About this Event
Title-picture above: winter sunrise over Sutton Hoo ©Steve Harvey 16th January 2016.
Why is it that the only known big ship-burials in early England, Sutton Hoo and Snape, are located in the south-eastern corner of the Wuffing kingdom of East Anglia? That there is something special about the old kingdom is also suggested by the possible East Anglian connections of the Old English epic of Beowulf, the opening movement of which culminates with a unique poetic account of a royal ship-funeral.
We shall see how this account matches the high-culture perspective of the Sutton Hoo ship-burial and how it relates to a dynastic origin legend ultimately stemming from a deeper narrative of ancient fertility myth. It also provides a simple but powerful metaphor through which the ship becomes the vessel that ferries the soul in and out of this middangeard, this mortal world.
We shall then consider how the same idea is realised archaeologically in other ways, such as using stone ship-settings as places of burial, or placing a coin with the dead to pay the ferryman.
That death was accepted as a point of embarkation for a voyage to an island over the horizon, out of sight of mortal shores, is a notion that we can trace elsewhere in the literature of the English-speaking peoples. In some cases, it is believed that certain heroes might one day return from that island.
Provisional Timetable for the Day
10.15 –11.15: The Ghost-Ships of the Wuffings.
11.15 - 11.45: Coffee-break.
11.45 – 12.45: Beowulf, The Rite of Ship-Funeral, and the East Anglian Connection.
12.45 - 13.45: Lunch-break.
13.45 - 14.45: The Voyage to the World Over the Horizon.
Above: Summer sunset over Sutton Hoo, looking north-east from Shottisham Creek, with the half-length replica of the Sutton Hoo ship, Sæ-Wylfing, at anchor in the ebb-tide (©Dr Sam Newton, 11th June 1994).
Some Suggestions for Optional Background Reading
Alexander, M., The First Poems in English (Penguin Classics 2008)
Bruce-Mitford, R., Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology (Gollancz 1974)
Evans, A.C., The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial (British Museum 1986)
Filmer-Sankey, W., & T.Pestell, Snape Anglo-Saxon Cemetery: Excavations and Surveys 1824-1992, East Anglian Archaeology Report 95 (Ipswich 2001).
Green, C., Sutton Hoo: The Excavation of a Royal Ship-Burial (Merlin 1988)
Heaney, Seamus (tr.) Beowulf: An Illustrated Edition, ed. J.Niles (Norton 2007)
Lee, S. D., & E. Solopova, The Keys of Middle-earth: Discovering Medieval Literature through the Fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)
Newton, S. The Origins of Beowulf and the pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia (Brewer 1993)
Newton, S., The Reckoning of King Rædwald: The Story of the King linked to the Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial (Redbird 2003)
Shippey, T.A., The Road to Middle-earth (Allen and Unwin, 1982; rev. edn Harper Collins, 2003)
Tolkien, J.R.R., The Lost Road and Other Writings, ed. C.Tolkien (Unwin Hyman 1987)
Webster, L., & J.Backhouse, The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600-900 (British Museum 1991)
About Dr Sam Newton
Sam Newton was awarded his Ph.D at the University of East Anglia in 1991. He published his first book, The Origins of Beowulf and the pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia, in 1993, and his second, The Reckoning of King Rædwald, in 2003. He has also published several papers, some of which are available on his website or on Academia.
He has lectured widely around the country and abroad for over thirty years and has contributed to many radio and television programmes, especially Time Team (now back in business as Time Team Digital). He is Director of Wuffing Education and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.
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Event Venue
Online
GBP 30.00 to GBP 45.00