![]() The importance of the Sutton Hoo burial cannot be overstated. The British Museum, which houses the trove today, deemed the find a “spectacular funerary monument on epic scale.” Dating back to the sixth or seventh century A.D., the 1,400-year-old grave-believed to belong to an Anglo-Saxon king-contained fragments of an 88-foot-long ship (the original wood structure had deteriorated) and a burial chamber filled with hundreds of opulent treasures. ![]() Over the next year or so, Brown, who was later joined by archaeologists from the British Museum, struck gold, unearthing the richest medieval burial ever found in Europe. (The name is derived from Old English: “Sut” combined with “tun” means “settlement,” and “hoh” translates to “shaped like a heel spur.”) After Pretty hired self-taught amateur archaeologist Basil Brown, the dig began the following spring. Directed by Simon Stone, The Dig explores themes of legacy and existentialism while developing the character arcs of Edith, Basil, and the wide-eyed Robert.In the summer of 1937, as the specter of World War II loomed over Europe, Edith Pretty, a wealthy widow living near Woodbridge, a small town in Suffolk, England, met with the curator of a local museum to discuss excavating three mounds of land on the far side of her estate, Sutton Hoo. Meanwhile, the protagonist's son, Robert, shows an interest in astronomy while looking after his ailing mother. In the Netflix storyline, a widow named Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan) hires an amateur excavator named Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) to investigate her property. ![]() The Dig is based on the historic 1939 Sutton Hoo excavation, which resulted in the unearthing of a 7th century Saxon burial site. Screenwriter Moira Buffini mostly stays true to real-life events for the movie adaptation, though her story is based on John Preston's eponymous 2007 novel a fictionalized version of what actually transpired. ![]() The Dig ends with facts about the real-life characters but doesn't acknowledge the fate of Robert Pretty. ![]() What happened to Robert Pretty, Edith's astronomy-loving son in The Dig? Portrayed by Archie Barnes, the character seemingly plays a minor role in the 2021 Netflix movie, yet his character arc is symbolic of the main protagonists' hopes and fears. ![]()
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