The Dig (novel)
Encyclopedia
The Dig is a novel by John Preston, published May 2007, set in the context of the 1939 Anglo-Saxon
ship burial
excavation at Sutton Hoo
, Suffolk
, England
. The novel has been widely reviewed as ‘an account of the excavation at Sutton Hoo in 1939’. The sleevenote advertises it as 'a brilliantly realized account of the most famous archaeological dig in Britain in modern times.' However the account in the book differs in various ways from the real events of the Sutton Hoo excavations.
A wireless serial drama based upon Preston's fictionalized account was broadcast on UK BBC Radio 4 commencing 15 September 2008.
newspaper. He is also the nephew of one of the excavators, Mrs Peggy Piggott, (wife of Stuart Piggott
, afterwards Edinburgh Professor of Archaeology) later known to the archaeological world as Margaret Guido, but born Cecily Margaret Preston (1912–1994). However, by his own account the author only became aware of the story surrounding the excavation three years ago (i.e. c. 2004) and therefore the content is not derived directly from Mrs Piggott’s narration.
The novel is the first account of these events in which the role of Mrs Piggott is particularly emphasised. Although she did not lead the excavation, she was the first of the excavators to discover gold items in the burial chamber within the ship, and therefore was at the forefront of it. The effect of the wonderful discovery on her, in particular, forms an important thread in this version of the story. She becomes the narrator of the chamber excavation part of the story, pp 119–202.
Another telling of the controversy and personalities surrounding the discovery, based on unpublished letters and Ipswich Museum MS documentation, was published by Robert Markham (2002) in an illustrated and readable form.
These changes affect the chronology and topography of the excavation, the archaeological methods, the state of knowledge of the excavators at the time, the identity and contents of the various burial mounds, and (to some extent) the character and motivations of the real people involved. Some caution is therefore needed in accepting the historical canvas.
The major alterations in the historical framework occur in the first half of the book. The real excavations took place over two seasons, 1938 and 1939. In 1938 (20 June-9 August) three mounds (and an indeterminate feature) were opened, and in 1939 (8 May-3 September) the mound containing the famous undisturbed ship-burial was explored. In this novel the two seasons are merged into one, made to commence in April 1939 and to end at the outbreak of War (3 September 1939). Of the three 1938 mounds the excavation of the first is described in the novel (pp15–18, 23-24, 29-32). The second in the novel is probably meant for the third of 1938, a disturbed cremation burial: a dramatic episode of a landslide in the novel (pp34–36) is possibly transposed from other phases of the excavation not described.
The second mound explored in 1938 (known as Mound 2), which contained a disturbed burial which had included a ship, is not described but is 'merged' with the famous ship-mound ('Mound 1') excavated in 1939. Hence the real excavation of Mound 2 is suppressed, and the preparations for the real 1939 excavation is omitted. (Some glassware found in the former is, in the novel, transposed to the latter (e.g. p 61). Hence the novel cannot portray what was learnt by the experience and findings of the 1938 dig, and how that helped the 1939 discovery to unfold in the way that it did.
The most obvious example is that the Suffolk excavators found and researched the iron ship-rivets from Mound 2 in 1938 and were therefore ready to recognise them as soon as they appeared in the following year. They had also realised that the objects being found were of early Anglo-Saxon date during 1938. Hence in the novel the important realisation that there is a ship in the ground comes as a complete surprise to them, (p65-68), and the credit for recognizing the early Anglo-Saxon date of the find is given to the 'professional' archaeologists who take over from them (pp 141–143). Basil Brown had recognised this in 1938. 'I can now return to my original theory of last year' he wrote on Tuesday July 18, 1939.
Charles Phillips's explanation of the whetstone as a 'sceptre' (pp 163–5) (while it is being excavated) is rather anachronistic because although that idea did occur early, it was not closely argued until many years later. Also, some descriptions of the removal of artefacts in the chamber do not tally with the evidence of photographs taken during the excavations: the whetstone was half upright, and was left semi exposed for some time, not as described in pages 163-5: and the purse lid was carefully cleaned down among the other gold items in the surrounding assemblage, and their relationships elucidated by the Piggotts, not prised out as described on pages 150-1. Another time anomaly in the novel is that Peggy and Stuart Piggott are said to interrupt their honeymoon for the dig, (pp. 121–125; 201), when in fact they had been married since November 1936.
The author's statement that factual information has been altered is therefore to be taken seriously, and the reader interested in the real Sutton Hoo should therefore proceed "with caution," while enjoying the author's narrative.
was recorded and broadcast during the 1920s and 1930s playing in her garden to the accompaniment of nightingales singing. The telling (p 171-2) appears to be in homage to the poem 'The Nightingale Broadcasts' by Robert Saxton, which won the Keats-Shelley Prize in 2001. Later, where Saxton has 'a nightingale cadenza, which gargled and trilled from the oak leaves', Peggy's voice tells of their 'long gurgling trills' (p196). Recent interest in this theme appears to originate in the edition of Harrison's autobiography published in 1985.
