Sutton Hoo, Suffolk: On the trail of the Anglo-Saxons

Telegraph ^ | JUL 28, 2009 | Sophie Campbell

[decimon]

'When I visit, the surrounding meadow is shimmering with heat, as it would have been in that long hot summer before the war' Photo: JOHN ROBERTSON

The sherry party that Mrs Edith Pretty threw at her home above the River Deben in Suffolk on July 25 1939 was one of those occasions that everyone remembers for the wrong reasons. The invitation, dispatched to the great and good of the locality – including the curator of the Ipswich Museum and the Lord Lieutenant of Suffolk – was to celebrate the discovery of a "Viking ship" buried on her land. Along with the sherry, there was to be a lecture by Charles Philips of Cambridge University, who was the leading archaeologist on the dig.

Unknown to Mrs Pretty, as she was assembling her guest list, the ship – hitherto a collection of iron rivets and ghostly ribs of sand – had suddenly yielded a startling secret. At the centre of its hull lay a 1,400-year-old burial chamber containing the funerary objects of a great king. There was corroded evidence of a magnificent helmet and sword; there were fragments of textiles and the remains of a beautiful lyre. There was gold, there were garnets, there was cloisonné; there was enough to keep headline writers busy for weeks. It was to be the find of the century. And the local press were about to turn up.

[decimon]

Hoo are you ping.

[sauropod]

read

[p. henry]

Yet anoher trip to add to the bucket list.

[Bernard Marx]

The Sutton Hoo collection at the British Museum is amazing! Don’t miss it.

[SunkenCiv]

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[wildbill]

Some pretty cool pics of the dig and artifacts are found here:

http://www.suttonhoo.org/gallery_detail.asp?fld_gallery_ID=3&offset=0

[decimon]

Hoo hoo. Thanks.

[blam]

I used to think I was an Anglo-Saxon but after I had my DNA analysed, I now believe I may be a Viking. (R1b, DYS390-23)

I have big teeth like them too.

[decimon]

I have big teeth like them too.

"Hey their Little Red Riding Hood..."

With the big teeth you can snarl back convincingly to your dogs.

[blam]

Where Do The Finns Come From?

"Grave findings have shown that late Palaeolithic settlers in central Europe and their Mesolithic descendants in the Scandinavian Peninsula were Europoids, who had compartively large teeth - a seemingly comical detail, but nevertheless an important factor in identifying these populations. Although it is very unlikely that the language of these settlers will ever be identified, I cannot see any grounds for the theory that either of these groups spoke Proto-Uralic"

[6323cd]

I found this article really interesting, especially in light of the death of the last British WW1 veteran.

[SunkenCiv]

I think there was an FR topic about that, recently.

[6323cd]

Right, I must have missed it.

[Bellflower]

Looks like they buried a pet, maybe a dog?