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National Geographic : 1941 Feb
Contents
Ancestor of the British England's Oldest Known War Vessel Is Unearthed, Laden with Remarkable Treasures of an Anglo-Saxon Ruler BY C. W. PHILLIPS Selwyn College, Cambridge; Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries TALES of buried treasure have a power ful fascination but are seldom true. Rarely is the world granted the thrill that comes from the finding of the riches of the past in great profusion, untouched by the hand of the spoiler, and still more uncommon is it when such a find can be related to known facts or used to throw light on one of his tory's dark places. Gold has a fearful power and finders of treasure in the past have often kept their secret, so that the archeologist is left sadly to imagine the many marvelous objects which must, by devious ways, have reached the base level of the melting pot. New Light on England's History The two months which preceded the out break of the present war saw a find unparal leled in the British Isles and not easy to sur pass in the whole of Europe. This was the Sutton Hoo ship burial, the almost certain monument of one of the earliest English over lords of southern Britain. Its discovery will compel a reconsideration of the whole back ground against which the founders of the English people lived and died. The scene of the find was the pleasant heathland of East Suffolk, where miles of sandy, bracken-covered wastes run down to the sea, and small rivers merge gently into quiet tidal estuaries past sleepy country towns and villages. This land, little touched by modern change, is a favorite haunt of yachtsmen and artists. Near by are landscapes immortalized by John Constable, and in Woodbridge, just across the water from the site of the find, Edward Fitzgerald ended his days. It was here that East Anglia, one of the earliest of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, had its center, and it is with the greatest early king of this land that we have to do. Woodbridge stands at the head of the es tuary of the little River Deben, which flows into the sea nine miles away at Bawdsey. The river fills and empties with the tides, and the harbor, always full of small boats, was a most convenient place for the shipping of ancient folk (page 250). East of the town, on the opposite side of the river, the ground rises steeply to an es carpment one hundred feet above the water, a marked feature in this land of gentle con tours and moderate heights. On the edge of this ridge, which bounds the wide heath stretching eastward to the sea, stand a number of mounds called "Sutton Mounts," and the place has the general name of Sutton Hoo, meaning the "high place of Sutton Parish." The property is owned by Mrs. E. M. Pretty, whose interest had long been aroused by the mounds. It is normal in England for round mounds of this type, standing on hilltops and in deso late places, to be the burial places of folk of the Bronze Age, who lived between 1800 and 800 B.c., and there was no obvious reason why Sutton Mounts should be an exception to this steady rule except that one of the mounds was of unusual size and form. One end had been dug into by farmers, but it was clear that this had been an oval mound of lofty profile, not less than 100 feet long, 70 feet wide, and 12 feet high. This type is abnormal and might by itself have suggested that the group did not belong to the Bronze Age. Learning the Secrets of the Mounds No tradition seems to have attached to the place, and until 1881 plowing was carried on so close to its western side on the edge of the escarpment that several more mounds, none of them very high, may have been removed. A fine gold disk brooch, identical in style with the Sutton Hoo treasure, was found by a plowman hereabouts in 1810. Mrs. Pretty decided to probe the secrets of the mounds in 1938 and, in consultation with the neighboring Ipswich Museum, placed the work in the charge of Mr. Basil Brown. In that year three mounds were opened. Two proved to be graves of early Anglo-Saxon date. The third was empty. The largest of the three covered the burial of a small clinker built boat, 18 feet long, which had contained a cremated burial disturbed by tomb robbers. It became apparent that the group of mounds must be attributed to the pagan Anglo- Navy
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