The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 3

The Guardian Thursday March 14 2002 3 News fl Seamus Heaney with a Saxon helmet atyesterday's opening ofthe Sutton Hoo visnor centre; and clockwise, from top right, a beft buckle In the and Garry Weaser Sutton Hoo lays out its treasures Society founded on folklore, fear and fun Heaney tribute to greatest British artefact discovery The ship burial found In 1939 under Mound One at Sutton Hoo may have been the grave of the East Anglian king Raedwald, who was baptised a Christian but kept a temple with attars to both Christ and the pagan godsr He died around 626. Mound Two, looted centuries ago, may have held his son or nephew and may have have contained another ship. Ancient riches hidden in the earth elled and enamelled shoulder clasps and belt fittings, and a gold garnet and enamel purse lid, all regarded as probably the work of one man and the most outstanding of their kind anywhere. Luxury imports from Rome, Byzantium and North Africa also came out of the grave. A treasure-trove inquest judged all the finds Mrs Pretty's property, but she presented them to the nation and 50 years later her descendants gave her house and the site itself to the National Trust-, Although generations of archaeologists; have worked at Sutton Hoo the site continues to astonish.

Just 10 vears aeo'Mar- Angelique Chrlsafis Maev Kennedy Arts and heritage correspondent lie, hoard is laid bare, Seamus leaney said at Sutton Hoo, site sgie sitfiu'i The putlipe of a 90ft shift the largest 1 hdihOBjejimplete English ship from the mMMm of the greatest British archae tin Carver found a warrior buried In fuUtt i 1- 1 1 ology discovery of the 20th cen tury, where until yesterday at only four Krtbwrf flttgio Saxon helftiets Thirty-seven coins each from a different Frankish mint dated between 613 and 629 A purse lid of gold with garnet and filigree inlay regarded as the greatest piece of early medieval jewellery in northern Europe A solid gold buckle, worked with ribbon interlace and tiny animal heads Two pairs of gold garnet arid enamel shoulder clasps A large hanging bowl decorated with Celtic motifs in red enamel and glass mound: "As worthy of him as their workmanship could make it." He added of the new centre: "We are hoarding history behind walls as worthy as our workmanship can make it." Heaney's translation, which topped the bestseller lists and won the Whitbread Book of the Year in 1999, described the burial of the great hero in "a mound on a headland high and imposing, a marker that sailors could see from Yesterday walked just such a high headland over the tidal river Deben for the first time. He thought the 5m, including a lottery grant of 3.6m, nobly spent. "This the rjurial sites described in the poem were a lavish expenditure of wealth for a purposebtherthsSi utilitarian, cultural and spiritual value. It has been well done. I certainly have a stronger sense today of what it meant to be buried in a ship.

There is a sense of solemnity in this place, which is harder to find now than it used to be." Tomb raiders By the 20th century, archaeologists assumed there was nothing of importance left at Sutton Hoo. The mounds were still visible despite centuries of ploughing, but there were also records of centuries of tomb raiders. By the 1930s the farm was owned by Edith Pretty, a wealthy widow with an interest in spiritualism. Legend says that one night she saw ghostly figures walking on the largest mound, and she promptly persuaded Ipswich corporation to lend her their solitary archaeologist, Basil Brown. In 1939 he found five iron rivets, and with the help of the gardener and gamekeeper began to uncover the outline of a huge ship.

The British Museum was called in once he hit the undisturbed and treasure-stuffed burial chamber. The archaeologists worked round the clock under police guard to excavate one of the richest graves found in northern Europe. The treasure included solid gold buckles, jew was popular and, according to texts, it was "quite fair" for swimmers to try and drown their opponents. Those wanting to prove themselves swam in their' armour. Men enjoyed running while carrying a large load, skating.and skiing.

They also passed the time with -intricate board games, bats and balls, dice and complex riddles. Early Anglo-Saxon settlers were pagans who worshipped a number of gods, while later settlements converted to Christianity. According to Germanic law and legend, wives retained possession of their property and could count on their brothers and nephews for protection against abuse. Children were considered adults at 10, and were answerable to the law, which prized peace above anything else. The number of intricate toy wooden ships hints at the importance of recreation for children who worked the fields with their parents.

Child mortality was high but adults often lived to 40. One-fifth of our vocabulary today derives from the Anglo-Saxon language. The Anglo-Saxons Germanic tribes that inhabited England from -the 5th century and dominated until 1066 were a nation of soul searchers. In poems and folktales they described at great length the emotion's and feelings' of monsters. The use of force against these giant, panting ogres was often supported by painstaking legal argument.

Yet they lived in constant fear of violence and being "hewed amain with swords mill-sharp" like the characters of oral tradition. Villagers carried wooden shields in case feuds between kingdoms such as East Anglia, Essex and Mer-cia brought men with battle axes in the afternoon. Viking invasions provided more food for paranoia. Anglo-Saxon villagers dug ditches around their territories, used the soil to build earth walls, and patrolled them. They had a highly developed culture with skilled craftsmen, but those who worked the land lived under a basic feudal system.

Despite the full agricultural year, 'larking about" featured highly. Swimming armour Desiae nis magnmceauy uar-'. nessed horse. Asthvisitor built another unsuspected burial ground was found, and more superb metalwork from those graves is now on display. There is a decorated bronze bucket from Byzantium, inscribed "use this in good health, Master Count, for many happy years" which was snagged on a farmer's harrow in a nearby field.

A third ofthe site is still unexcavated and the archaeologists have no doubt that there is more to learn about Sutton Hoo. One of the remaining mysteries is where the evidently fabulously wealthy and powerful Anglo-Saxons lived. No trace of a settlement has been found. National Trust archaeologist Angus Wain-wright believes the great hall where, as in Beowulf, feasts were held, tales of the heroes told and sung, and gold and treasure given as gifts, could even lie under Miss Pretty's graceless Edwardian house. After agonised debate the National Trust has roped off the actual burial mounds, with visitor numbers expected to increase from 5,000 to 50,000.

Mr Wainwright said that once the turf is worn the sandy soil blows away in the wind. This earth is precious," he said. "This field is the biggest real artefact at Sutton Hoo. The Anglo-Saxon kings actually walked here this is still a landscape they would recognise." there to beseenthah-a" lumpy Suffolk field. The Nobel laureate poet was quoting his own translation of Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon masterpiece which eerily foreshadowed a grave laid bare more than 1,000 years later.

It described a king buried with "torques in the barrow, and jewels They let the ground keep that ancestral treasure, gold under gravel, gone to earth, as useless to men now as it ever Yesterday he opened a 5m visitor centre where for the first time some of those treasures, loaned by the British Museum, are displayed with other finds from the site within view of the burial mounds which hid them until 1939. The funeral of the king at Sutton Hoo had one epic dimension beyond even the imagination ofthe Beowulf poet. He was buried in a 90ft longship, the greatest Anglo-Saxon ship ever found. Every inch of wood had disintegrated in the acid soil, like the body of the king itself, but the planks and rib could be traced through the impression in the sand and the thousands of iron rivets which had held it together. Yesterday the National Trust announced plans to reconstruct an exact, seaworthy replica, at an estimated cost of 300,000.

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