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Sutton Hoo published: a review
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2008
Extract
The discovery of the Sutton Hoo ship-burial in the summer of 1939 opened a window on the early Anglo-Saxon world through which we have all since been looking. But the view has inevitably been blurred until now, lacking the precise definition which only the publication of the definitive study could provide. The first of the four volumes of this most eagerly awaited and often anticipated account has now appeared: it is an offering worthy of its subject, comprehensive, generous in detail, splendidly produced.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977
References
page 249 note 1 Rupert, Bruce-Mitford et al. , The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial, I: Excavations, Background, the Ship, Dating and Inventory, British Museum Publications (London, 1975)Google Scholar, £45.00. The book contains 822 pages, 440 illustrations in the text, 13 colour plates, 16 fold-outs, 84 half-tones of coins, 37 tables and a map pocket, and has been printed at Cambridge by the University Printer.
page 251 note 1 Methods of Chemical and Metallurgical Investigation of Ancient Coinage, ed. Hall, E. T. and Metcalf, D. M., Numismatic, R. Soc. Special Publ. 8 (London, 1972), 69–125.Google Scholar
page 253 note 1 Rigold, S. E., ‘The Two Primary Series of Sceattas: Addenda and Corrigenda’, BNJ 35 (1966), 1–6.Google Scholar
page 253 note 2 Lyon, C. S. S., ‘Analysis of the Material’, The Lincoln Mint, c. 890–1279, ed. Mossop, H. R. (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1970), pp. 11–19.Google Scholar
page 254 note 1 But see Kent's precise wording quoted above, p. 252.
page 255 note 1 Kaske, R. E., The Silver Spoons of Sutton Hoo, Speculum 42 (1967), 670–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Bruce-Mitford's comments on this point are curious. Accepting the possibility of Kaske's suggestion he adds, ‘there seems no particular point in including two spoons with the name Paul, and indeed the possessing of two such spoons would be surprising in an early Anglo-Saxon seventh-century semi-pagan milieu. The “uneducated copy” could still have been read as Saulos … and the antithesis with Paulos could still have been intended by those who arranged the burial’. In Kaske's suggestion, however, it was an Anglo-Saxon who produced the ‘uneducated copy’, apparently for an Anglo-Saxon patron; if you accept it, you accept without surprise the possibility of an early Anglo-Saxon possessing two such spoons. To an illiterate the inscription would be non-significant, simply part of the design, and the two spoons could be included in the burial, because the dead man's treasure included two spoons. Moreover, Bruce-Mitford's argument requires a double error, first by the craftsman copying wrongly, and secondly by someone reading wrongly. He may be right, but there is no certainty that he is. It is then interesting to note that the first of his reasons for regarding the silver bowls as significantly Christian is that they were found alongside the spoons. His second compares them with treasures found as far afield as Cyprus and Lampsacus.
page 255 note 2 What sort of funeral, I wonder, would Anna have given Ecgric if the latter had died a pagan (a point on which we have no evidence)? Presumably not one in consecrated ground, but might he not have given an impressive burial to a prince of the blood killed defending his land? He could hardly have interred him in hugger-mugger.
page 256 note 1 The evidence here is varied, but I would have thought it pointed to a bit more than a ‘bare possibility’. In favour of a body in the ship are the high phosphate concentrations in various places; but there remain weighty arguments against, which have not entirely been removed (Phillips's second and third arguments, quoted pp. 512–21).
page 257 note 1 Phillips, C. W., ‘The Excavation of the Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial’, AntJ 20 (1940), 177.Google Scholar
page 262 note 1 Sean, McGrail and Eric, McKee, The Building and Trials of the Replica of an Ancient Boat: The Faering, National Maritime Museum Monographs and Reports II (London, 1974).Google Scholar
page 263 note 1 Attorney-General v. Moore, L. R., [1893] 1 Ch., 676, 684.Google Scholar
page 263 note 2 Commentaries, bk 1, ch. 8, p. 285.
page 263 note 3 Institutes, pt 3, ch. 58, p. 132.