The Prittlewell Chamber Burial

The Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Southend in Essex, England, was discovered during railroad construction back in the 1880s. The site is on a sandy ridge not far north of the Thames Estuary. Dozens more burials were found during road construction in 1923, including 19 of armed warriors, six with swords. The burials seemed to date to the first half of the 600s. Since swords were seriously expensive in the seventh century, this was a highly elite group of men.

Then in 2003, in advance of yet another construction project, archaeologists explored another part of the cemetery. They found many more burials, and among them was a large "chamber grave" dating to around 625. A chamber grave is an underground room, with a floor and walls, within which the corpse is laid on a bed, couch, or bier. Most contain rich grave goods. These chambers originally had wooden roofs, over which the soil from the grave was piled into a mound. But the roofs of course decayed and collapsed, and the mound fell into the grave, squashing the grave goods. But sometimes the collapse had the effect of hiding the grave, since there was no longer a mound to draw the attention of grave robbers; this seems to have happened at Prittlewell.

The first exciting artifacts found at Prittlewell were bronze bowls that had been hanging from the wall. One (above) was imported from the Mediterranean; another was of Celtic manufacture (seven pictures down).

Continuing down, the archaeologists found many more things. The skeleton had disappeared, eaten away by the acidic soil. A wooden lyre survived only in the form of a dark stain in the sand. This Byzantine flagon survived, though.

As did a quantity of glass, including the two blue pieces at the top of the post. Weapons included a sword, shield fittings, and two spear heads, which had fallen in a way that suggested the spears had been leaned against the wall of the chamber.

There was also a sort of folding camp stool, under excavation here. This rather resembles a Roman curule chair, such as a Roman general might have used while on campaign. For me this raises fascinating questions about this man's relationship to the Roman past, and how he saw himself. By way of contrast a large, iron-bound bucket stood in one corner, perhaps once filled with mead.

These gold fittings were attached to either wooden cups or drinking horns. (Shown as they used to be displayed in the Museum of London, with an x-ray picture behind.)

The grave would have looked something like this.

Who was buried in this magnificent tomb? One clue was the mix of pagan and Christian symbolism. These two foil crosses were in the head area; perhaps they had been laid across the corpse's eyes. The body was laid out in the Christian alignment, with the head to the west and the feet to the east. But the mass of grave goods and the emphasis on war and drinking are hardly Christian.

The famous Sutton Hoo ship burial shows a similar confusing mix of religious symbols. This is probably no coincidence. All of the "princely burials" of Anglo-Saxon England date to this period, between about 580 and 650. This seems to be when the royal families were establishing their dynastic power; Bede places most of the founders of the royal houses in this time frame. This was also the period when the new kings were coming under diplomatic pressure to convert to Christianity. This included lavish gifts of Christian artifacts from continental rulers, some of which ended up in the tombs. However, most had not yet converted, and their milieu remained pagan. Whether particular rulers were formally Christian or not they certainly made use of the pagan symbolism of grand funerals and rich tombs to emphasize their wealth and power.

The best candidate for the resident of the tomb is Saberht, King of the East Saxons. According to Bede, he made a dynastic marriage to a Kentish princess, as part of which he accepted baptism. After he died in 616, his three sons repudiated Christianity and the Kentish alliance, sending their bishop packing. Not until after 650 was there another Christian rule of the East Saxons. Perhaps the sons insisted on a royal burial in the grand manner to emphasize their dynastic claim, but respected their father's (or mother's) personal faith to the extent of allowing a few Christian artifacts and east-west alignment. On the other hand they placed the grave in an old pagan cemetery. This is certainly a plausible theory.

Whoever the Prittlewell Prince was, his grave is a great gift to us 1400 years later.

UPDATE May, 2019

The Museum of London has finally published their detailed analysis of this discovery. Love this image of the scraps of the lyre.

The Museum says that the radiocarbon dates for the burial come out to between 575 and 605, which they say rules out King Saberht (died 616) as the occupant. I doubt that; radiocarbon dating just isn't that precise, no matter what people say.