The objects intimated a rich Anglo-Saxon culture, which, at the time of its discovery, greatly enhanced historians' limited knowledge of so called “Dark Ages” Europe. The funeral itself would have been an enormous occasion, and the was so enormous, it could probably be seen from the river below when people sailed by.”īrown’s excavations yielded 263 objects from the ship, including valuables, armor, tools, and weapons. We can imagine it involved huge groups of people. She goes on to explain: “The very act of dragging a ship up from the river downhill, digging a hole big enough to contain the ship, and building the burial chamber, is almost like a piece of theater.

The Sutton Hoo ship, however, suggests an even grander scale. At the site: an entire ship, 80 feet long, used as a burial vehicle.Ĭurator Sue Brunning of the British Museum, where the artifacts from Sutton Hoo are now housed, told National Geographic that the use of ships as burial devices were not historically uncommon. The mounds turned out to be the remains of a 1,400-year-old Anglo-Saxon burial site. But how much of Pretty’s story is true? What happened at Sutton Hoo and was it really as dramatic as the Netflix drama? Years later, after reportedly cycling through actors including Cate Blanchett and then Nicole Kidman, The Dig found its star in Carey Mulligan, who plays Edith Pretty. “As the ship is revealed, so are the inner lives of the people involved, and that’s what seemed so powerful and original to me.” Wood wanted the film to further explore these hidden character tensions, the “simmering feelings kept in check by British reserve and the class structure.” What Wood saw was a trove of dramatic character relationships. She immediately wanted to turn the story into a film and soon sent the story to screenwriters.

Producer Ellie Wood had then finished John Preston’s historical novel, The Dig, a semi-fictional work (which, at the time, had yet to be released) expanding on the real 1939 archeological excavation at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, England. Simon Stone’s The Dig, now on Netflix, starring Carrey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes, began its source material excavation in 2006.

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