One, which lies a little further back. It is best viewed via the 81-step climb to the top of the observation tower which rises at the south end of the property, a clever addition to the Sutton Hoo site which was installed in 2021.
From up here, the image is even clearer. To date, only three Anglo-Saxon ship burials have been discovered in the UK. All three have been found in Suffolk. The first emerged through an excavation at Snape Common, near Aldeburgh, in 1862. The other two are directly below you, in the two largest mounds at Sutton Hoo.
From the viewpoint you can see the effort that must have been involved. Behind the tower is the slope, the land descends towards the Deben. The ships would have had to be dragged (with ropes, hands and sinew) along that same river bank, the warriors doing their duty, neck veins bulging and sweat dripping on Anglo-Saxon eyebrows.
It would also have been a great honor. Particularly in the case of Mound One. There is no exact evidence of the identity of the king who was buried here: the acidic soil of Suffolk had devoured his mortal remains centuries before Basil Brown broke into his tomb.
But analysis of coins found within the ship’s outline has narrowed the burial to a time period of 610-635 AD, while the wealth of artifacts found elsewhere in the mound – and the wealth and power (to echo from Professor Scull) to suggest – point to a man: Raedwald of East Anglia.
Here was a ruler to whom wealth and power clung. Although it was written more than 200 years after his reign, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle – one of the main sources on events in medieval Britain – calls it a Bretwalda; a “King of Great Britain.” This is supported by the works of the Venerable Bede, the historian monk who lived (672-735) much closer to Raedwald’s time, and wrote of the East Anglian monarch’s triumph at the Battle of the River Idle (present day). . Nottinghamshire) around the year 617.
This was a seismic fight; a victory over Aethelfrith of Northumbria. And while this came at a personal cost to Raedwald (his son Raegenhere was killed that day), East Anglian was able to seize the lands belonging to the Northumbrian crown and place his vassal Edwin on the throne.
Bede gives us further information: that Raedwald ruled East Anglia between (approximately) 599 and his death in 624; that he was the first East Anglian king to convert to Christianity, probably in 605. But his supposed tomb adds color and shadow to the words on the page.
The bronze helmet found in fragments next to where the body would have been (now carefully reconstructed and displayed in the British Museum) is an artefact of immeasurable value. He sings of expert craftsmanship in a period when Britain is supposed to have moved away from the high standards of the Roman centuries; partly a pragmatic piece of armor that would have offered royal protection during combat, partly a quasi-crown decorated with dragon motifs, the ornament of which was designed to show the royal status of its wearer.
He was not alone in the grave either. There was a sword, with its stamped blade still in its sheath. There was a gold buckle of astonishing complexity and a money bag cover of similar hand-forged marvel. And there were items that spoke of deep-rooted trade ties: a set of 10 silver bowls from the Byzantine Empire, on the other side of the Mediterranean; a pair of silver spoons from the same region.
More precious pieces were unearthed in 2000, when early preparation work for the new visitor center revealed a second cemetery, where a 6th-century bronze drinking vessel was found, adorned with Syrian or Nubian friezes of warriors. naked in battle. A message written in ancient Greek reads: “Use this in good health, Master Earl, for many happy years.”
The dead, it seems, can speak in what they left behind. And in Sutton Hoo they speak of a Britain of the Middle Ages, not isolated from the world on its own stagnant island, but open to continental Europe and the Middle East; connected and in conversation with both.
Indeed, it is no exaggeration to describe the Sutton Hoo mounds as “the pyramids of Britain”; tombs that have filled gaps in our knowledge, long, long after the powerful men (and, in the case of Mound 14, the women) who were buried within them had been lost to memory.
So, with new archaeological finds at Rendlesham, has Sutton Hoo eclipsed Stonehenge to become Britain’s most important ancient site? Maybe. And maybe not. It depends, on the one hand, on how “old” is defined. Sutton Hoo, which reached its peak more than a century after the fall of Rome, is situated on the outer edge of the terminus; The noble blocks of Stonehenge, which (probably) were piled up on Salisbury Plain sometime between 2600 and 2400 BC. C., are clearly prehistoric.
One could argue that even comparing the two is a case of apples and oranges; that a lapse of three millennia renders such discussions useless. But while Wiltshire’s key landmark is blighted by overtourism and traffic noise on the A303 just yards away, Sutton Hoo retains an air of mystery, while revealing more and more secrets.
What will come next? Future research will surely shed light on whether the Rendlesham site is the bet-hedging temple of Raedwald – with altars to both the old pagan gods and the “new” Christian god – as described by Bede. And there is no proper answer as to who lay on Mound Two (Raedwald’s son, killed in battle, Raegenhere, is a possibility). But whatever the Suffolk land throws up next, the story will continue, a distant era filtering into our own.
Essentials
Tickets for Sutton Hoo (01394 389 700) cost from £15 per adult. Museums are only open on weekends in winter; the entire site is open all year round.
