The Sutton Hoo ship-burial is one of the most significant archaeological finds ever made in Europe and arguably in the world. It lies in a site that contains all the elements of archaeological mystery and romance: seventeen burial mounds, buried treasure, great works of art, sacrificed horses, and evidence of human execution.

In the first accessible account of the whole story to date, Martin Carver explains what we know of Sutton Hoo burial ground, in which the leaders of the Dark Age kingdom of East Anglia signaled their belief in a pagan and maritime kingdom independent of the Christian Europe of the day.

In Sutton Hoo, Martin Carver, director of the most recent excavations, tells the story, not only of one of the most dramatic historic places in early England but of the fifty years of its exploration - a history of British archaeology.