Archaeologists Faye Minter, Jude Plouviez and Christopher Scull have worked, together with four tireless detectorists, to locate, uncover and excavate the site of an important 7th-century Anglo-Saxon royal settlement in south-east Suffolk.
Rendlesham is a rural parish in the valley of the River Deben in south-east Suffolk. The modern village is on the site of a Second World War airfield, some distance from the parish church of St Gregory the Great, but this is a place with a long history. The tower of the medieval church (1), overlooking the river, is a prominent local landmark, and its dedication to the Pope who despatched St Augustine to convert the Anglo- Saxons to Christianity hints at the possibility of an even earlier connection. The Venerable Bede, a Northumbrian monk writing in the early 8th century AD, records in his History of the English Church and People that Rendlaesham was the East Anglian royal settlement where Aethelwold, king of the East Angles, stood sponsor at the baptism of Swithelm, king of the East Saxons, at some time between AD 655 and 664.
Because of Bede’s reference there has always been interest in Rendlesham and this intensified after the discovery in 1939 of the ship burial at Sutton Hoo, just four miles away down the Deben valley (2). It seemed likely that this spectacular grave was somehow linked to the royal settlement recorded by Bede, and that the heartland of royal power in what is now south-east Suffolk may have centred on a royal territory at the head of the Deben estuary.
Subsequent excavations by Professor Martin Carver at Sutton Hoo (see pages 26 to 31) have shown that the ship burial was one of several equally high-status graves in a cemetery that appears to have been reserved for the highest social ranks – probably the ruling family of the early East Anglian kingdom.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة March/April 2017 Volume 28 Number 2 من Minerva.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة March/April 2017 Volume 28 Number 2 من Minerva.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
ROMAN DISCOVERIES AT ANCIENT AUGUSTODUNUM
More than 230 graves have been uncovered at a necropolis in the French city of Autun, revealing a diverse mix in burial practices over a period of nearly 200 years, as well as luxury grave goods from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD that highlight the wealth of some of its ancient inhabitants.
SHAPING THE WORLD: SCULPTURE FROM PREHISTORY TO NOW
The sculptor Antony Gormley and the art historian and critic Martin Gayford have been talking about sculpture with each other for 20 years.
Amelia Edwards (1831-1892)
“I am essentially a worker, and a hard worker, and this I have been since my early girlhood.”
THE GREAT BEYOND
The ancient Greeks thought much about the dead – how their remains should be disposed of, how their spirits might be summoned, how malignant they could be if unavenged. Classicist David Stuttard brings us face to face with the Greek dead.
INTO THE VALLEY OF THE QUEENS
The Great Royal Wife of Ramesses II, Nefertari, was buried in one of the most spectacular tombs of Egypt’s Valley of the Queens. Well-educated and well-travelled, Nefertari played a crucial part in the political life of the pharaoh, and her importance was reflected through her magnificently decorated tomb. Lucia Marchini speaks to Jennifer Casler Price to find out more.
DEIR EL-BAHRI, 1894
Tensions were already high among the archaeologists, surveyors, and artists of the Archaeological Survey of Egypt in 1891 when an eventful dispute arose on Christmas Eve.
PUSHING BOUNDARIES
When the Etruscans expanded to the south and the vast plains of Campania, they found a land of cultural connections and confrontations, as luxurious grave goods found across the region reveal. An exhibition at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples sheds light on these ancient Italians at the frontier. Paolo Giulierini, director of the museum, is our guide.
CUZCO 'CENTRE AND HEAD OF ALL THE LAND'
Cuzco was the heart of the vast Inca empire, but all changed in the 16th century when the capital was conquered by Spanish invaders. Michael J Schreffler investigates the Inca city, and how it went from the centre of one empire to the periphery of another.
A STUDY IN PURPLE
A tiny speck of purple paint from the 2nd century AD may yield clues to how ancient artists created the extraordinary portrait panels that accompanied mummified bodies into the afterlife.
Rome In The 8th Century: A History In Art
John Osborne CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, £75 HARDBACK - ISBN 978-1108834582
