The Dig

[Jan Harber]

This Netflix film, with Ralph Fiennes and Cary Mulligan, is well worth watching if only for its lovely Suffolk scenery.
Concerning the discovery in 1939, by amateur excavator Basil Brown, of the Anglo Saxon longship and treasure at Sutton Hoo, it contains riverside scenes shot on several different locations. The somewhat gratuitous sub-plot love scenes were done at what looks a lot like the old dock at Boyton, Basil comes to work with his bike via what is probably the Butler river ferry, there are several shots of the Deben and Ramsholt church...
Plus a delightful moment as Basil Brown sits on the sea wall puffing away at his pipe and watches the little tiller-steered barge Signet sail by on her way down the Alde from Snape towards Iken.

 

[Mistroma]

I had planned to watch it in the next week or so. My wife wanted to see it and I read a good review earlier today. I watched some of it and saw the part about the bike on the ferry right at the beginning. Good to know someone likes it, not just a reviewer.

 

[Black Diamond]

Just finished watching it, Jan, very enjoyable and beautifully filmed. Glad to see Des got a name check in the credits, and there’s also a glimpse of Robert Simper’s beach boat. Most of the creek filming is up the Butley River. Well worth a watch.

 

[Marmalade]

Yep - watched it last night - really good film. There's also a you tube about the bloke who taught Ralph Feinnes how to speak in a Suffolk accent - also v interesting.

 

[Concerto]

Just finished watching the film. Very enjoyble and helped tie in a visit made to Sutton Hoo about 18 years ago. Will try and visit again in the future.

 

[Wansworth]

Yes a nice film to watch,thought provoking at one level and devoid of gratuitous violence

 

[fredrussell]

Yep - watched it last night - really good film. There's also a you tube about the bloke who taught Ralph Feinnes how to speak in a Suffolk accent - also v interesting.

I haven’t seen movie, just a clip of it - I thought the accent not quite right, but then I’m a Suffolk lad so, to be fair, that’s probably a bit harsh. I look forward to watching it soon.

 

[PaulRainbow]

Yep - watched it last night - really good film. There's also a you tube about the bloke who taught Ralph Feinnes how to speak in a Suffolk accent - also v interesting.

Did they also give Ralph any extra fingers or toes ?

 

[Tradewinds]

I haven’t seen movie, just a clip of it - I thought the accent not quite right, but then I’m a Suffolk lad so, to be fair, that’s probably a bit harsh. I look forward to watching it soon.

Interesting. Charlie Haylock, Fiennes' speech coach, suggests there's a difference in the Suffolk dialect from west to east (the short video clip starts with the S. Wales accent moving through Hampshire eventually to Suffolk).

 

[ianc1200]

Thanks for the recommendation - watched last night, wonderful film.

 

[Tomahawk]

It was a burial.
For all the self appointed importance of the archeologists.. they are robbing someones grave and insulting their beliefs.

 

[Poignard]

It was a burial.
For all the self appointed importance of the archeologists.. they are robbing someones grave and insulting their beliefs.

 

[johnalison]

It was a burial.
For all the self appointed importance of the archeologists.. they are robbing someones grave and insulting their beliefs.

That is a fair point, and one that is much discussed these days but hardly thought of in the 1930s so far as I know. Nowadays skeletons and bodies are treated very differently. Personally, I think that it would be a shame, and a loss to much important research if museums had to reinter all their human remains and if new ones were not sought.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

This Netflix film, with Ralph Fiennes and Cary Mulligan, is well worth watching if only for its lovely Suffolk scenery.
Concerning the discovery in 1939, by amateur excavator Basil Brown, of the Anglo Saxon longship and treasure at Sutton Hoo, it contains riverside scenes shot on several different locations. The somewhat gratuitous sub-plot love scenes were done at what looks a lot like the old dock at Boyton, Basil comes to work with his bike via what is probably the Butler river ferry, there are several shots of the Deben and Ramsholt church...
Plus a delightful moment as Basil Brown sits on the sea wall puffing away at his pipe and watches the little tiller-steered barge Signet sail by on her way down the Alde from Snape towards Iken.

I think that calling Basil Brown an amateur may be technically correct, but gives the wrong impression, as pretty much every archaeologist of the day would be an amateur in that no formal training was available. Basil Brown had previous experience and was recommended for the job by (from memory) the museum at Ipswich or Norwich. Under the circumstances he did an amazing job, and recognised what he was dealing with quickly enough to adapt his methods to preserve as much as possible, given the technical limitations of the time.

I have a very minor professional connection with Sutton Hoo! Those who remember the Chronicle programmes about Sutton Hoo may recall a little yellow machine being used to carry out a ground penetrating radar survey. It was designed and built by a colleague of mine, as a spin-off from his work on ice penetrating radars on which he and I worked. As a consequence, I did the post-processing for some of the data, and also worked with a high precision topographic survey collected by another member of the team, using hill-shading techniques to highlight small features. Standard stuff now, but new in the 1980s!

