We pass a sign for the ‘Anglo-Saxon Village’ four times a day, to and from school. And four times a day, I used to think: ‘Geez, that’s cringey. How is that appropriate?’ But then, it became part of my daily landscape and I stopped thinking about it. Until T1 started coming home and astonishing us with all kinds of newly acquired Anglo-Saxon knowledge!
As has already been established, he loves history class and we love making history come alive for him! Or…in this case…dead. But, we’ll get to that later.
So, we made an adventure of it and headed to the Anglo-Saxon Village. T1 said he already knew how the Anglo-Saxons lived, so, you know, he played it cool while we explored the recreated homes built atop an archeological site. The area was occupied from 420-650, and excavated between 1956-1972.
To be fair, his dinnertime facts hold pretty true to what I can speed read on the signs between wrangling three feral cats released into open territory.
Phase 2 of our historical explorations took place at Sutton Hoo, the burial site of an Anglo-Saxon king.
Here’s the story: Edith Pretty bought a 530-acre estate in Suffolk in 1926 and became quite curious about the mounds she found while walking the grounds. She hired an amateur archeologist and they began to excavate the 17 mounds. Come to find out, Edith was now the owner of an Anglo-Saxon royal burial ground and all of the contents herewithin. Jackpot!
The largest of the mounds contained a 27m long ship, which was hauled from the river to be buried with Raedwald, King of East Anglia.
Hundreds of treasures were buried with Raedwald, including the infamous Sutton Hoo helmet. Most of the burial mounds were looted, but lucky for Edith Pretty and all of the British population, the Great Ship Burial mound and the Horseman’s Mound were missed by robbers. It’s hard to say what was sinking in with T1— he just kept teasing T2: “You’re in a graveyard, you’re in a graveyard!” But, if nothing else, he could go to school and tell his teacher he had been to Sutton Hoo. And that is good enough for me!
After exploring Edith’s house and the burial site, T1 couldn’t wait to get into the museum! Thanks to a recent fascination with Night At The Museum, he really wanted to see what was going to come alive tonight! It was a small, but very engaging museum! Just enough for us!
T2 was given an activity pack by the docents and loved wearing her tunic around. We were graced with a visit from Ms. Take-A-Picture-Of-Me! I love her so much!
At the time of writing this, the new history content is Normans! Specifically, motte and bailey castles. Challenge, accepted!
Use Your Accent 