Found: Regal Treasures around a Vacuum
“Elaborate ship burials filled with treasures were rare in Anglo-Saxon England, particularly toward the latter end of the early medieval period. The wealth of grave goods found at Sutton Hoo—as well as the positioning of the ship and its contents, which would’ve required a considerable amount of manpower to transport—suggest its onetime inhabitant was of a very high social status, perhaps even royalty, but the individual’s identity remains a mystery. (An oft-cited candidate is King Raedwald of East Anglia, who died around 625.) By 1939, notes the British Museum, all that was left of the deceased was a ‘human-shaped gap among the treasures within.’ ”
~ The Smithsonian Magazine about the Sutton Hoo find
So much for royalty, a king with fierce
Sword power, not like a royal family now.
Brutality was thrust and used to pierce
All other shields and force the thanes to vow
To this one man. But then he met a foe
He failed to conquer—death. Bedecked with jewels,
He found himself shipped off to where no glow
Of gold is seen. Entombed with monstrous tools
Of war and golden armor, he was gemmed,
Encased with bright magnificence, he found
Himself how useless kingship is, now hemmed
In by long darkness blacker than the ground.
He rotted till a gap was left. That’s all,
An ordinary human in death’s thrall.
~ Phillip Whidden