“Death, the undiscover’d country from whose bourn no traveller returns…”

Hamlet, Act Three, Scene 1, line 79-80

In Greek mythology, Charon was the ferryman who transported souls across the River Acheron to the underworld. The Ancient Egyptians, living on the banks of the Nile, imagined that after death a king would be carried across the sky to the afterlife in a ship (known as a solar barge) with the sun god, Ra. Nordic cultures buried their great leaders inside actual sea-going ships. Lesser mortals were buried inside graves delineated by stones, laid out in the shape of long boats. 

The Anglo-Saxons also believed in life after death and in the journey that took you there. Before about AD 700, this was a pagan vision of the afterlife but, with the gradual spread of Christianity through England, the idea of Heaven and Hell took hold. The Sutton Hoo ship burial provides both pagan and Christian artefacts and pre-dates the famous Viking ship burials, although it has a great deal in common with them.

Evidence of ship burials

Sutton Hoo treasure
© National Trust

Sutton Hoo is by no means the only ship burial we have uncovered - there is even a second ship buried at the site in Mound 2. There are remains of ship burials at Snape and Caister-on-Sea in East Anglia and on the Isle of Man. More than 400 ship burials have now been excavated worldwide, reflecting many different cultures.

The Khufu ship is a huge vessel buried inside the Giza pyramid complex in Egypt, dating from 25000BC, which makes it by far the most ancient of any ship burial we know of. The ship was found in “kit form” inside the complex and has now been re-assembled.

The Viking Ship Museum in Oslo houses three ships which were used in burials, including one from Oseberg which contained the skeletons of two women. Smaller boats, as well as carts and sledges, were buried along with the great ships. The extraordinary Valsgärde burial site in Sweden has ship burials from the sixth century and graves dating from the eleventh century.

Other forms 

As you can see, ships are not the only things buried with the dead. Other modes of transport are also common, such as sledges, smaller boats and even horses. Each excavation has uncovered a wide variety of grave goods such as weaponry, jewellery and domestic items, even after robbers have filched articles of value.

Sutton Hoo treasure
© National Trust

Treasures at Sutton Hoo

Here is a list of some of the things found at Sutton Hoo - what do you think the person travelling to the afterlife would have needed these for?

Shield, sceptre, hanging bowl, seven spears, lyre, helmet, gaming pieces, two silver spoons, ten silver bowls, bell, purse, shoulder clasps, gold buckle, sword, cloaks, drinking horns, leather bag, four knives, bottles, combs, silver ladle, otter-fur cap, pillow, shoes, horn cup, axe hammer, mail coat, wooden bowl, cauldrons, bucket, iron lamp.

These objects were possibly considered as being useful to the deceased in the afterlife. Gifts such as food were possibly to help them on their journey. In Ancient Greek culture each person was buried with a coin (one obol) under their tongue to pay the ferryman, Charon. At Sutton Hoo, 37 coins were found in the dead king’s purse – might this have been to pay the 37 mythical oarsmen that the boat accommodates to row him to the afterlife?

The ceremony of a ship burial must have been a very impressive sight. Unfortunately, we don’t have any archaeological evidence for the kind of dramatic funerals featured in movies such as The Vikings (1958) with Kirk Douglas, where fire slowly engulfs the ship as it sails towards the horizon over the billowing waves. We do, however, have two accounts of ship burials on land, as supported by findings at Sutton Hoo. One is from the Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf (below) and one from an eye-witness in the tenth century. 

 

Beowulf (c. AD 725-750)

“Then they bore him over to ocean's billow,

loving clansmen, as late he charged them,

while wielded words the winsome Scyld,

the leader beloved who long had ruled....

In the roadstead rocked a ring-dight vessel,

ice-flecked, outbound, atheling's barge:

there laid they down their darling lord

on the breast of the boat, the breaker-of-rings,

by the mast the mighty one. Many a treasure

fetched from far was freighted with him.

No ship have I known so nobly dight

with weapons of war and weeds of battle,

with breastplate and blade: on his bosom lay

a heaped hoard that hence should go.”

 

Ibn Fadlan (AD 920)

Ibn had been travelling along the Volga River in Russia and wrote about the way in which the Rus, colonists from Sweden, honoured their dead leader. Here he describes the rather grisly grave goods:

“He was dressed in pants, trousers, boots, a jacket, a caftan of gold brocade with buttons… Then they carried him into the pavilion on the ship… Then they brought bread, meat and onion put it in front of him… Then they came with a dog, which was killed and thrown on the ship… Then they came with all his weapons and put them beside him. Then they took two horses… cut them in pieces with swords and threw their meat on the ship.”

He goes on to describe the fire as the ship burned before its ashes were covered with a mound of earth:

“A powerful, fearful wind began to blow so that the flames became fiercer and more intense. One of the Rus was at my side and I heard him speak to the interpreter, who was present. I asked the interpreter what he said. He answered, “He said, ‘You Arabs are fools’” “Why?” I asked him. He said, “You take the people who are most dear to you and whom you honour most and you put them in the ground where insects and worms devour them.  We burn him in a moment, so that he enters Paradise at once.” Then he began to laugh uproariously. When I asked why he laughed, he said, “His lord, for love of him, has sent the wind to bring him away in an hour.”