ABSTRACT
What is the identity of the person who was buried in the ship at Sutton Hoo 1,400 years ago? We have a name, Raedwald, but as we saw in Chapter 4 that is rather like calling the family pet Frodo. Giving a dog a name does not necessarily establish its identity. The rich grave goods are much more help, especially if you take the view that the power of that identity rests in the trappings of status, in this case kingship. The relative amounts of that power are also expressed by such measures as the craftsmanship of the objects, the distance from which they came, the content of gold and silver, their quantity and the fact that such wealth was ritually disposed of, taken out of circulation, thrown away. The body was not preserved at Sutton Hoo. But the fact that it was apparently dressed in full parade kit – sword, helmet and Sam Browne belt – has led to the automatic assumption that this was a male. Of course, this is an essentialist view of the social categories of
kingship and gender identity. We expect kings to have richer burials. Otherwise they wouldn’t obviously be kings. We expect fancy swords and big gold buckles to represent powerful males. In circular fashion we expect their identities to have the properties of power and to be accompanied by objects that share those characteristics. They attract those fine items because they are high status and because they are male. We expect them to be both magnates and magnets.
