YouTube Transcript:
Sutton Hoo - Masterpieces of the British Museum - BBC Documentary

Skip watching entire videos - get the full transcript, search for keywords, and copy with one click.

AutoDub

Understand YouTube Foreign Videos

Immersive YouTube Voice Translation

Break language barriers, embrace global quality content

Solve Foreign Video Barriers Instantly

Video Transcript

bloomsbury in central London is home to

one of the country's most famous

national institutions established in

1753 the British Museum is one of the

oldest museums in the world inside these

walls there are more than seven million

objects spanning over two million years

of global history and culture at the top

of these stairs is some of the greatest

treasure ever found on English soil more

than a thousand years old

some call it page one of British history

it is the Sutton Hoo treasure with this

helmet at centre it is the prime example

of a superb helmet it's something that

is completely extraordinary in

it's also at once familiar because it is

a face and we can see it's a helmet and

yet very strange very other there's a

world of dragons and monsters and the

face is just behind it in the darkness

of the cheek pieces

that the helmet was ever discovered at

all was down to the efforts of one woman

mrs. Edith pretty the daughter of a

wealthy industrialist she had lived at

Sutton Hoo in Suffolk with her husband a

retired colonel since 1926 twelve years

later she was widowed with a young son

[Music]

mrs. pretty was interested in

spiritualism like a lot of people were

in the 1930s we know that she had a

friend who was a medium and she used to

go to meetings in Woodbridge with

spiritualists and there is a story that

either her or a friend of hers had

visions of soldiers with spears walking

around on the mounds which she could see

from her first-floor window whatever the

truth of these rumors these earthen

mounds were certainly intriguing I think

mrs. pretty was just curious about what

was in you know in the mounds on her

estate she'd been to Egypt and also they

were there always are rumors of gold in

the mountains but she didn't know a bit

about archaeology and I think really her

curiosity was tickled and she was

wealthy enough to be able to open them

and just have a look mrs. pretty

contacted Apes which Museum and they in

turn suggested an archeologist named

basil Brown he literally rode up at her

door one day and presented himself and

Basil Brown had a real passion for

investigating monuments assisted by mrs.

pretties gardener and gamekeeper Brown

carried out the delicate task of

excavating the site just a few weeks of

painstaking work on mound one revealed

the impression of a ship which had long

since rotted away somebody else less

skillful group charged straight through

that but battles very clever excavation

did act to reveal the impression of the

boat left in the sand the sort of shadow

boat the boat simply got bigger and

bigger and bigger this is as big as the

Scandinavian ships you know so he was

very aware I think during the excavation

of the ship that he was into something

very very special whispers about the

discovery began to get out and soon the

authorities were involved Charles

Phillips a Cambridge academic visited

the site and was dumbstruck by what he saw

saw

the burial chamber was yet to be opened

and was clearly unrolled Phillips felt

it was not appropriate work for one man

a garden and a chauffeur he took over

the excavation which was to become the

richest archaeological find in British history

history

it must have been absolutely

overwhelming for the excavating team at

that stage I don't think they'd

anticipated how could they have done

anything quite like this because nothing

quite like this had ever been found in

Britain before there are other rich

Grey's but this was really quite

spectacular and I think they were in a

sense almost shell-shocked by the

rapidity and the extraordinary variety

and wealth of the material that was

coming out of this this burial chamber [Music]

