King Raedwald

Available for over a year

The Anglo Saxons are somewhat out of fashion, yet the half millennium between the creation of the English nation in around 550 and the Norman Conquest in 1066 was a formative one. This major new series rediscovers the Anglo-Saxons through vivid portraits of thirty individuals by leading historians, archaeologists and enthusiasts in the field. . 5.Raedwald: Martin Carver on the inhabitant of the magnificent Sutton Hoo ship burial Martin Carver tells the sensational story of the unearthing of Britain's richest ever grave, at Sutton Hoo, in spring 1939. He goes on to describe the role of his own team from the University of York in the second wave of excavations there, and vividly recreates the life, death and burial of its probable inhabitant, King Raedwald. With a fabulous eye for detail, he describes some of the 263 objects of gold, silver, bronze, iron, gems, leather, wood, textiles, feather and fur, laid out in a wooden chamber at the centre of a buried ship. And he uses these to recreate the life and turbulent times of this early Anglo-Saxon king and his clever, devoted wife. Producer: Beaty Rubens.