<P> Sam Newton draws together the Sutton Hoo and Beowulf links with the Raedwald identification . Using genealogical data, he argues that the Wuffing dynasty derived from the Geatish house of Wulfing, mentioned in both Beowulf and the poem Widsith . Possibly the oral materials from which Beowulf was assembled belonged to East Anglian royal tradition, and they and the ship - burial took shape together as heroic restatements of migration - age origins . </P> <P> Christopher Brooke in The Saxon & Norman Kings (1963) - chapter III - gives copious notes regarding Beowulf and the Sutton Hoo treasure and relates the life of the chiefs in the literary work with the 1939 discovery of the ship - burial . </P> <P> In medieval times the westerly end of the mound was dug away and a boundary ditch was laid out . Therefore, when looters dug into the apparent centre during the sixteenth century, they missed the real centre: nor could they have foreseen that the deposit lay very deep in the belly of a buried ship, well below the level of the land surface . </P> <P> In the 16th century, a pit, dated by bottle shards left at the bottom, was dug into Mound 1, narrowly missing the burial . The area was explored extensively during the 19th century, when a small viewing platform was constructed, but no useful records were made . In 1860 it was reported that nearly two bushels of iron screw bolts, presumably ship rivets, had been found at the recent opening of a mound and that it was hoped to open others . </P>

When was sutton hoo excavated and who by