Spong Hill is an

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

cemetery site located south of North Elmham in

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It is the largest known Early Anglo-Saxon cremation site. The site consists of a large cremation cemetery and a smaller, 6th-century burial cemetery of 57 inhumations. Several of the inhumation graves were covered by small barrows and others were marked by the use of coffins. Extensive excavations of the Early Anglo-Saxon cemetery and part of the associated settlement revealed evidence of Early Prehistoric occupation on the hill top, dating from the

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Ancient Greek language, Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic i ...

to the Early

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

. Excavation of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery also revealed extensive occupation evidence: late

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

and

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

enclosure Enclosure or inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land", enclosing it, and by doing so depriving commoners of their traditional rights of access and usage. Agreements to enc ...

s and field boundaries, an early Roman

kiln A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or Chemical Changes, chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects m ...

, and a small settlement of ' sunken huts' and post-hole buildings possibly contemporary with the cemetery.

Context

Spong Hill contains 2259

cremation Cremation is a method of Disposal of human corpses, final disposition of a corpse through Combustion, burning. Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India, Nepal, and ...

s and 57

inhumation Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and object ...

s. The site was in use for around 150 years during which 2,500 to 3,000 individuals were buried. This implies it served a population of around 750 people; much larger than a single contemporary settlement and suggests the cemetery served a number of local communities. There have been a number of finds of cremation urns, the first being reported in 1711. There was a small scale excavation in the 1950s and a further investigation in 1968. The full scale excavation between 1972 and 1981 was directed by Dr Catherine Hills and funded by the

Department of the Environment An environmental ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for the environment and/or natural resources. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of the Environment, ...

. The findings at Spong Hill and suggests that the

Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain The settlement of Great Britain by Germanic peoples from continental Europe led to the development of an Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon cultural identity and a shared Germanic language—Old English—whose closest known relative is Old Frisian, s ...

started earlier than the traditional start date of AD 450, with a significant number of finds from before this. It also suggests a possible synthesis of Anglo-Saxon and continental material culture.

Notable finds

Spong Man

"Spong Man" is the pottery lid of a cremation urn in the shape of a seated figure. Unearthed in 1979, it is one of the few Anglo-Saxon three-dimensional human figures ever found. The lid is 14.3 centimetres in height. Spong Man is normally on display at Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery. It was loaned to the "Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War" exhibition at the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

in 2018/9. Thermoluminescent dating indicates the lid was fired between 460 and 1090 AD. It is regarded as the most elaborate known example of an Anglo-Saxon funeral urn lid.No.34, 1987: The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham, Part IV: Catalogue of Cremations, by Catherine Hills, Kenneth Penn and Robert Rickett, p. 162

Stamped urns

Three 5th-century cremation urns from the Spong Hill site bear the impression of the debated term '' alu'' by "the same runic stamp" in mirror-runes.Hines, John. "Grave Finds With Runic Inscriptions From Great Britain" as collected in Düwel, Klaus. (Editor) (2002) ''Runeninschriften als Quellen interdisziplinärer Forschung: Abhandlungen des Vierten Internationalen Symposiums über Runen und Runeninschriften in Göttingen vom 4.–9. August 1995'', page 189.

Walter de Gruyter Walter de Gruyter GmbH, known as De Gruyter (), is a German scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature. History The roots of the company go back to 1749 when Frederick the Great granted the Königliche Realschule in Be ...

References

Bibliography

* The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham, Norfolk, Parts I to VIII. See East Anglain Archaeol. 6, 11 (out of print), 21 (out of print), 34, 39, 67, 69, 73. England, Norfolk. :* No.6, 1977: The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham, Part I: Catalogue of Cremations, by Catherine Hills :* No.11, 1980: The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham, Part II: Catalogue of Cremations, by Catherine Hills and Kenneth Penn :* No.21, 1984: The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham, Part III: Catalogue of Inhumations, by Catherine Hills, Kenneth Penn and Robert Rickett :* No.34, 1987: The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham, Part IV: Catalogue of Cremations, by Catherine Hills, Kenneth Penn and Robert Rickett :* No.67, 1994: The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham, Part V: Catalogue of Cremations, by Catherine Hills, Kenneth Penn and Robert Rickett :* No.39, 1988: The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham, Part VI: Occupation during the Seventh to Second Millennia BC, by Frances Healy ::* Murphy P. 1988. Botanical evidence. 103 and fiche. In: Healey F. The Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham. Part VI. Occupation during the 2nd millennia BC. ::* Murphy P. 1988. Plant impressions on pottery. 103. In: Healey F. The Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham. Part VI. Occupation during the 2nd millennia BC. East Anglian Archaeol. 39. England, Norfolk :* No.73, 1995: The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham, Part VII: Iron Age, Roman and Early Saxon Settlement, by Robert Rickett :* No.69, 1994: The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Spong Hill, North Elmham, Part VIII: The Cremations, by Jacqueline McKinley {{Use British English, date=July 2024 Anglo-Saxon art Anglo-Saxon paganism Kingdom of East Anglia Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in the Kingdom of East Anglia Archaeological sites in Norfolk Anglo-Saxon burial practices Cemeteries in Norfolk North Elmham

Context

Notable finds

Spong Man

Stamped urns

See also

References

Bibliography