Archaeologists have uncovered traces of a 1,400-year-old temple at Rendlesham, near Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, England.
The discovery was made by the Rendlesham Revealed community archaeology project, which is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. The project is an ongoing investigation of the archaeology of the Deben valley, where previous excavations have found an Anglo-Saxon settlement and a royal Hall of the first Kings of East Anglia.
According to the researchers, the structure is a pre-Christian temple or cult house from the period of the Kingdom of East Anglia, when Norfolk and Suffolk was a small independent kingdom of the Angles.
In the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the site at Rendlesham is recognised as an East Anglian centre of royalty. Bede documents that King Redwald (believed to be buried in the Sutton Hoo ship burial around AD 625) maintained a temple in which there were altars to pre-Christian Gods alongside an altar to Christ.
Excavations also uncovered evidence of fine metalworking associated with royal occupation, including a mould used for casting decorative horse harness similar to examples from the nearby princely burial ground at Sutton Hoo.
Professor Christopher Scull, the project’s principal academic advisor, said: “The results of excavations at Rendlesham speak vividly of the power and wealth of the East Anglian kings, and the sophistication of the society they ruled. The possible temple, or cult house, provides rare and remarkable evidence for the practice at a royal site of the pre-Christian beliefs that underpinned early English society.”
“Its distinctive and substantial foundations indicate that one of the buildings, 10 metres long and 5 metres wide, was unusually high and robustly built for its size, so perhaps it was constructed for a special purpose. It is most similar to buildings elsewhere in England that are seen as temples or cult houses, therefore it may have been used for pre-Christian worship by the early Kings of the East Angles,” added Professor Scull.
Councillor Melanie Vigo di Gallidoro, Suffolk County Council’s Deputy Cabinet Member for Protected Landscapes and Archaeology, said: “Everyone involved in the project can take pride that together we have achieved something remarkable. Over 200 volunteers from the local community were involved this year, bringing the total number of volunteers to over 600 for the three-year fieldwork programme, including from the Suffolk Family Carers, Suffolk Mind, and local primary school children from Rendlesham, Eyke and Wickham Market.”
Header Image Credit : Suffolk County Council
