Comparative studies on the age of Sutton Hoo (5c - 8c) with English and European focus, plus summary of the latest site excavations. `The Sutton Hoo `princely' burials play a pivotal role in any modern discussion of Germanic kingship.'EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE The age of Sutton Hoo runs from the fifth to the eighth century AD - a dark and difficult age,where hard evidence is rare, but glittering and richly varied. Myths, king-lists, place-names, sagas, palaces, belt-buckles, middens and graves are all grist to the archaeologist's mill. This book celebrates the anniversary of the discovery of that most famous burial at Sutton Hoo. Fifty years ago this great treasure, now in the British Museum, was unearthed from the centre of a ninety-foot-long ship buried on remote Suffolk heathland. Included in this volume are 23 wide-ranging essays on the Age of Sutton Hoo and director Martin Carver's summary of the latest excavations, which represent the current state of knowledge about this extraordinary site. That it still has secrets to reveal is shown by the last-minute discovery of a striking burial of a young noble with his horse and grave goods. M.O.H. CARVER is Professor of Archaeology at York University, and Director of the Sutton Hoo Research Project.

Comprehensive and lavish... [the] volume's twenty-four papers provide not only an unrivalled and tantalizing preview of the most recent finds at Sutton Hoo, but also a survey of the whole context of the burial, local, national and international. -- J R Maddicott * ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW *
The Sutton Hoo `princely' burials play a pivotal role in any modern discussion of Germanic kingship. * EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE *
A valuable interim report on the 1983-92 excavation... most exciting may be the parallels suggesed from Merovingian and Scandinavian Europe. A major contribution to the Sutton Hoo literature. * CHOICE *
A major reassessment of the political and economic context of this burial ground-a very important book. * MEDIEVAL ARCHAEOLOGY *
A book clearly aimed at academics and university students, [but] of value to anyone seriously interested in early Anglo-Saxon England.. Martin Carver's succinct account of Sutton Hoo...explain[s] the burials in ways which go beyond traditional historical archaeological interpretation. * HISTORY TODAY *

MARTIN CARVER has been publishing with Boydell since 1993, and is one of the leading archaeologists in Britain, and indeed Europe. He was professor at York from 1986 to 2008. He has been responsible for most of the excavations at Sutton Hoo since the 1970s.