Interpreting the Visual Evidence
The Ship Burial of Sutton Hoo
The two most impressive
finds in the history
of British archeology
have been made by
amateurs. The most
recent, in the summer of 2009, was the
largest hoard of worked gold and silver
ever found in one place (more than
5 kilograms of gold and 2.5 kilograms
of silver; image A), discovered by a
man in Staffordshire walking over a
neighbor's farm with a metal detector.
The hoard's extraordinary value and
range of artifactsand their historical
implicationscan only be guessed at
now; even the dating is inconclusive.
The other find, made in 1939, was a
royal gravesite dating from the seventh
century (image B), which many scholars
believe to be the tomb of King Redwald
of East Anglia, described by Bede as a
baptized Christian who refused to give
up the worship of his ancestral gods.
The king's body was placed in a wooden
structure in the middle of a 90-footlong
ship that had been dragged to the
top of a bluff (a hoo), eleven miles from
the English Channel. The ladder in the
photo graph of the original excavation
reaches into the burial chamber.
The contents of the grave included:
- a lamp and a bronze bucket that had
been suspended from a chain
- a ceremonial helmet (image C) modeled
on those worn by Roman cavalry officers just before the withdrawal of
the legions from Britain in 410but
decorated like helmets found in eastern
Sweden
- a sword and a large, circular shield, resembling
those found in Swedish burial
sites
- exquisitely crafted belt buckles and
shoulder clasps (image D), made of gold
and garnet, and worked with designs.
- a pair of silver spoons with long handles,
possibly crafted in Byzantium,
and inscribed in Greek with the names
PAULOS and SAULOS (Paul and Saul)
- a large silver dish (72 cm in diameter)
made in Byzantium between 491 and
518
- a bronze bowl from the eastern Mediterranean
- a six-stringed lyre in a bag made of
beaver skin, similar to lyres found in
Germany
- a purse containing 37 gold coins, each
from a different Merovingian mint, the
most recent datable to the 620s
- heaps of armor, blankets, cloaks, and
other gear.
Images
Questions for Analysis
1. fiogf49gjkf0d fiogf49gjkf0d What do these artifacts, and the context
in which they were found, reveal
about the extent of Anglo-Saxon contact
with the rest of the world? Which
regions are represented, and why? |
|
2. fiogf49gjkf0d fiogf49gjkf0d Based on this evidence, what conclusions
can you draw about Anglo-
Saxon culture and values? |
|
3. fiogf49gjkf0d fiogf49gjkf0d Do any of these grave-goods indicate
that the occupant was a Christian
king? Why or why not? |
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