The Dig. Directed by Simon Stone, 2021
Reviewed by Kristen Carella
I shall begin with what this review is not about. It is not about the film’s historical veracity (or lack thereof), nor the proper crediting of Basil Brown for the mid twentieth-century excavation of the Sutton Hoo graves. It is not about the book upon which the film is based. Most of all, it is not about the sixth- and seventh-century treasures unearthed at this crucially important site for our understanding of early medieval English history. Rather, this review focuses on the film itself as a literary artifact, taken as a piece of historical fiction that emerged in 2021, during a particularly fraught moment in the history of early medieval English Studies. READ FULL REVIEW HERE
medievalism, medieval archaeology, early medieval England