[Music]

it came like a bolt out of the blue

suddenly here's a window on a world you

know this barbaric splendid burial

overflowing with extraordinary treasures

weapons golden garnet jewelry and of

course containers quite a lot of

containers imported silver drinking

horns drinking vessels everything I mean

shoes buckles if you could put together

a kind of life for an anglo-saxon King

there's not much there that you would

actually want to add to it by July 1939

it was obvious that this was a sight of

utmost importance but the growing

specter of the coming war meant the

excavation team was under immense

pressure to work quickly the whole time

they were working they were very aware

that Walker breakout the next day and so

it was you could almost look at it as a

as a form of a rescue excavation in a

sense so that it was quite amazing what

I'm sure part of the special nature of

that sense of urgency was the growing

realization as they excavated this

extraordinary assembly so that it was

here in some sense an emblem of English

kingship there was a very resonant

symbolic thing for the time in which it

was excavated absolutely on the 28th of

July in 1939 the team made perhaps the

most momentous discovery of all the

rusted pieces of an iron helmet I'm

standing right above the spot where the

helmet was found it was smashed into

tiny fragments and that tells us that

the helmet itself must have been rusted

and corroded at the time that the burial

chamber collapsed which means that the

burial chamber must have been a very

massive and sturdy structure it had to

support the weight of the mound on top

of it and survive long enough for the

helmet to rust away and then of course

it all collapsed and the helmet was

broken into tiny pieces these pieces

have been painstakingly put back

together to form this terrifying helmet

although it is made of iron it was once

covered in tinned bronze panels this

replica helmet shows how it would have

glittered in battle it was highly

decorated with scenes of a horseman

riding over a fallen soldier

and these dancing warriors with our

Spears and semicircular headdresses the

face mask has human features a cast

bronze mouth nose and eyebrows look

closer still and you will see that each

eyebrow ends in a Boar's Head with

pointed tusks and at each end of the

crest there is a dragon head with sharp

little teeth the degree of detail in

that facemask the garnets that pick out

the eyebrows the little sort of

toothbrush moustache over the mouths I

mean all this stuff is quite

extraordinary it's it's almost as though

they are trying to present a portrait of

the man who is behind it and of course

it is extraordinary that when you

actually wear the helmet or why the

replica it also actually enhances your

voice it actually makes the voice echo

and drop in tones so that that too would

actually give the wearer some extra sort

of persona if you like they're quite

sinister these helmets the big question

was who would have worn it the

particular conditions of mound one meant

that there was nothing left of the

person who was laid to rest there you

have to imagine the ship buried in the

ground it's like a container for water

so water percolating down through the

mound would collect in the burial

chamber in the boat and it would be

quite acidic because it's filtered

through this sandy soil and you have to

imagine a body basically lying in what

is in effect an acid bath and so the

body and all the bones dissolved away

over many years leaving only a few

chemical traces behind so that's why no

body or bone was discovered

there may not have been a body but the

artifacts gave some strong clues as to

whose grave this might have been in this

letter to mrs. pretty Thomas Kendrick

from the British Museum suggests it was

someone very special indeed there is no

doubt that the man in your Barrow must

have been a very important person and we

are beginning to wonder if he was king

raedwald of East Anglia King red world

had ruled in the early 7th century

if Kendrick was right then it meant that

the ship barrier had taken place nearly

1,400 years ago well if you look at all

the assemblage together and if you look

at the contenders for the burial you can

make a personal choice I mean you can

never say that this is the burial of X

but given the golden garnet jewelry of

the assemblage given the date of the

coins and given the possibility that the

burial could have taken place within a

decade of the those coins coming

together say in the mid 620 s then you

could argue for red world almost all we

know about King red world comes from

this 8th century manuscript the

ecclesiastical history of the English

people written by the anglo-saxon monk

known as the venerable bead red world

has a particular place in English

history because according to bead a

number of these early English kings held

a special sway over the southern English

peoples they were Kings who ruled other

kings and beed says they held an

Imperium the Latin word meaning a kind

of Empire what wide rule in anglo-saxon

this appears is Bret Walder or Britain welder

