Archaeology News in Suffolk
A collection of archaeological news, projects and events in Suffolk from Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service
Welcome to our e-newsletter for April 2023
Upcoming Events
Finds Identification Day
Thursday 18th May, Station House Campsea Ashe, IP13 0PT, Drop in 11am-3pm (Free). The Suffolk Finds Recording Team will bring their handling collection and answer questions about finds recording. Have you recently found any archaeological objects? Bring them along and our Finds Recording Team can help to identify them. Free Parking available, contact the Station House for details. Or you can arrive by train, the station is on the Ipswich to Lowestoft line.
Basil Brown Memorial Lecture with Prof Christopher Scull
Saturday 20th May, The Hold, Ipswich, 11am-12.30pm (£12pp, booking essential). Professor Christopher Scull has been invited by the Sutton Hoo Society to speak about the new discoveries at Rendlesham. Book Tickets.
Celebrating Rendlesham Revealed at The Saxon Festival and The Rendlesham Show.
This year we are travelling to Woodbridge and Rendlesham to join these two local events to share the results of the 2022 excavations and to celebrate the incredible work by the local community who volunteered, as part of the Rendlesham Revealed project. We will bring displays and a selection of excavated objects over 1,400 years old. Our Finds Recording Team will be with us, so if you have found any archaeological objects, bring them along and the team can help to identify them.
The Saxon Festival, Saturday 3rd June, Whisstocks Place, Woodbridge This is a week-long festival from 27th May to 3rd June with a variety of bookable events organised by The Sutton Hoo Society and the Sutton Hoo Ships Company. We will be at their final event on 3rd June at Whisstocks Place (near The Long Shed) with a display. More details will be published by the organisers at saxonship.org.
The Rendlesham Show, Saturday 10th June, Jubilee Park Rendlesham, Drop in 11am-5pm (Free). This annual event is a celebration of community spirit and we are excited to be joining them to celebrate the Rendlesham Revealed project. Find out more at rendleshamshow.co.uk
Featured Projects - Rendlesham Revealed
Rendlesham Revealed Excavations 2023
The next season of fieldwork at Rendlesham will start in September 2023 and local people will again be able to volunteer. This will be advertised in the Archaeology News in Suffolk e-newsletter in July 2023. Please note: the site at Rendlesham is on private farmland land and has no public access.
Image: the exhibition opening at Sutton Hoo (© Suffolk County Council)
Now Open! Rendlesham Revealed Exhibition at Sutton Hoo 23rd March - 29th October 2023
Rendlesham Revealed: The Heart of a Kingdom AD 400-800 is a new temporary exhibition at the National Trust’s Sutton Hoo, open until 29th October 2023.
The exhibition takes visitors on a 400-year journey to reveal how the Anglo-Saxon royal settlement at Rendlesham developed, with over 150 archaeological finds from the settlement on loan from Ipswich Museum and Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service. Suffolk County Council’s Archaeological Service is curating the exhibition, to celebrate the “Rendlesham Revealed” community archaeology project.
Thanks to the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History and to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for funding this exhibition.
Complementing the exhibition is a new online blog series “Ask the Curator”, which takes a deep dive into the research that has uncovered Anglo-Saxon Rendlesham. Keep an eye out for articles over the next six months, exploring facts about the archaeological site and featuring some star objects that are on display in the exhibition.
The Rendlesham Revealed Booklet
Accompanying the exhibition is a brand new digital booklet, explaining how the site at Rendlesham was discovered and its development as a royal settlement in the 5th-8th centuries. The booklet is free to read and download from our website. Funded by the Sutton Hoo Society.
New Animated Video - How have archaeologists revealed Anglo-Saxon Rendlesham?
A fun new animated video has been created for families, children and young people about the discovery of the Anglo-Saxon settlement at Rendlesham, as we are often asked "How did you know where to look" and "what was it like to live at Rendlesham 1400 years ago?". The video is on display at Sutton Hoo in their Discovery Room until 29th October. You can also watch it for free on our website, where there are also other fun family activities to explore.
Finds Recording in Suffolk
Image: gold Iron Age inscribed quarter stater (© Suffolk County Council)
Featured Find - Iron Age Gold Quarter Stater, Bawdsey
This Iron Age coin was recovered by a local metal detector user at the end of 2022. This coin is exceptionally rare, only found in Suffolk and Essex; it has the inscription 'AGR', which is associated with a group of people called the Catuvellauni.
If you have recently found an archaeological object in Suffolk which you'd like identified and recorded, our Finds Recording Team can help. Find out more about Finds Recording here.
Archaeological Archives
Image: Inside the new archaeological store in Bury st Edmunds. (© Suffolk County Council)
New archaeological store for Suffolk's bulk finds collections
The Archaeological Service collects and curates archaeological collections from commercial and community excavations across Suffolk, conserving them for future research and loans to local museums for display.
These collections of bulk finds (pottery, stone, animal bone etc) have now been relocated from Ipswich to a new storage facility in Bury st Edmunds, allowing for enough capacity to accommodate another 25-30 years' worth of archaeological finds in a safe and controlled environment.
Archaeology in Development
Image: Post hole circle with internal structure after Excavation. (© Suffolk County Council)
From the Vaults: Flixton Park Quarry
Since 1995 Flixton Park Quarry has been subject to formal archaeological excavation under planning archaeological guidance; over 13 years of seasonal excavation work has taken place over a c.43 hectare area.
The Historic Environment Record Team have been enhancing the records for Flixton and have written a blog series about the significant discoveries uncovered during these excavations.
The first article of the series "Circles, cemeteries and living with monuments" focusses on the Palaeolithic to Neolithic periods, with hand axes and monumental structures. The second article "Investigating the Bronze Age" explores the funerary monuments and domestic features from that period, including ring ditches and burials.
Thank you for joining our e-newsletter, for those who are new, here's a brief summary of what we do.
We are the main provider of archaeological advice in Suffolk and to promote the conservation, enhancement and understanding of Suffolk's distinctive historic environment, we:
- maintain a record of archaeology and heritage assets, the Historic Environment Record
- provide advice to planners, developers and farmers
- identify and record finds made by members of the public
- curate an archive for fieldwork projects carried out in the county
- publish the results of fieldwork and other research into Suffolk's past