Sutton Hoo: Burial Ground of Kings?

The excavation and explanation of England's first royal bural ground and public execution site

"This book is a very good story - a story of people, both those who were buried on the site and those who dug them up. It compresses into a few short pages a wealth of information and insight" History Today

The Sutton Hoo ship-burial is one of the most significant archaeological finds ever made in Europe and arguably in the world. It lies in a site that contains all the elements of archaeological mystery and romance: seventeen burial mounds, buried treasure, great works of art, sacrificed horses, and evidence of human execution.

In the first accessible account of the whole story to date, Martin Carver explains what we know of Sutton Hoo burial ground, a place where the leaders of the Dark Age kingdom of East Anglia signalled their belief in a pagan and maritime kingdom independent of the Christian European union of the day. Martin Carver, director of the most recent excavations, tells the story, not only of one of the most dramatic historic places in early England but of the fifty years of its exploration - a history of British archaeology.

First published 1998, reprinted 2002, 2005 with revisions, 2007, 2009, 2011
By The British Museum Press, 38, Russell Square, London WC1B 3QQ
ISBN: 978-0-7141-0599-4