Green guides us through the scientific significance of the Sutton Hoo discovery: the beautiful jewelry indicates the high level of Anglo-Saxon artistic culture, the royal insignia offers clues to the organization of the East Anglican kingdom and its relations with neighboring regimes, while the burial ships themselves inspire new hypotheses regarding Anglo-Saxon immigration routes. Any reader will be irresistibly drawn to learn more of this archaeological dig which has uncovered such intriguing relics of our medieval ancestors.

This edition takes into account discoveries that have been made since the publication of the original edition. Barbara Green, an archaeologist in East Anglia and Charles Green's daughter, has revised and updated the original text of her father's book.