Qualla: Prittlewell Royal Anglo-Saxon Burial

Prittlewell Royal Anglo-Saxon Burial: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data, CC BY-SA 3.0. The acidic Essex sand had dissolved the body completely. Only fragments of tooth enamel survived, too far decayed to yield DNA, and the wooden coffin had collapsed centuries ago into dark stains on the soil. But the grave goods lay exactly as the mourners had arranged them around 580 AD: a sword, a lyre, copper-alloy hanging bowls inlaid with Christian crosses, gold-foil crosses laid where eyes had once been, Merovingian coins from the continent, a folding stool of a kind seen only in royal portraits in early medieval manuscripts. For about fourteen hundred years he lay undisturbed beneath a low mound on the outskirts of what is now Southend-on-Sea, between an A1159 road-widening scheme and an Aldi supermarket, beside a pub the locals had named, without yet knowing why they were right, The Saxon King.

Image: Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data | CC BY-SA 3.0

Prittlewell Royal Anglo-Saxon Burial: The Most Spectacular Find in Sixty Years

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cnbrb, CC BY-SA 2.0. The excavation, conducted by archaeologists from the Museum of London Archaeology Service in 2003, ended on 20 December with the final lift of the chamber's contents - about 110 objects raised over two phases across ten days, some block-lifted in their bed of soil to preserve the...

Image: Cnbrb | CC BY-SA 2.0

Prittlewell Royal Anglo-Saxon Burial: The Prince of Prittlewell

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cnbrb, CC BY-SA 2.0. Who was he? The question matters because he was a real person, not a curiosity. The current best guess is Sæxa, brother of Sæberht of Essex - one of the kings who governed this corner of England in the generation before St Augustine arrived from Rome with Christianity. The richne...

Image: Cnbrb | CC BY-SA 2.0

Prittlewell Royal Anglo-Saxon Burial: Lyre and Sword and Folding Stool

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cnbrb, CC BY-SA 2.0. The objects themselves are extraordinary. The lyre, reconstructed from soil impressions and surviving metal fittings, is one of the most complete found anywhere in Britain - and it had been repaired at least once during his lifetime, suggesting it was a treasured instrument rathe...

Image: Cnbrb | CC BY-SA 2.0

Prittlewell Royal Anglo-Saxon Burial: Camp Bling

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cnbrb, CC BY-SA 2.0. After the excavation, Southend Borough Council intended to widen the A1159 road right across the burial site. Local protesters refused. From September 2005 to July 2009, a road protest camp called Camp Bling occupied the area - the name a half-joking reference to the press nickna...

Image: Cnbrb | CC BY-SA 2.0