Quick Search

 
or
Browse by Subject

Trade Sales

Sale Bargains &
Special Offers

Distributed Titles

Features Index

Conference Timetable

Request Catalogues

Vacancies at Oxbow

Sutton Hoo and its Landscape: The Context of Monuments

by Tom Williamson

The location of the Anglo-Saxon burial ground at Sutton Hoo, on a ridge overlooking the estuary of the river Deben, has always appeared strange and challenging. This is not so much because the site is today an isolated and lonely one, but rather because it lies on the very periphery of the early medieval kingdom of East Anglia, whose rulers - the Wuffingas - were buried there. In this extended meditation on the geography of a very special and evocative place, Tom Williamson explores the meaning of the cemetery's location. To understand the location of ancient monuments we need to examine not only the character of past landscapes, but also the ways that contemporaries may have experienced and felt about them: we need to reconstruct aspects of their mental world. Williamson argues that the cemetery was placed where it was not in order to display power and dominance over territory, but because the river, and its brooding estuary, had long held a special and central place in the lives and perceptions of a local society. As King Raedwald and his family rose to dominance over this river-people, they chose to be buried at the heart of their territory. Such approaches may help us to understand why the cemetery was established where it was within the territory of the Wuffingas: but they cannot explain why that group came to dominate the whole of East Anglia. For this, Williamson argues, we need to examine wider geographical contexts - patterns of movement, contact, and social allegiance which were engendered and shaped by landforms and topography at a regional and national level. It is only by joining aspects of the new 'phenomenological' approaches to the archaeology of landscape, to more traditional geographical interpretations, that we can appreciate the full significance of this important site. Combining a keen understanding of local and regional geography, Anglo-Saxon history, and current debates about approaches to past landscapes, this book is a masterly exploration of the context and meaning of an iconic set of monuments. 220p, 69 illus, 35 in col (Windgather Press, an imprint of Oxbow Books 2008)

Review Quotes

"A well researched, accessible and wonderfully stimulating read... a worthy addition to Anglo-Saxon scholarship."

Paddy Gleeson
Finds Research Group Newsletter (March 2010)

"All told, this is an excellent illustration of what good landscape archaeology and textual analysis can achieve, in the hands of a master practitioner, to make new suggestions about people, monuments, and artifacts on the very margin of history."

Ronald Hutton
Time and Mind, vol 3, No. 1 (March 2010)

"innovative and fascinating... essential reading for students of Sutton Hoo, early medieval archaeology and landscape archaeology."

Howard Williams
Early Medieval Europe, vol 18, No. 2 (2010)

"The author enriches his readers' experience of the landscape, as well as their vocabulary. The colour photographs are superb."

Roberta Frank
Speculum, vol 85, No. 3 (2010)

"...accessible and stimulating text, with concise and academically referenced argument. Because of its pre-eminent subject matter, its insights and conclusions make it essential reading for both student and expert alike."

Chris Fern
Journal of Medieval Archaeology, vol 53 (2009)

"...considers the landscape setting--both the immediate and the wider setting--more thoroughly than ever before and a provides a starting point for yet further discussion. It deserves to be taken seriously by all those wishing to add to the volume of research on this particular site or to understand Anglo-Saxon territorial arrangements in general, with any corresponding settlement and land use change."

Della Hooke, University of Birmingham
The Medieval Review (09.11.23)

Sutton Hoo Society

The Sutton Hoo society was founded in 1984 to provide practical support to the Sutton Hoo Research Project, directed by Professor Martin Carver. The National Trust took over the site in 2002, and the society actively supports them in their aim to promote, protect and preserve this unique place. They continue to give guided tours of the burial site, organize conferences, lectures and field trips, and produce a twice-yearly magazine for members. The society offers financial support to a broad mix of academic research and archaeological projects and publications. The research project undertaken by Tom Williamson, which resulted in this book, was sponsored by the society. Click here to visit the Sutton Hoo Society website.

Related Titles

• Anglo-Saxon Somerset
  by Michael Costen

Browse other Anglo-Saxon Archaeology books

Browse other British Landscape books