Lansing State Journal from Lansing, Michigan • Page 84

Sutton Hoo's Treasure A mateurs Unearthed Most Exciting Find in English History; 'Beowulf's Author9 Vindicated, Too tiii: si aii: joi itwi, Lansing East tenting, Michigan G-8 Nov. 22, 1970 or two thousand years late, as a rule) are still thinking it over. The damp sand of the Suffolk grave, which preserved e. gold and blue enamels set in gold, and the 14-ounce gold buckle and the garnets, thousands of them, cut to fit in gold borders like campleve enamel, and which spared the silver from the east and from Italy, and Coptic bronze from Africa, did not spare the oak planks of the ship. They rotted entirely, through the sand pressing against- them made so precise a mold that a good cast was able to be made.

As for the Prince's body, of which there is no trace, perhaps it did not resist even as well as oak. In any case, all that's left is the treasure that Mrs. Pretty gave to the British Museum. from Byzantium. Silver spoons, perhaps from Italy, were engraved "Saul" and "Paul," possibly for a convert to the Christian faith.

The time of Sutton Hoo was, like today, a transitional time, when nothing much was settled, least of all faith. Some think the Prince of Sutton Hoo was buried in church ground, and that the pagan ship burial, perhaps the last in England, was done as a gesture to the large number of pagans in the island. Others question whether it was ever the custom' to bury more than a million dollars worth of precious metal and family heirlooms apart from a hero's body or a father's or a son's. Scholars, who are from time to time confounded by a poet's accuracy (which they grudgingly confess a thousand sweetness." The drinking horns are bound, at Sutton Hoo, with wrought gold. The ship itself, that serves as a coffin, was designed for 38 oarsmen and a steersman.

To modern eyes, used to today's ugly boats if one may say so without too much flak from boaters it is very beautiful with its beaked prow and stern. In such boats, it is now clear, the Anglos and Saxons sailed the North Sea to come at last to England. "Then they sailed, set their ship out on the waves under the cliffs, ready for what came." And, according to the poet, "rejoicing, they quietly ended their voyage." At Sutton Hoo they found a sword, ornamented with gold and jewels, a family antique, apparently, of Swedish manufacture. "No one who'd worn it into battle, swung it in dangerous places, had ever been deserted." They found also an antique helmet, evidently handed down from the past and quite old, even in 625 A.D.; "His helmet would defend him, that ancient shining treasure, encircled with hard-rolled metal, set there by some Smith's long-dead hand, would block all battle swords and stop all blades from cutting at him. poet knew rr, TOO The helmet was not "shining" when they found it at Sutton Hoo, but the author of "Beowulf' knew about that, too: "Gems scattered on the floor, cups and bracelets, rusty old helmets, beautifully made but rotting with no hands to rub and polish them." There were 10 silver bowls or basins found, one of them 28 inches in diameter.

Some came In England. But the summer of 1939 Within a few weeks the men who dug at Sutton Hoo were in military service. Hardly had the treasure been uncovered when it was buried again, in a disused subway tunnel in London. The English were more interested in trying to survive a German onslaught than In studying the spectacular grave of a Germanic ancestor. After the war, the British museum had more urgent problems than devoting all its resources to studying the Sutton Hoo finds, so the work of scholarship, the work of evaluation and cataloging, proceeded slowly and quietly.

'BEOWULF FITS SITE There are quotations from "Beowulf" that fit the Sutton Hoo burial almost uncannily. The great Anglo-Saxon poem was written within a few decades following 625. The diggers at Sutton Hoo, yhen they uncovered the treasure, probably could have done no better than follow "Beowulf" when they first saw the gold, enamels, and jewels: "Jewels and silver buried in the sandy ground, back in the earth again, forever hidden and useless to men." DECORATED SHIP As they lifted out the numerous drinking horns (two of them made from the horns of the now-extinct aurochs, each holding six quarts and not meant to be set down until empty) they recalled, or would have if they remembered "Beowulf" from their school days: "The keeper of the mead came out carrying the carved flasks and coured that bright mil OPEL Here Now! By HENRY MITCHELL the Washington Post Long before the grave was opened and the king's cold treasure made her eyes blink, the owner of Sutton Hoo had suspected there was something unusual about the 16 mounds on her property. So had plenty of other people, including a would-be grave robber a few centuries ago. But until Mrs.

E. M. Pretty set her hand to it, nobody succeeded in finding the treasure or greater than the gold the most exciting archeological find in English history. Since the mound over the treasure was as conspicuous as the Anglo-Saxons of 625 A.D. could make it (it was 100 feet long and nine feet high), no ar-cheologist had to follow a rabbit down a hole to come upon the find.

