The Dig Author:John Preston In the long hot summer of 1939 Britain is preparing for war. But on a riverside farm in Suffolk there is excitement of another kind: Mrs Pretty, the widowed farmer, has had her hunch proved correct that the strange mounds on her land hold buried treasure. As the dig proceeds against a background of mounting national anxiety, it becomes clear tha... more »t this is no ordinary find...
John Preston's recreation of the Sutton Hoo dig -- the greatest Anglo-Saxon discovery ever in Britain -- brilliantly and comically dramatizes three months of intense activity when locals fought outsiders, professionals thwarted amateurs, and love and rivalry flourished in equal measure.« less
An odd book, based on true events and, consequently, lacking the sort of resolution we expect from fiction. Well worth the reading, but hard to analyze or evaluate. Enigmatic.