The Sutton Hoo ship burial is excavated

In the summer of 1939, on the estate of Edith Pretty near Woodbridge in Suffolk, the self-taught archaeologist Basil Brown uncovered the impression of a 27-metre ship buried under a mound, with a burial chamber containing a great treasure from the early seventh century. It included a helmet with a face mask, a gold belt buckle, shoulder clasps of garnet and gold, a sceptre and silver from Byzantium. The grave probably belonged to Raedwald, king of East Anglia, who died around 625. The find, given by Mrs Pretty to the British Museum, transformed the view of early Anglo-Saxon England as the 'Dark Ages'.

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