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Sutton Hoo

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Europa
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« on: May 02, 2007, 04:22:02 pm »



Mound 11 (front left), Mound 10 (foreground, masking Mound 1), Mound 2 (middle distance) and Sutton Hoo House, coachhouse and stables: looking north.

Mrs Pretty still wanted a full excavation of Mound 1 and, in May 1939, Brown began work helped by the gamekeeper and the gardener. Driving a trench from the east end they soon discovered ship-rivets in position, and the colossal size of the find began to dawn on them. After patient weeks of clearing out earth from within the ship’s hull they reached the burial chamber and realised it was undisturbed.[8] It lay beneath the exact spot where Mrs Pretty had told him to dig a year previously.

In June 1939 Charles Phillips of Cambridge University, hearing rumour of a ship discovery (the 1938 find), visited Ipswich Museum and was taken by Mr Maynard, the Curator, to the site. Staggered by what he now saw, within a short time Phillips, in discussion with the Ipswich Museum, the British Museum, the Science Museum and Office of Works undertook the excavation of the burial chamber. He assembled a team of experts including W.F. Grimes and O.G.S. Crawford (Ordnance Survey), Stuart and Peggy Piggot and others. Basil Brown continued to clear the ship.[9] Mrs Pretty sent Brown to a spiritualist meeting in Woodbridge, where the medium had an intimation of his discovery.[10]

The need for secrecy (as the wonderful finds began to appear) and various vested interests led to confrontation between Phillips and the Ipswich Museum. The museum's Honorary President, Mr Reid Moir F.R.S., had been a founder of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia in 1908, and the Curator, Mr Maynard, was its Secretary and Editor from 1921. In 1935–6 Charles Phillips and his friend (Sir) Grahame Clark had taken control of the Society. Mr Maynard then turned his attention to developing Brown’s work for the Museum. Phillips (hostile towards Moir) had now reappeared, and he deliberately excluded Moir and Maynard from the new discovery.[11]

The whole excavation was overshadowed by the imminence of war with Germany. The finds, having been packed and removed to London, were brought back for a Treasure Trove Inquest held in the autumn at Sutton village hall. Brown, who remained loyal to his employer Mrs Pretty throughout, gave his testimony with the rest, and it was decided that since the treasure was buried without the intention to recover it, it was the property of Mrs Pretty as landowner.[12]

These stories alone would have been enough to get the legend of Sutton Hoo into the history books. However, Mrs Pretty made one final decision which ensured her a special place in Britain's archaeological history. In an act of almost unrivalled generosity she decided to bequeath the treasure as a gift to the whole nation, so that the meaning and excitement of her discovery could be shared by everyone.[13]

Finally the fact that this burial, among all the others, had escaped from being plundered was another of the wonderful coincidences of the Sutton Hoo legend. In medieval times the site had been divided by boundary ditches to form fields. One of those ditches cut across the western side of Mound 1, giving it a lopsided appearance. A robber pit dug in the 16th century had been sunk at the apparent centre, missing the real centre and the burial deposit by a narrow margin.

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