The Great Gold Buckle found at Sutton Hoo. Image credit: © The Trustees of the British Museum; Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence
Sutton Hoo Hoard
Sutton Hoo, near Woodbridge in Suffolk, is the site of two cemeteries from the sixth and early seventh centuries. One cemetery contained an undisturbed ship burial, including a wealth of Anglo-Saxon artefacts of outstanding archaeological significance, most of which are now in the British Museum.
The artefacts, discovered in May 1939 by Basil Brown, included this great gold buckle – stunning both in terms of its beauty and the engineering expertise required to make it.
The discovery is dubbed by many as one of “the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time,” and has recently been immortalised in Netflix film ‘The Dig’, starring Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes.
What can this great gold buckle tell us about refining techniques available at the time? And what other items were found alongside it? Find out more about the Sutton Hoo Hoard here.
You can also explore other artefacts within the Wonders of Gold site.
Get In Touch
If you have any feedback on the exhibition, or items you'd like to suggest for inclusion, you can get in touch with curator Stewart Murray on curator@lbma.org.uk.