The Sutton Hoo ship burial: A handbook

The Sutton Hoo ship burial excavated near Woodbridge, Suffolk, in 1939, is the most important and richest single archaeological discover every made in the British Isles. It was probably the funeral monument of Raedwald, King of the East Angles, who died in AD 624/5, and it is the first known monument to an English King. Every since the discovery was made in the months immediately proceeding the outbreak of the Second World War, it has been recognized as a fine of the highest historical, archaeological and art-historical value. The treasure contained in the ship-burial included Byzantine silver, Celtic hanging-bowls, a helmet and shield of Swedish type, locally made Germanic gold jewelry that is the finest of its era, and a purse of Merovingian gold coins, an essential clue to the dating of the ship-burial. The implications of the power and the wide reach of trade in these objects gathered together on a Suffolk heath are enormous, and the literature describing them in their social and historical context, and shows the latest reconstruction of the most complex objects after years of research. It opens a window on the fascinating world ruled by the only East Anglian King to be called bretwalda -the high-king-with power over other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.