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
ship burial
Ship burial
A ship burial or boat grave is a burial in which a ship or boat is used either as a container for the dead and the grave goods, or as a part of the grave goods itself. If the ship is very small, it is called a boat grave...
excavation at Sutton Hoo
Sutton Hoo
Sutton Hoo, near to Woodbridge, in the English county of Suffolk, is the site of two 6th and early 7th century cemeteries. One contained an undisturbed ship burial including a wealth of Anglo-Saxon artefacts of outstanding art-historical and archaeological significance, now held in the British...
, Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The novel has been widely reviewed as ‘an account of the excavation at Sutton Hoo in 1939’. The sleevenote advertises it as 'a brilliantly realized account of the most famous archaeological dig in Britain in modern times.' However the account in the book differs in various ways from the real events of the Sutton Hoo excavations.
A wireless serial drama based upon Preston's fictionalized account was broadcast on UK BBC Radio 4 commencing 15 September 2008.
Nature of the work
John Preston has for many years been chief television critic for The Sunday TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
newspaper. He is also the nephew of one of the excavators, Mrs Peggy Piggott, (wife of Stuart Piggott
Stuart Piggott
Stuart Ernest Piggott CBE was a British archaeologist best known for his work on prehistoric Wessex.Born in Petersfield, Hampshire, Piggott was educated at Churcher's College and on leaving school in 1927 took up a post as assistant at Reading Museum where he developed an expertise in Neolithic...
, afterwards Edinburgh Professor of Archaeology) later known to the archaeological world as Margaret Guido, but born Cecily Margaret Preston (1912–1994). However, by his own account the author only became aware of the story surrounding the excavation three years ago (i.e. c. 2004) and therefore the content is not derived directly from Mrs Piggott’s narration.
The novel is the first account of these events in which the role of Mrs Piggott is particularly emphasised. Although she did not lead the excavation, she was the first of the excavators to discover gold items in the burial chamber within the ship, and therefore was at the forefront of it. The effect of the wonderful discovery on her, in particular, forms an important thread in this version of the story. She becomes the narrator of the chamber excavation part of the story, pp 119–202.
Another telling of the controversy and personalities surrounding the discovery, based on unpublished letters and Ipswich Museum MS documentation, was published by Robert Markham (2002) in an illustrated and readable form.
Altered information
As a form of historical novel, this work draws on recorded information about real archaeology, real people and real events. However some facts have been deliberately altered to suit the author's literary purpose, as he has freely admitted. In a Note at the end, he states that ‘Certain changes have been made for dramatic effect.’ Soon after he adds, ‘Any mistakes, of course, are entirely my own’(p233). The gap between record, deliberate alteration and mistake is therefore difficult to identify. The story is told through more than one authorial person, so that at each stage it is that person's knowledge of the affairs described which is being represented. This enables the author to present data very selectively.These changes affect the chronology and topography of the excavation, the archaeological methods, the state of knowledge of the excavators at the time, the identity and contents of the various burial mounds, and (to some extent) the character and motivations of the real people involved. Some caution is therefore needed in accepting the historical canvas.
The major alterations in the historical framework occur in the first half of the book. The real excavations took place over two seasons, 1938 and 1939. In 1938 (20 June-9 August) three mounds (and an indeterminate feature) were opened, and in 1939 (8 May-3 September) the mound containing the famous undisturbed ship-burial was explored. In this novel the two seasons are merged into one, made to commence in April 1939 and to end at the outbreak of War (3 September 1939). Of the three 1938 mounds the excavation of the first is described in the novel (pp15–18, 23-24, 29-32). The second in the novel is probably meant for the third of 1938, a disturbed cremation burial: a dramatic episode of a landslide in the novel (pp34–36) is possibly transposed from other phases of the excavation not described.
The second mound explored in 1938 (known as Mound 2), which contained a disturbed burial which had included a ship, is not described but is 'merged' with the famous ship-mound ('Mound 1') excavated in 1939. Hence the real excavation of Mound 2 is suppressed, and the preparations for the real 1939 excavation is omitted. (Some glassware found in the former is, in the novel, transposed to the latter (e.g. p 61). Hence the novel cannot portray what was learnt by the experience and findings of the 1938 dig, and how that helped the 1939 discovery to unfold in the way that it did.
The most obvious example is that the Suffolk excavators found and researched the iron ship-rivets from Mound 2 in 1938 and were therefore ready to recognise them as soon as they appeared in the following year. They had also realised that the objects being found were of early Anglo-Saxon date during 1938. Hence in the novel the important realisation that there is a ship in the ground comes as a complete surprise to them, (p65-68), and the credit for recognizing the early Anglo-Saxon date of the find is given to the 'professional' archaeologists who take over from them (pp 141–143). Basil Brown had recognised this in 1938. 'I can now return to my original theory of last year' he wrote on Tuesday July 18, 1939.
