The discovery of a 1,400-year-old die-stamp in Kent, bearing imagery strikingly similar to one of the motifs on the Sutton Hoo helmet, raises intriguing questions about whether elite armour like this – often interpreted as a Scandinavian import – could have been made in Anglo-Saxon England. Carly Hilts reports.
• Rendlesham rediscovered: landscapes of power in early medieval East Anglia
• People of the past: Scotland’s archaeological human remains
• Rediscovering the many lives of the Woolwich Rotunda
• Exploring intertidal and inland sites with the Nautical Archaeology Society
• Must Farm Bronze Age boats at Flag Fen Archaeology Park
Following the discovery of more pieces of the Bromeswell Bucket at Sutton Hoo last year (see CA 414), the fragments have now been micro-excavated, revealing its intact base along with the cremated remains of both human and animal bones. The…
Time Team at Sutton Hoo Following a successful return to Sutton Hoo this summer, Time Team have again joined forces with the National Trust and will carry out another investigation in Garden Field in 2025. Working in partnership with the…
REVIEW BY CH The latest issue of Ash-sharq includes a particularly thought-provoking contribution by Dr St John Simpson, senior curator in the British Museum’s Department of the Middle East, which focuses on artefacts from Anglo-Saxon England. Among the lavish grave…
A new exhibition running at the British Museum explores the vast network of cultural and commercial connections that spanned Europe, Africa, and Asia in AD 500-1000. Carly Hilts visited to learn how diverse ideas, materials, and people filtered along these routes to the British Isles.
The most intensive excavation to take place at Sutton Hoo in two decades has revealed new aspects of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery pre-dating the site’s famous royal burial ground, as well as recovering more pieces of the Bromeswell Bucket, an enigmatic artefact first identified in the 1980s. Carly Hilts visited the dig to learn more.
As the days get longer and the weather gets warmer, there are lots of exciting opportunities to get out and about and enjoy the UK’s archaeology, history, and heritage, ranging from festivals and conferences to exhibitions and lectures. If you would prefer to get your fill of archaeological activities from the comfort of home instead, there is plenty to choose from as well, including digital exhibitions and virtual tours, podcasts, and games. Amy Brunskill has put together a summary of some of the options available.
A round-up of some of the latest archaeology news from around the UK.
Some of the most famous photographs of the1939 excavation of the Sutton Hoo ship burial were taken by two women, Mercie Lack and Barbara Wagstaff (see CA 374). This October, part of Mercie’s personal collection relating to the dig was…
REVIEW BY AB A hive of bees, ‘nine pair of bedde stockes’ (bed socks), ‘my worst petticoat’, and the famous Sutton Hoo treasure: these are just some of the objects left to friends, relatives, and institutions by Britain’s women over…
Join in this July with the Council for British Archaeology’s Festival of Archaeology! The theme for 2023 is ‘Archaeology and Creativity’, which will be explored online and in-person across the programme. Ceri Pennington has put together a selection of this year’s regional highlights.
An exhibition running at Sutton Hoo tells the story of nearby Rendlesham, an early medieval elite settlement whose remains have been brought to light just four miles from the famous burial ground. Carly Hilts visited to find out more.
Royal sites revealed Lying more than 275 miles apart, Rendlesham and Yeavering belong to a handful of sites named as a vicus regius or ‘royal settlement’ by the Anglo-Saxon cleric Bede. Later this month, both are set to showcase their…
The result of many years’ fieldwork by local voluntary and educational organisations came to a head there in the early 1990s, when a long-proposed bypass was constructed, destroying major elements of the Roman settlement.
The results will be shared in spring, in a new episode of Time Team that will air on the ‘Time Team Official’ YouTube Channel.
Shown here is one of Wagstaff’s images, with the ghostly outline of the ship, whose planks had eroded in the acidic soil, clearly visible. In the foreground, Basil Brown (wearing a hat) works in the ship.
It is one of hundreds of images of the investigation that are now available to browse online thanks to the conservation and digitisation efforts of the National Trust.
‘The collection is a slice of social history in documenting an excavation taking place on the eve of the Second World War'
Your views on the latest CA.
'We really need the public’s help to make the LEGO Sutton Hoo helmet an official LEGO set that anyone can buy and build.'
Sutton Hoo is best known as the location of an astonishing ‘princely’ Anglo-Saxon ship burial – but the site has compelling stories to tell about women too. Current Archaeology's Carly Hilts explores the lives of five fascinating females linked with the 7th-century site.
Welcome to The Past, the brand new website that brings together the most exciting stories and the best writing from the worlds of history, archaeology, ancient art and heritage.
The big talking point here this week has been The Dig, the new Netflix movie of the Sutton Hoo story starring Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes. Who would have predicted that a drama about the 1939 excavation of a 7th-century Anglo-Saxon burial mound would become one of the stand-out hits of lockdown? Or that it would plug so directly into modern concerns about the representation of women on screen?
At what event did Edith Pretty, Sutton Hoo’s owner, get chatting with historian Vincent Redstone, a meeting that began the chain of events which led to the site’s excavation?
As far as I am aware, The Dig is a first. I mean a film where the whole thing revolves around an archaeological dig that really happened? This is the only one, right?
This is no high-octane adventure romp, but a slow, almost meditative period piece that focuses more on the people involved in the investigation and on the looming threat of the Second World War than it does on the astonishing artefacts that were recovered from Suffolk’s sandy soil.
Netflix has just released The Dig, a major film about the Sutton Hoo excavation. Lindsay Fulcher unearths the story of how Basil Brown uncovered the splendid Anglo-Saxon ship burial and illuminated the so-called ‘Dark Ages’.
Joe Flatman re-examines half a century of reports on one of the spiritual homes of British archaeology