It just took a few days of digging. The digging Is chronicled with simplicity and grace by Bernice Grohskopf in a recently published book, 'The Treasure of Sutton Hoo." (Ath-eneum This first full-length book on the subject reveals the dig was conducted largely by amateurs and cost the government less than 100 pounds, yet was done with such care as to be a virtual monument to enlightened amateurs. As the book's forewords point out, the largely amateur team had to sink or swim as best it could any carelessness would cost irreparable damage, yet any delay would be ruinous, both because of the fragile nature of the treasure and the growing threat of international holocaust from World War n. NEAR NORTH SEA Sutton Hoo is a pleasant freehold half a mile from the North Sea on the Suffolk Coast, where the River Deban flows home. An Anglo-Saxon king (scholars are still arguing which one) was buried there in a ship the ship was lowered, like an 89-foot coffin, into a sandy grave and the king's body placed in it, along with more than a million dollars' worth of gold jewelry.

Or so it is thought. Except that no trace of the king's body has been found; and more than one explanation is offered for that. Returning to Mrs. Pretty and the actual discovery, she arranged, after a talk with the nearby Ipswich Museum, for a Basil Brown to take a room at Sutton Hoo in 1938. He was given a free hand with the spade.

Two of Mrs. Pretty's gardeners, Jacobs and Spooner, were to forget their delphiniums, primulas and other felic-ities of the Suffolk garden awhile and lend Brown a hand. This they readily did or at Anglo-Saxon Warrior's Helmet, of Iron and Bronze, Was Recreated from Fragments Uncovered at Sutton Hoo Central Michigan's Largest Opel Dealer! LORENZ BUICK-OPEL KALAMAZOO at RIVER ST. ome Folks See Sutton Hoo also sheds some light on the author of "Beowulf," as much as he sheds light on this Saxon find. When that writer spoke of gold and great feats and so on, it was generally assumed these were fantasies, perhaps disordered, of the first and therefore least experienced poet of the English language.

But the golden horns of Sutton Hoo, the thousands of garnets, the flamboyant skill of the goldsmiths it is now known he reported as much as he invented, and that he had rather a good eye for the princely furniture of the time. 118-WORD STORY The first report of the discovered treasure appeared in July 1939, in The Times. Never a publication to sound the trumpets hastily, The Times (of London) recorded the discovery in 118 words on the amusement page beneath an article on George Bernard Shaw, the Irishman, who was as usual having another birthday. In normal times, the discovery of Sutton Hoo would have been a sensation throughout the civilized world. As well as Hie in November! Shp had title to all discovered objects, and if she had wished, she might have sold them.

Evidently she did not wish to do so. The first ptet in England sxike of just such goods as were dug up at Sutton Hoo; and perhaps of the improbable (and excellent) team of Pretty, Basil Brown, Jacobs, Ipswich and Spooner as well: "The Prince and his people will remember those treasures, will remember their fathers once wore them fell with those helmets on their heads, those swords in their hands." PH. 372-57S0 THIS WEEK! I .4 PR Land Transfer Irks Farmers at Border An I American Bank and Trust Christmas Club Members will receive more than exn least they dug for a year, readily or not, with Brown. Several small mounds were explored and minor discoveries made, enough to sustain hope. On May 8, 1939 (the hour is not known), Mrs.

Pretty walked out and pointed to the largest mound and said, "What about this one?" BURIAL SHIP FOUND In a matter of a few weeks it was clear that a ship burial of a Saxon king had been found. It turned out to be the earliest ship burial yet discovered in Europe. It revised a good bit of thinking about the Saxon monarchy nobody had supposed an English chieftain of those days had so much wealth, or -that society was well enough organized for an 89-foot ship to be lowered (not slid) into a grave, or that the Saxons had silver from Byzantium and Italy, antique armor from Sweden, gold from France, bronze from Africa. The French have always hinted that from the fall of Rome (450 A.D.) until the Norman incursion of 1066, all England was dark. It is now suspected there were as many glimmerings in England as in France.

land in 1911, will lose from 180 to 240 acres, depending on the final border. They have a total of 650 acres. Charles Stringfellow will give up about 90 acres. "I think it's kind of inevitable now. I'm resigned to the fact that we have to give it up," Stringfellow said.

"But I'm not happy. It's cutting out quite a lot of our crops. We're talking about 1,600 acres of our most productive land. We could figure xn about 200 crates of cantaloupe per acre. It's not going to be good for our locale." Armendariz listed statistics of the expected size of the lost revenue when the land is gone.

