Rendlesham Revealed: The Heart of a Kingdom AD 400-800 is a new exhibition at the National Trust’s Sutton Hoo. It tells the story of an Anglo-Saxon royal settlement in Suffolk, the largest and wealthiest of its time in England.
The exhibition is part of the community archaeology project Rendlesham Revealed: Anglo-Saxon Life in South-East Suffolk, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Original Briefing
To show how Archaeologists found Anglo-Saxon Rendlesham.
Create a video using a mixture of animation, real-life images of objects, and film footage of the archaeology techniques being used to show how Anglo-Saxon Rendlesham was found by Archaeologists. Use animation to show what happened in the past and photo/video for the present-day investigation.
Audience: Key stage 2 primary school children
Length: Approx 2mins.
The idea
After 12 years of dedicated archaeological investigation, SCC Archaeological services have successfully identified the site of the early East Anglian royal settlement at Rendlesham, a significant discovery first mentioned in the 7th century by Bede in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. This finding holds immense historical and cultural importance, and we are excited to share it with you.
Work is being undertaken in 2020-2024 as part of the community archaeology project Rendlesham Revealed, during which a library of video and photos of the discovery and excavation process has been built. These assets were crucial records of how archaeologists used archaeology to discover the history at Rendlesham, and it was made a requirement to show some of these assets in the video.
We were to start the video with illustrations to interpret what Anglo-Saxon Rendlesham may have looked like. Donna Wreathall had created an artist's impression of what a Royal Hall at Rendlesham could look like. Including Donna’s illustration in the intro of the video, the animation needed a lot more illustrations to tell the Anglo-Saxon story, so following Donna's black and white, line and dot shading illustration style, I created the other illustrations of huts, marketplace, animals, farmers, families and tradespeople for the video.
During the excavations in 2022, a royal hall of "international importance" dating back 1,400 years was discovered. This significantly changed what we already knew about the hall, so Donna returned to her original hall drawing and re-created it to what we now knew. Thus, it was a much larger, grand hall, which had to be shown accurately within the animation.
The end of the video serves to bring the history to the modern day, showcasing the recent excavations and the history being discovered. It features footage and photographs that highlight the collaborative efforts of the archaeologists and the community volunteers, who have come together to unearth the past and make a record of it forever. This is a project that we have all contributed to, and we are proud to share the results with you.
My role: Producer, editor, motion designer and illustrator.
Music by Gemma Parker. Illustration of the royal hall by Donna Wreathall.
Results
The ‘How has Archaeology Revealed Anglo-Saxon Rendlesham?’ video is on display in the Discovery Room within Tranmer House at the National Trust’s Sutton Hoo for the Rendlesham Revealed exhibition from 23rd March - 29th October 2023.
The Discovery Room is for young people to discover and learn history, specifically the Anglo-Saxons. The video will be played on repeat, and accompanying activities, such as coin activities, writing activities, and drawing activities, will be available for children to take part in.
Also hosted on various websites by Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service, the video paired with activities will be accessible to anyone, aimed at families and schools, to help children learn about archaeology and history.
https://youtu.be/UUxjPadrhAU
Created March 2023 by Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service for the Rendlesham Revealed community project, supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Video and animation by Emma Youell.
