page_title: Sutton Hoo
section_title: Mound 2
hierarchical_section_title: Sutton Hoo / Anglo-Saxon cemetery / Mound 2
caption_attribution_description: English: Burial mound 2 at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, UK. The photo was taken close to sunset on 21 June 2006 (day of the Summer Solstice). This mound has been reconstructed to its supposed original height. Deutsch: Grabhügel 2 von Sutton Hoo, England.
context_page_description: Sutton Hoo, at Sutton near Woodbridge, in Suffolk, England, is the site of two early medieval cemeteries, from the 6th to 7th centuries. Archaeologists have been excavating the area since the 1930s. One cemetery had an undisturbed ship burial with a wealth of Anglo-Saxon artefacts of art-historical and archaeological significance; most of these objects are now held by the British Museum in London. The site is in the care of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty.
  Historians who specialise in the early middle ages regard Sutton Hoo as important because it illuminates a period that is on the margin between myth, legend, and historical documentation. Use of the site culminated when Rædwald, ruler of the Kingdom of East Anglia, held senior power among the English people and played a dynamic if ambiguous part in the establishment of Christian rulership in England. Scholars believe that Rædwald is most likely the person buried in the ship. Findings at the site have been important in understanding the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of East Anglia and the early Anglo-Saxon period.
context_section_description: This important grave, damaged by looters, was probably the source of the many iron ship-rivets found at Sutton Hoo in 1860. In 1938, when the mound was excavated, iron rivets were found, which enabled the Mound 2 grave to be interpreted as a small boat. Carver's re-investigation revealed that there was a rectangular plank-lined chamber, 5 metres (16 ft) long by 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) wide, sunk below the land surface, with the body and grave-goods laid out in it. A small ship had been placed over this in an east–west alignment, before a large earth mound was raised.
  Chemical analysis of the chamber floor has suggested the presence of a body in the south-western corner. The goods found included fragments of a blue glass cup with a trailed decoration, similar to the recent find from the Prittlewell tomb in Essex. There were two gilt-bronze discs with animal interlace ornament, a bronze brooch, a silver buckle, and a gold-coated stud from a buckle. Four objects had a special kinship with the Mound 1 finds: the tip of a sword blade showed elaborate pattern welding; silver-gilt drinking horn-mounts (struck from the same dies as those in Mound 1); and the similarity of two fragments of dragon-like mounts or plaques. Although the rituals were not identical, the association of the contents of the grave shows a connection between the two burials.
caption: Mound 2 is the only Sutton Hoo tumulus to have been reconstructed to its estimated original height
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