welder

the lavishness of the grave and even

conceivably some of the symbolism of the

artifacts could suggest that it's him

that dating is spot-on some of the

things in the grave were incredibly

valuable but they also had a

significance over and above their

material worth this great gold belt

buckle weighs just over 400 grams of

gold which new research shows was the

equivalent of 300 anglo-saxon shillings

now what's even more significant about

that is the fact that 300 shillings we

know from the law codes of the time is

the life price of a nobleman it was the

amount that had to be paid in

compensation to settle the feud if a

nobleman was slain what this meant was

that the man who was able to wear this

great gold buckle would have been able

to sit in a hall surrounded by noblemen

but with the price of the life of any

single one of those simply sitting on

his belt the goods within this grave

were certainly fit for a king nothing

like a crown was worn by those early

kings the first example of what we would

call a crown with kind of prongs comes

from the 10th century then it was the

sword and the helmet which defined the monarchy

this is an enormous amount of wealth

that's going into the ground absolutely

superb material there is nothing

anywhere else in this period to touch

the quality of that jewelry and yet this

is something that this family the royal

family in East Anglia could afford to

discard into the ground of course it was

an act of honor and homage to the dead

man but it also says you know we are so

rich we still have more of this behind

even treasured heirlooms were placed in

the chamber the animal interlaced

patterns on the helmet suggest it was

about a hundred years old when it was

buried what's more there was an

intriguing feature to its back

the helmet has repair on it so that

suggests that it had a bit of use before

it is impossible to know finally if this

helmet was worn in battle but although

it is quite delicate with its silver

work and garnet inlay there is no doubt

that this was a functional piece of

armor it would be possible to wear it as

it's got nostrils so that you can

breathe when you're wearing it it's

quite stifling actually to put the

replica on but it would be possible and

of course you then have to wonder did

your King go into battle there's no

reason why it shouldn't have been worn

and it would have made an amazing figurehead

figurehead

we know that king red world fought at

least once in the Battle of the river

idol in his 8th century manuscript B

tells us that red world masked his

troops in marched the 256 miles to

Northumbria to face his enemy Ethel

Firth in the year 616 although red will

defeated his enemy in the north he lost

his son Regan here in the battle because

warfare was an aristocratic occupation

of course the casualties were very heavy

in the aristocracy if he lost red well

himself conceivably may have died in

battle we just don't know at first sight

the grave seemed to have strong

Scandinavian links ship burials like

this have only been found in Suffolk and

Sweden the helmet looked Swedish too

like this one the Vandal 14 helmet from

Upland with its ear flaps and eyebrows

but a closer look at the Sutton Hoo

helmet showed some important differences

Sutton Hoo helmet has been raced from a

piece of iron just hammered up the

Kappas in one whole piece whereas the

construction of the Swedish helmets show

that they were made from several

different bands of iron and therefore we

now think it's possible that the hand

was actually made in England an English

helmet may be but one crowded with

images taken from Scandinavian mythology

like these dancing warrior panels each

warrior is dragging a foot and holds

Spears and a short sword they seem to be

doing some kind of ritual movement of

course they could be fighting but we

do have parallels for that in

Scandinavia so this is obviously a motif

I think what we're looking at here is a

repertoire of images and clearly they're

very potent images of power you have

warriors on a helmet and clearly

successful warriors and they must be to

do with the mythology and traditions and

the conferring of power and success in

battle there was one other group of

mighty warriors who influenced this

helmet the Romans had left Britain at

the beginning of the fifth century but

their influence was still being felt a

century or two later this fallen warrior

design weather man on horseback is

riding over the conquered enemy has its

roots in the Roman period and the helmet

shape itself borrows heavily from Roman

parade helmets these early anglo-saxon

kingdoms are really interesting because

as far as we can tell they were just

successful warriors who established

their dynasties in Britain having

migrated from Scandinavia in the late

Roman period of course later on when

they became powerful these Kings liked

offer in murcia who built the great dike

between England Wales all of these

people in East Anglia they like to claim

that they had a great descent going back

even to Kings before the dynasty goes

