|
Martin
Carver.
Sutton
Hoo: A Seventh-Century Princely Burial Ground and its Context.
British
Museum Press, 2005.
672p,
16p col illus, 124 b/w illus.
Publisher's
recommended price
Hardback
ISBN 0714123226, £95.00
Sutton Hoo is one of the
most famous archaeological sites in the world. In 1939 it was the scene
of the discovery of a fabulous treasure buried in a ship 30 metres
long. In 1983 a new project began with the aim of discovering the
context of the great Sutton Hoo burial ship. Using revolutionary
fieldwork procedures, this new campaign uncovered a hectare of the
cemetery, surveyed the surrounding region and made direct comparisons
with monumental practices in neighbouring kingdoms across the North
Sea. It was found that the burials were highly diverse - cremations in
bronze bowls, with a horse, in a bed, and in boats and ships - and that
many had been ransacked. Among the new finds were a new ship-burial and
the first complete horse-burial, with its harness, to be excavated in
England. From the eighth to tenth century, this 'burial ground of
kings' became an execution site, allowing the new Christian authorities
to exercise power through the public disposal of dissidents. Two groups
of unfurnished burials were discovered, one associated with the posts
of a gallows or gibbet. Sutton Hoo: A Seventh-Century Princely Burial
Ground and its Context offers a description of all the investigations
undertaken since 1983. The early medieval artefacts, the early medieval
landscape and the environmental and prehistoric sequences are studied
by contributing experts. The book provides a complete scholarly
companion to the archaeological research and interpretation of Sutton
Hoo.
|
|