"The land produces a year-round crop," he said. "It hires a certain amount of people from both sides of the border. That money stays in this area. That way both towns (Presidio and Ojinaga, Mexico) trade with each other." The revenue from the acreage changes with the year and the crop. In May it's onions, and farmers pay about $100,000 to laborers for harvesting and packing the onions.

The pay for harvesting cantaloupes in June and cantaloupes in July is about the same. It drops to $90,000 in No Exhaust Poisoning Feared SAN FRANCISCO (AP) A Stanford University pharmacy professor says automobile exhaust is causing lead to accumulate on roadside hay, and is raising the specter of lead poisoning in humans who eat the meat of cattle who eat the hay. Prof. Summer Kaltnan said the problem has been disclosed in research still under way. He testified recently before the California A i Resources Board, which is considering a ban on leaded fuels.

Kalman said "a dangerously high proportion of lead" had been found in soft tissues of cattle who ate hay grown as far as 500 feet from highway traffic. "We should start to look for traces of lead poisoning in persons from the eating of beef." Kalman said. "I'm willing to bet we will find it." i f'g Every member of your family can have his own spending money next year if you open an American Bank and Trust Christmas Club today! Memberships are available for as little as 25c per week up to $20 per week. Come November, 1971, your Christmas shopping will be paid for. Join the American Bank and Trust 1971 Christmas Club savings plan vember and December for cotton.

"That money circulates in these two towns. "That's the only means we have to live on here. We're situated in a corner where the means of communication aren't as refined as elsewhere; we are isolated." "We don't know what will happen to the land when it goes over to Mexico," Armendariz said. "It might be federal property. It might and might not be farmed.

We feel bad about it." The government has said It will give "fair market value" for the land to the owners. But, said Armendariz, "There is no price they could give us that would suit us. We could get a million dollars an acre, but that wouldn't suit." The price will be closer to $800 an acre. An appraisal will be made over a period of time by a private organization. "And." Armendariz said with a sight, "we can't do anything about it." Mr.

Robert C. Hughe, M.A. Mr. Robert C. Hughes, Is here to servo you.

Mr. Hughes received his Masttri Degree in Hearing; Speech Science from Southern Methodist University in 197. Sine then, ho has soon and advised over 15,000 people in regard to their hearing. If VOo hoar, but fait to understand or novo trouble hearing in a crowd, call today for an appointmtnt to visit with Mr. Hughes personally.

HUGHES HEARING AID SERVICE 1321 E. Michigan Telephone 372-4327 just dial 372-HEAR By EDWARD A. FULTON PRESIDIO, Tex. (UPI) Alberto Armendariz bought land along the Rio Grande more than a half century ago. Later his sons joined him in the fields.

"We have worked that land for many years," said Alberto Armendariz as have the dozen or so other farmers who soon will be paid "fair market value" for their land, then see it given to Mexico. The transfer was arranged during a meeting between President Nixon and Mexican President Gustav Diaz Ordaz last Bummer as a means of straightening the border cut by the erratic Rio Grande. The two Presidents decided to select a specific border, then build dikes to keep the river in the path. The new border sliced 1,606 acres of U.S. land into the Mexican side, and the U.S.

owners must give it up. Farmers along the river and residents of Presidio, which lives beside the disputed acreage, describe themselves as "not too happy" about it. They talk of economic hardship on the town, lost jobs, lost revenue and flood control. But always the talk returns to the land. Charley Spencer said he will lose from 130 to 230 acres.

"That Is all good farmland. It will grow anything onions, cantaloupe, cotton, alfalfa. "When it goes over (to Mexico) it will hurt the economy of Presidio and Mexico both. The land is productive now. As soon as it goes over, they won't farm it like we do," Spencer said.

"If that land could remain here it would be better for everybody," Armendariz said. "It would be better for the land for progress. Production would remain the same. "Most of the people here have college degrees. They have studied just to come back and cultivate the land.

They have bought machinery, spent their time. "When that land goes across (to Mexico) that knowledge is going to be wasted. There is not going to be enough land left in Presidio for those people to practice what they have been trained to do." At the turn of the century the acreage along the river produced cactus, and little else. Through the years it has been brought to richness with fertilizer, irrigation and hard work. "We have done this to the land," Armendariz said.

His family, which bought the mean BANK AND TRUST COM PANY MEMBER: FeOaral Deposit Intunnct Corp. nd Fidtral Rnarvi Syttem 13 CONVENIENT LOCATIONS Wei lixi mm mhm i.