back to Caesar and then ultimately to

Woden having a Germanic God as the

progenitor of your dynasty is not

uncommon actually amongst the early

anglo-saxon dynasties but it's very

interesting that the East Anglian

genealogy also includes Caesar in it and

that to me is really rather interesting

because one of the strands in this

extraordinary burial is a strand which

seems to be saying we are the heirs of

Rome the helmet itself is based on a

Roman parade helmet very clearly so that

in itself is a sort of evocation of the

Roman past so the fact that Caesar

appears in the genealogy I think it's no

they come from the pagan world of Odin

and Thor rodent and flower thee these

pagan gods of war and storm in the

Viking northern world that we're

familiar with later you know but they

also adopt Roman ideas of rulership of

kingship perhaps some of the symbolism

of their kingship and subsequently of

course Roman religion and Latin culture

the late Roman inheritance included

Christianity bead tells us that a

missionary landed on the island of

Thanet in Kent in 597 he talks about

King red walls who spent quite a bit of

time in Kent and were there for coming

to contact with Christianity there

having adopted Christianity but on

returning to his kingdom had reverted to

paganism or at least had gone halfway

back to being a pagan because he had

alters according to be placed side by

side one to Christ and one to the devil

which presumably meant the Germanic God

Woden so so red world seems to be

backing two horses at that time it's

possible that the family of the dead man

also decided to back to horses when they

came to assemble the grave goods

although it was a pagan burial with

provision made for the pagan afterlife -

silver baptismal spoons with the Greek

inscription solos and polos were also

included baptismal spoons of course are

are given at conversion and baptism you

know and these had that it seemed a

solace and poor lost soul and poor you

know the famous conversion of the

Apostle Paul in the New Testament and

even though he converted back to

paganism and was buried in a pagan

graveyard his family nevertheless buried

these things with him the spoons with

their Greek inscriptions were found at

the right shoulder of where the body

might have lain the pagan helmet was at

the left shoulder the helmet does not

contain any Christian symbolism in

contrast this eighth century helmet

found in York carries an emphatic

Christian message its crest forms a

cross shape

and there is a Latin inscription in the

name of our Lord Jesus Christ the Holy

Spirit and God too always say our men

that Christian inscription on the York

helmet is perhaps doing what these

extraordinary totemic images with the

logical images whatever they are are

doing all of a sudden who helmet the

Christian invocation the Christian

prayer on the Oak Hill which is bringing

protection to its wearer and so I think

perhaps these fascinating animal images

on the crest and on the face mask of the

sudden who helmet might be doing for the

wear of the sudden new helmet the

discovery of the Sutton Hoo treasure

turned anglo-saxon scholarship on its

head bringing with it a new

understanding of how sophisticated their

culture was just by looking at this

grave assemblage we realized that there

were international connections that

Goods and probably also people could

travel very long distances and very far

beyond their own cultures if you look at

the eyebrows the garnets used on those

may have come from as far away as India

or Sri Lanka so you see that the

materials themselves had travelled quite

a long distance before reaching

anglo-saxon England what's more it

seemed to prove something that few

people dare to believe was possible it

gave a reality to that great masterpiece

of early English literature the epic

poem Beowulf which described the great

deeds and death of a heroic king from

the seventh century there's a great

description in in Beowulf of the helmet

sarita helm that the white shining hell

may be silvered or whatever made by the

mastery of a gold master who worked

wonders so long ago you know this is

this is the world of burl wolf

in the poem it's referred to the fact

that the helmet has got what is called a

wallah it is something that is we

remember Windham wound with wire and it

somehow goes around the helmet where we

didn't have any idea what that was until

he was realized that this would fit

exactly as a description the crest that

we have on the Sun new helmet the

discovery of the treasure in July 1939

made headline news interest in is only

intensified when a treasure trove

inquiry decided that everything from the

grave belonged to mrs. pretty who had

funded the excavation and on whose land

it had been found in an act of

unparalleled generosity she promptly

gave all this extraordinary treasure to

the British Museum she was offered the

honor of dame of the british empire but

refused it within a fortnight of the

treasure trove inquest war had broken

out amazingly seems like this were

played out on the burial mound once war

was declared this area of which is

