page_title: Sutton Hoo
section_title: The west and east walls
hierarchical_section_title: Sutton Hoo / The objects in the burial chamber / The west and east walls
caption_attribution_description: English: Burial chamber of the Sutton Hoo ship-burial 1, England. Reconstruction shown in the Sutton Hoo Exhibition Hall. Deutsch: Grabkammer der Schiffsbestattung 1 von Sutton Hoo, England. Rekonstruktion in der Sutton Hoo Exhibition Hall.
context_page_description: Sutton Hoo, at Sutton near Woodbridge, in Suffolk, England, is the site of two early medieval cemeteries, from the 6th to 7th centuries. Archaeologists have been excavating the area since the 1930s. One cemetery had an undisturbed ship burial with a wealth of Anglo-Saxon artefacts of art-historical and archaeological significance; most of these objects are now held by the British Museum in London. The site is in the care of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty.
  Historians who specialise in the early middle ages regard Sutton Hoo as important because it illuminates a period that is on the margin between myth, legend, and historical documentation. Use of the site culminated when Rædwald, ruler of the Kingdom of East Anglia, held senior power among the English people and played a dynamic if ambiguous part in the establishment of Christian rulership in England. Scholars believe that Rædwald is most likely the person buried in the ship. Findings at the site have been important in understanding the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of East Anglia and the early Anglo-Saxon period.
context_section_description: Along the inner west wall (i.e. the head end) at the north-west corner stood a tall iron stand with a grid near the top. Beside this rested a very large circular shield, with a central boss, mounted with garnets and with die-pressed plaques of interlaced animal ornament. The shield front displayed two large emblems with garnet settings, one a composite metal predatory bird and the other a flying dragon. It also bore animal-ornamented sheet strips directly die-linked to examples from the early cemetery at Vendel near Old Uppsala in Sweden. A small bell, possibly for an animal, lay nearby.
  Along the wall was a long square-sectioned whetstone, tapered at either end and carved with human faces on each side. A ring mount, topped by a bronze antlered stag figurine, was fixed to the upper end, possibly made to resemble a late Roman consular sceptre. The purpose of the sceptre has generated considerable debate and a number of theories, some of which point to the potential religious significance of the stag. South of the sceptre was an iron-bound wooden bucket, one of several in the grave.
  In the south-west corner was a group of objects which may have been hung up, but when discovered, were compressed together. They included a Coptic or eastern Mediterranean bronze bowl with drop handles and figures of animals, found below a badly deformed six-stringed Anglo-Saxon lyre in a beaver-skin bag, of a Germanic type found in wealthy Anglo-Saxon and north European graves of this date. Uppermost was a large and exceptionally elaborate three-hooked hanging bowl of Insular production, with champleve enamel and millefiori mounts showing fine-line spiral ornament and red cross motifs and with an enamelled metal fish mounted to swivel on a pin within the bowl.
  At the east end of the chamber, near the north corner, stood an iron-bound tub of yew containing a smaller bucket. To the south were two small bronze cauldrons, which were probably hung against the wall. A large carinated bronze cauldron, similar to the example from a chamber-grave at Taplow, with iron mounts and two ring-handles was hung by one handle. Nearby lay an iron chain almost 3.5 metres (11 ft) long, of complex ornamental sections and wrought links, for suspending a cauldron from the beams of a large hall. The chain was the product of a British tradition dating back to pre-Roman times. All these items were of a domestic character.
caption: The recreated burial-ship at Sutton Hoo
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