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Archaeological Site · Excavated (museum)

Sutton Hoo

~625 AD · found 1939, Near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England
RECOVERED
Evidence status: Historical tradition. no documented source (historical tradition); legal status unknown (manual verification recommended). This account is presented as historical tradition, not verified fact. Manual verification recommended. Repository evidence: 0 sources · 0 timeline events · 0 media items · legal unknown · view on the Map Evidence on file: historical tradition

Sutton Hoo: still unexplained.

An Anglo-Saxon king's ship-burial, gold, garnet, the great helmet

The law of this ground: National Trust site; the treasure is in the British Museum. A protected scheduled monument.
The subject
developing the photograph…
Of note
An Anglo-Saxon king's ship-burial, gold, garnet, the great helmet
The account

Under a quiet Suffolk mound a whole ship had been dragged uphill and buried with a king, Raedwald of East Anglia, most think. When it opened in 1939 out came gold-and-garnet shoulder clasps, a sword, silver from Byzantium, and the iron helmet that became the face of a lost age. The wood had rotted to a ghost in the sand; the treasure had not.

Leads, where the trail points now
  • The great Anglo-Saxon ship burial was excavated in 1939 at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, on the eve of war; the helmet, gold buckle, and regalia are in the British Museum.
  • The site is National Trust land and fully protected; the open work is the surrounding mounds and the wider royal landscape, still being surveyed.
  • The famous helmet was rebuilt from fragments, and new geophysical survey keeps finding features around the cemetery.
What the record holds

What remains open

  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
What we know, and what we don't
Established

No documentary claim is yet established. The account rests on tradition.

Still open
  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
The evidence room

No documentary or visual exhibits have been located yet. The trail below and the open leads are where this dossier grows next — every exhibit that enters here carries a source.

Where the trail points now
  • The great Anglo-Saxon ship burial was excavated in 1939 at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, on the eve of war; the helmet, gold buckle, and regalia are in the British Museum.
  • The site is National Trust land and fully protected; the open work is the surrounding mounds and the wider royal landscape, still being surveyed.
  • The famous helmet was rebuilt from fragments, and new geophysical survey keeps finding features around the cemetery.
  • Search Library of Congress + DPLA (IIIF) for period cartography of the site.
  • Run Chronicling America for dated newspaper mentions.
  • Query NARA for archival records tied to the site.

Have a source, a map, or a clipping? Add a lead and it enters the record with its citation.

Start the hunt here
The first leads, so no one walks in cold.
Sources and the record
Related case files

The full hunt kit

Starting brief, what's known and disputed, evidence timeline, source list, map card, coordinate-confidence and legal-access summaries, and a field checklist, free with a Fellowship account.

Latest Word From the Newswire

Context, not proof. The dossier's own sources remain the evidence record.

Checking the wire…

Chart position 52.090°, 1.340° (approx.) View on the Map