Time Team Day 19 - King of Bling

Good morning, and I carry on with the Thirty-One Days of the Time Team.  This time I am pulling a special Time Team from 2005 from the Time Team Official Channel.  It is called the King of Bling and has a runtime of 50:37.

The Time Team is heading to Prittlewell, near Southend in Essex.  They are going to be looking at an important Royal Saxon Tomb.  During road construction, an impressive load of Saxon objects was discovered, leading to an initial excavation.  A nearly intact wood-lined burial chamber was discovered and its contents were comparable to similar discoveries made in England.  Who was this person?  Why would he have so many impressive finds?  The Time Team is on a case.

Construction work on a road in Prittlewell was going to be routine.  However, what was discovered as a result of construction changed things.  Anglo-Saxon artifacts were discovered on this site.  These objects were well preserved including drinking bowls, gold-rimmed cups, other gold objects, and fine jewelry.  It was a grave, unlike any others that were on the site.  As the dig continued, it was clear that this was an intact burial.  The finds were stunning, as the dig continued there needed to be security and the dig had to continue twenty-four-sevens.  What was discovered had to be kept secret.

The body and the objects would have been put in a wooden chamber.  The wood would have eventually collapsed, filling the chamber with dirt.  Not much of the body remained only a few teeth.  The objects themselves would end up in a museum.  Eventually, it was theorized that the person in this burial was a ruler.  However, this caused controversy in the archeological world.

Word would slowly spread amongst select archeologists.  It was clear that this was a significant burial and one of the most important in English history.  Slowly but surely, the finds were moved from the tomb to a conservation department.  Still, the discoveries kept coming.  The finds were carefully examined.  One of the finds included a musical instrument “fit for a king.”  The instrument would have been a symbol of wealth and status.

Identifying the man or the king who was buried in the chamber would be a long way off.  Two months after the evacuation, the announcement was made that a royal grave was discovered.  The goods that were discovered show that he was wealthy enough to import goods.  However, the finds could not identify the man in the tomb.  In the conservation lab, the finds were carefully conserved and other finds were revealed.

Tony catches up with Mick to learn more about how to identify someone from a period that not much is known about.  Mick is thrilled with the challenge.  Archeologists and historians are invited on certain days to take a look at the grave goods and come up with a theory.  Each grave good was carefully selected and laid out to send a message about the person.  Helen Geake was thrilled with the discovery and she talks about the grave itself.  Perhaps it was laid out in a way so people could pay their respects to the dead before the grave was sealed.  However, who was the man?  The specialists concluded that he was a leader of men.  What would the historical record say about this man?

The grave goods have led archeologists to compare what was found in other finds in the graves of kings from the same period.  The grave goods that were discovered at Sutton Hoo, for example, were as rich as the grave goods found at Prittlewell.  Would the gentlemen in Prittlewell consider himself a king?  Perhaps he was a king, and he would have been a smart king.  His kingdom was at the mouth of the Thames and he would have had sway over his fellow kings.  Who was this king?  When he would have ruled?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out.

This is a very different Time Team, but it features archeology that was done by other archeologists.  The Prittlewell find was very fascinating and it was neat to hear about the secrecy that surrounded this dig.  I would show this to a history classroom.