In Summer 1939, Charles W. Phillips, Fellow of Selwyn College, supervised the team responsible for excavating Britain’s greatest ever archaeological discovery – the Sutton Hoo ship burial. This spectacular grave, perhaps of a seventh-century king, dispelled the myth of the ‘Dark Ages’ and revealed a world of artistic brilliance, complex beliefs and far-flung international connections.
In this lecture, British Museum curator Dr Sue Brunning presents the burial from Sutton Hoo through the diary and photographs of Charles W. Phillips. His first-hand testimony provides a thrilling glimpse of what it was like to make the find of a lifetime, recovering material culture of a nature and quality never seen before – and all as the world hurtled towards the Second World War.
