A large sculpture of the outline of a ship’s hull made of metal ribs, standing in grass under a pale sky

Chapter Two

The ship in the field

About AD 625, dug 1938 to 1939

A sculpture at Sutton Hoo showing the outline of the buried ship. Photo: Philip Halling, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Geograph.

The questionWhat does Sutton Hoo tell us about Anglo-Saxon kings?

In 1938 a landowner in Suffolk asked a local archaeologist to dig into the mounds on her land. The next summer he found the shape of a ship under one of them, and in the middle of it, a burial chamber that nobody had touched for 1,300 years.

Burial
about 6251
Chamber reached
14 June 19392
Finds
2632

Fits: Primary (KS2). See Courses.

The story

Sutton Hoo is a group of burial mounds on a ridge in Suffolk. In the 1930s the land belonged to Edith Pretty, and she appointed a local archaeologist, Basil Brown, to dig into them. In 1938 he opened three: Mounds 2, 3 and 4.2

A low grassy mound in a field, with a large house among trees behind it
Mound 2, one of the three Basil Brown dug in 1938, with Tranmer House behind.Photo: John Sutton, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Geograph

A ghost of a ship

In May 1939 Brown turned to Mound 1. The ship’s timbers had rotted away in the sandy soil, but its iron rivets were still exactly where they had been, so the shape of the ship could be traced in the sand.2 In June, archaeologists carefully brushed away the layers to reveal it.1

On 14 June 1939 they reached the burial chamber in the middle of the ship. It was undisturbed. The archaeologist Charles Phillips took over the dig, and 263 finds came out of it. The National Trust calls it the richest grave ever excavated in Europe.2

An iron helmet with a full face mask, eyebrows, nose and moustache, displayed in a museum case
The Sutton Hoo helmet in the British Museum.Photo: Philip Halling, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Geograph
More than 100 piecesWhen the burial chamber collapsed, the helmet was broken into more than 100 fragments. It took conservators at the British Museum many years to put it back together.1 What you see is their reconstruction from those pieces.

Whose grave?

Coins found in the burial place it around the year 625. No name was written on anything, so the person buried there is not known for certain. The leading theory is King Rædwald of East Anglia.1

ConfidenceEvidence: a ship burial of about 625, rich enough for a king. Informed guess: Rædwald. For years no body was found, and some wondered if the mound was only a memorial. Later chemical tests found traces that a body had been there: it was a grave.1,2

Still digging

Archaeologists came back. From 1965 to 1971 a team led by Bruce-Mitford found phosphate traces of a body in the ship burial. From 1983 to 1993 a team led by Carver found a second ship burial, and the shapes of people whose bodies had left only stains in the sand, the “sand bodies”.2

70090011001300150017001900The burial, about 625Brown and PhillipsBruce-MitfordCarverThe digs
More than 1,300 years in the ground, then three campaigns of digging in less than a century, all drawn to scale.1,2

Key words

Burial mound
A heap of earth raised over a grave. Sutton Hoo has a group of them.
Ship burial
Burying an important person in a ship, with their belongings, under a mound.
Rivet
A metal pin that held the ship’s planks together. The wood had rotted, but the iron rivets stayed in place.
Grave goods
Objects buried with the dead.
Conservation
The careful work of cleaning, repairing and protecting objects so they last.

Check yourself

Try to answer in your head, then open each one.

Who asked Basil Brown to dig at Sutton Hoo?

Edith Pretty, who owned the land.

How did the diggers know there had been a ship, when the wood had gone?

Its iron rivets were still in place in the sand, showing its shape.

How is the burial dated to about 625?

From the coins found in it.

Who was probably buried there?

The leading theory is King Rædwald of East Anglia, but it is not certain.

Go deeper

Sources for this page

Every number on this page comes from one of these. How we check.

Last reviewed 12 November 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.

  1. National Trust. History of Sutton Hoo. www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/suffolk/sutton-hoo/history-of-sutton-hooUsed for: The date of the ship burial from its coins, Rædwald as the leading theory, and the helmet in more than 100 fragments. Checked 12 November 2026.
  2. National Trust. History of archaeology at Sutton Hoo. www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/suffolk/sutton-hoo/history-of-archaeology-at-sutton-hooUsed for: Edith Pretty, Basil Brown, the digs of 1938 and 1939, and the later excavations. Checked 12 November 2026.