 

[jimi]

It was a burial.
For all the self appointed importance of the archeologists.. they are robbing someones grave and insulting their beliefs.

Its a thought I've often pondered, is the distinction between desecration and Archaeology time defined? Or is it only relevant for the living and becomes irrelevant once all living people that knew the deceased have shuffled off this mortal coil? I tend towards the latter myself!

 

[fredrussell]

It was a burial.
For all the self appointed importance of the archeologists.. they are robbing someones grave and insulting their beliefs.

Interesting point that. I'm an atheist, so wouldn't give two hoots if someone digs me up in a few thousand years, but it is riding rough-shod over a believer's, er, beliefs to dig them up (or at least the stuff buried with them if no mortal remains, er, remain).

What annoys me is that the British Museum got the real trinkets to display and we (Suffolkers) got copies. Should be the other way round I reckon, keep em as near to the burial site as possible. Contentious issue I know, but I wouldn't visit the British Museum of Cultural Looting on principle. Apols for thread drift, and lighting the touch paper perhaps.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Its a thought I've often pondered, is the distinction between desecration and Archaeology time defined? Or is it only relevant for the living and becomes irrelevant once all living people that knew the deceased have shuffled off this mortal coil? I tend towards the latter myself!

If we worried about disturbing graves, then very little urban development would be feasible. Old graveyards have been built over - even eminent ones such as where Richard III ended up (he was dug up under a car park during a redevelopment). And church graveyards were routinely recycled in the past - grave markers (except for the great and the good) weren't a thing until Tudor times; once the grandchildren were gone, no-one knew where grandad was planted, unless the priest kept unusually meticulous records. It was quite usual for any bones encountered during the latest burial to be simply collected and stored. I understand that's still the case in many places where burial space is short, and even in the UK, a burial space tends to be only for the length of time required for the body and coffin to turn into compost - between 50 and 100 years in our damp climate, except in unusual soil conditions. After that, if there are no identifiable relatives, it tends to be fair game for reuse - it's usually in the small print! In fact, when I was a student, digging up graveyards in preparation for redevelopment was a good summer job for students - the average labourer being a bit superstitious about it. I never did it - geology's field study requirements rather precluded summer work - but schoolmates did.

If we look at it as being about remembering those who have passed on, I think that Raedwald (almost certainly) would have been amazed and gratified to think that he would be known and remembered about 1500 years after his death. Certainly the Pharaohs whose mummies have been identified would - that was the whole point as far as they were concerned.

Oddly, and I speak as one, it is often religious folk who care least about the fate of their body. I'm quite happy for those I leave behind to do whatever seems best to them, and if anyone can benefit from some spare, slightly used parts, they're welcome! After all, from a religious perspective, the important bit is no longer in residence. Yes, there are those who do worry, but even they accept that it can't be a big deal - if God needs us to have a body, He must have figured out what to do when the body has been destroyed! After all, plenty of saints' bodies were deliberately destroyed - for example, Jeanne d'Arc.

 

[johnalison]

Interesting point that. I'm an atheist, so wouldn't give two hoots if someone digs me up in a few thousand years, but it is riding rough-shod over a believer's, er, beliefs to dig them up (or at least the stuff buried with them if no mortal remains, er, remain).

What annoys me is that the British Museum got the real trinkets to display and we (Suffolkers) got copies. Should be the other way round I reckon, keep em as near to the burial site as possible. Contentious issue I know, but I wouldn't visit the British Museum of Cultural Looting on principle. Apols for thread drift, and lighting the touch paper perhaps.

Some of the BM collection is shown at Sutton Hoo, with the exhibits being changed fairly regularly. That, at least, was the case when we last visited a few years ago. On one occasion they were showing the famous clasp made of gold with garnets and other stones. Although I had seen it before, I gazed at it with amazement. Someone asked a jeweller, I think Garrards, what it would take to make it today. They reckoned three months and about a quarter of a million pounds might do it.

Most European and American collections have been purloined to some degree. At least the Elgin marbles were paid for to the then occupying authority. The Benin bronzes were taken during a punitive expedition but at the time they were taken they had already been taken down from the royal palace as they were considered out of date and had been effectively discarded and left in an outhouse. There is always a diaspora of art objects, Greece to Rome, Egypt to France, Britain to the US, and my feeling is that much of this is beneficial to the country of origin by spreading and making known the country's culture, though there are some objects of such renown that return seems fair. Ethiopia has demanded and received the King of Kings from us and a giant stela from Italy.

 

[Slowboat35]

Great film and lovely scenery but shame about 'discovering' my favourite anchorage that will doubtless now become a well-frequented spot by movie-tourists and others following the non-existent "sex scene" we were so ridiculously and prudishly warned about.
Good too to hear an attempt, no matter how shaky, to emulate the local accent. But why couldn't they find local actors? Ralph Fiennes made a reasonable job of it but some of the others didn't seem to know whether they were from Ipswich, Exeter or Truro.

 

[Rosie1963]

I’ve not been up the Butley in a number of years, but remember the landing stage at Boyton being in considerable disrepair. Is that now all fixed-up as per the film?