page_title: Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England
section_title: Burial
hierarchical_section_title: Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England / Burial
caption_attribution_description: English: Burial mound 2 at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, UK. The photo was taken close to sunset on 21 June 2006 (day of the Summer Solstice). This mound has been reconstructed to its supposed original height. Deutsch: Grabhügel 2 von Sutton Hoo, England.
context_page_description: The archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England is the study of the archaeology of England from the 5th Century AD to the 11th Century, when it was ruled by Germanic tribes known collectively as the Anglo-Saxons.
context_section_description: One of the most well-known aspects of early Anglo-Saxon society is their burial customs. Archaeological excavations at various sites, including Sutton Hoo, Spong Hill, Prittlewell, Snape and Walkington Wold have . Around 1200 Anglo-Saxon pagan cemeteries have been discovered. There was no set form of burial amongst the pagan Anglo-Saxons, with cremation being preferred amongst the Angles in the north and inhumation amongst the Saxons in the south, although both forms were found throughout England, sometimes in the same cemeteries. When cremation did take place, the ashes were usually placed within an urn and then buried, sometimes along with grave goods. Free Anglo-Saxon men were buried with at least one weapon in the pagan tradition, often a seax, but sometimes also with a spear, sword or shield, or a combination of these. Wealthy individuals were buried with rich grave goods. There are also various recorded cases of animal skulls, particularly oxen but also pig, being buried in human graves, a practice that was also found in earlier Roman Britain.
  Eventually, in the 6th and 7th centuries, burial mounds began to appear in Anglo-Saxon England, and in certain cases earlier burial mounds from the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Romano-British periods were simply reused by the Anglo-Saxons. It is not known why they adopted this practice, but it may be from the practices of the native Britons. Burial mounds remained objects of veneration in early Anglo-Saxon Christianity, and numerous churches were built next to tumuli. Another form of burial was that of ship burials, which were practiced by many of the Germanic peoples across northern Europe. In many cases it seems that the corpse was placed within a ship which was then either sent out to sea or left on land, but in both cases then set alight. In Suffolk however, ships were not burned, but buried, as is the case at Sutton Hoo, which is believed to have been the resting place of the king of the East Angles, Raedwald. Both ship and tumulus burials were described in the Beowulf poem, through the funerals of Scyld Scefing and Beowulf respectively.
  There are also many cases where corpses have been found decapitated, for instance, at a mass grave in Thetford, Norfolk, fifty beheaded individuals were discovered, their heads possibly having been taken as trophies of war. In other cases of decapitation it seems possible that it was evidence of human sacrifice or execution.
caption: One of the tumulus burial mounds at Sutton Hoo.
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