called sutton Heath's was used for

battle practice and the tanks and Bren

gun carriers drove all over these mounds

during the time when it was used for

battle practices actually tanks drove

right through the ship so when it was

reactivated you could actually see where

the tanks tracks had driven over the

remains of the ship London 2 was under

attack and the British Museum moved many

of its treasures to a London Underground

station the helmet still in over 500

pieces was boxed up and stored here at

the end of the war the huge job began of

piecing it back together which took two

years this was the outcome which was

proudly displayed in the festival of

Britain in 1951 [Music]

professor Laura Britain was absolutely

an act of regeneration after the war and

it was there to say look here we are

we're back in business this is what we

stand for these are British values this

is our British history this is our past

and it's something which we should be

very proud of there in ration book

Britain rather pinched this artefact was

displayed and an artifact which in the

conventional narrative of English

history and even British history

represented a kind of beginning you know

that the story of the monarchy leading

into the story of the empire all went

back to this despite all the attention

the helmet was getting there was a

growing sense of our knees about the way

it had been put back together it didn't

actually function as a helmet and the

sides of the face and the throat would

have been left completely unprotected

more than that because the crest and the

terminal dragon overlapped the neck

guard the neck guard wasn't flexible

which would have meant that when you

wore it you were like almost imprisoned

in it all these things gradually led to

the helmet being dismantled and then

being put together again which was like

opening a little box of horrors in 1971

the reassembling started and british

museum conservator Nigel Williams was

given the job for over six months the

helmet lay in over 500 fragments on

Williams work table a colleague

remembers the blood sweat and

frustrations involved he was an

optimistic man he probably thought Oh

three weeks I'll have something to show

it was really quite wrong it took him a

very long time and what slowed him up of

course was everything was such an

important how much pretty well

everything had to be discussed this does

slow you down you can't just go at it

although I do remember now that you're

seeing time

people get out of my room and let me get

on with it then an astounding

breakthrough is made in a box marked

head he founds the jaw of a dragon head

similar to those at either end of the

crest it hadn't been used on the

original reconstruction that little head

lay around for a while

item I think he'd be looking at it for

about eight months so you gradually you

begin to absorb so subconsciously the

shapes of things and it's when your eye

catches one and looks at another

suddenly you see outfit there I mean you

almost know you picked it up with your

goal you burn really don't need to try it

yeah I'll fit there yes all right yes

this third dragon head is a perfect fit

between the eyebrows interlocking with

the other elements of the face it also

revealed another layer of symbolism in

the helmet suddenly the features of the

face mask materialized into the shape of

a winged dragon the eyebrows appear as

wings while the nose and moustache

formed the body and the tail this is

once a human face and yet a face which

has animals strengths embodied in the

symbolism of this mask and which is also

not only something which embodies the

power of the wearer but perhaps also

terrifies the seer

I think the helmet has become an icon

that helmet has a sort of reality for

people because they can look at it and

see the early 7th century see those

early anglo-saxon warriors and how they

perceived themselves nearly 1500 years

after it was made the Sutton Hoo helmet

has taken its place in the British

Museum as one of its supreme treasures

discovered on the eve of war it became a

symbol of the nation and proof of a

forgotten sophisticated civilization

it's an object in the museum's

collections like no other we may never

know who made it and we can't be certain

who wore it

but it still has the power to make us

[Laughter] [Music]

Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video

Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds

One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps

Paste YouTube URL

Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript

Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds

Get Our Chrome Extension

Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.

Add to Chrome — Free

Works with YouTube, Coursera, Udemy and more educational platforms

Get Instant Transcripts: Just Edit the Domain in Your Address Bar!

YouTube

←

→

↻

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

YoutubeToText

←

→

↻

https://youtubetotext.net/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

YouTube TranscriptPreparing your results…