Wednesday 20th October
Joe Startin
The Saxon Ship Project
The ship burial at Sutton Hoo, 100 feet above the River Deben in Suffolk, took place in 624 or 625 AD. The treasures found there in 1939 are now in the British Museum and are world-renowned. The ship was hurriedly surveyed in 1939, and the site re-investigated in the 1960s. There is sufficient information to make a reconstruction of the ship worthwhile. A charity, the Sutton Hoo Ship’s Company, is charged with this project, working by the river Deben at Woodbridge. The talk will explain why this ship is of such interest in North European maritime history, and how a digital reconstruction has already been done. The physical reconstruction is following principles of experimental archaeology, and the trials will cover some of the purposes to which we believe the ship may have been put.