Charles Phillips's explanation of the whetstone as a 'sceptre' (pp 163–5) (while it is being excavated) is rather anachronistic because although that idea did occur early, it was not closely argued until many years later. Also, some descriptions of the removal of artefacts in the chamber do not tally with the evidence of photographs taken during the excavations: the whetstone was half upright, and was left semi exposed for some time, not as described in pages 163-5: and the purse lid was carefully cleaned down among the other gold items in the surrounding assemblage, and their relationships elucidated by the Piggotts, not prised out as described on pages 150-1. Another time anomaly in the novel is that Peggy and Stuart Piggott are said to interrupt their honeymoon for the dig, (pp. 121–125; 201), when in fact they had been married since November 1936.
The author's statement that factual information has been altered is therefore to be taken seriously, and the reader interested in the real Sutton Hoo should therefore proceed "with caution," while enjoying the author's narrative.
Poetic allusion
In the novel Peggy relates the story of how the English cellist Beatrice HarrisonBeatrice Harrison
Beatrice Harrison was a British cellist active in the first half of the 20th century. She gave first performances of several important English works, especially those of Frederick Delius, and made the first or standard recordings of others.-Early training:Beatrice Harrison was born in Roorkee,...
was recorded and broadcast during the 1920s and 1930s playing in her garden to the accompaniment of nightingales singing. The telling (p 171-2) appears to be in homage to the poem 'The Nightingale Broadcasts' by Robert Saxton, which won the Keats-Shelley Prize in 2001. Later, where Saxton has 'a nightingale cadenza, which gargled and trilled from the oak leaves', Peggy's voice tells of their 'long gurgling trills' (p196). Recent interest in this theme appears to originate in the edition of Harrison's autobiography published in 1985.
Previous dramatisation
The playwright Peppy Barlow wrote and produced with Ivan Cutting of the Eastern Angles Theatre Company a play centred upon the characters of Basil Brown, Charles Phillips, Guy Maynard, Reid Moir and Mrs Pretty, taking as its subject the find and controversy. This, 'The Sutton Hoo Mob', has been produced in two separate seasons, 17 Feb to 7 May 1994, and resumed/revised in 2006, at many venues in Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex. (See external link, BBC)Sources
- J. Preston, The Dig (Penguin Books/Viking, London 2007). ISBN 978-0-670-91491-3
- B. Brown, Diaries of the Sutton Hoo Excavations, Transcripts in Public Archives (Suffolk County Council and Ipswich Museum), Volume LXIV.
- R.L.S. Bruce-Mitford, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology (Gollancz, London 1974). ISBN 0 575 01704 X
- R.L.S. Bruce-Mitford, The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial (3 Vols in 4), (British Museum, London 1975, 1978, 1983)
- B. Harrison and P. Cleveland Peck, The cello and the nightingale: the autobiography of Beatrice Harrison (John Murray, London 1985). ISBN 0719542081
- A.C. Evans, The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial (British Museum, London 1986/9). ISBN 0 7141 0544 9
- C. Green, Sutton Hoo: The Excavation of a Royal Ship-Burial (London 1963).
- N.F. Hele, Notes or Jottings about Aldeburgh (London 1870).
- T.D. Kendrick, Anglo-Saxon Art to AD 900 (Methuen & co, London 1938).
- R.A.D. Markham, Sutton Hoo through the Rear-View Mirror (Sutton Hoo Society, Woodbridge 2002). ISBN 0-9543453-0-4
- C.W. Phillips, The Excavation of the Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial, The Antiquaries' Journal 20, no 2 (April 1940), 149-202.
- C.W. Phillips et al., The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial, Antiquity (March 1940).
- C.W. Phillips, My Life in Archaeology (Sutton, Gloucester 1987). ISBN 0-86299-362-8
- S.J. Plunkett, The Suffolk Institute of Archaeology: its Life, Times and Members, Proc. Suffolk Institute of Archaeology 39 Part 2, 165-207. ISSN 0262-6004
- S.J. Plunkett, 'Basil John Wait Brown' (Oxford DNB).
External links
- Follow this link "My buried history" for author's home newspaper publicity for this work.
- Review by Rowland Manthorpe for Observer, May 13, 2007 http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,,2078288,00.html
- Review and author interview/justification, East Anglian Daily Times http://www.eadt.co.uk/content/eadt/features/story.aspx?brand=EADOnline&category=Features&tBrand=EADOnline&tCategory=features&itemid=IPED17%20May%202007%2010%3A14%3A46%3A520
- Dramatic rights in works by John Preston http://www.pfd.co.uk/clients/prestonj/b-aut.html
- 'The Nightingale Broadcasts' by Robert Saxton http://www.keats-shelley.co.uk/the%20nightingale%20broadcasts.html
- Penguin readers' group interview http://readers.penguin.co.uk/nf/shared/WebDisplay/0,,68060_1_10,00.html
- BBC page referring to revival of 'The Sutton Hoo Mob' http://www.bbc.co.uk/suffolk/content/articles/2006/04/10/sutton_hoo_mob_arkell_review_feature.shtml and details listing from The Stage http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/11734/the-sutton-hoo-mob