candidates include other East Anglian kings or a prestigious foreign visitor. There are alternative explanations: the person may have been a wealthy status-seeker, rather than a king, though Rendlesham, a known residence of the East Anglian kings, is only away. Swedish cultural influence has been detected at Sutton Hoo: there are strong similarities in both the armour and the burial with Vendel Period finds from Sweden. Bruce-Mitford suggested that the connection is close enough to imply that the Wuffingas dynasty came from that part of Scandinavia. There are also significant differences, and exact parallels with the workmanship and style of the Sutton Hoo artefacts cannot be found elsewhere; as a result the connection is generally regarded as unproven. It is also possible that the mound is actually a cenotaph rather than a grave, the only sign of body being a chemical stain which could have had other origins; indeed, the site includes burials of both meat and companion animals. Further, there is a lack of shroud ties, and no clear evidence of items which might have adorned a body being left in the expected places in relation to the stain. However, more recent analysis detected phosphate in the soil – an indicator that a human body once lay at rest there. The cenotaph theory may be consistent with the transition from pagan burial to Christian burial; certainly as far as Rædwald is concerned, he could have received a Christian burial, and the mound, whether completed before or after his conversion, being used as a memorial and as symbol of the status of the Kingship of East Anglia. See also Sutton Hoo Sutton Hoo Helmet Wuffingas East Anglia References 63. ^The Anglo-Saxons - A history of the beginnings of England by Marc Morris, p. 68 Sources Primary sources Secondary sources Attribution External links 620s deaths East Anglian monarchs Anglo-Saxon warriors 7th-century English monarchs 6th-century English people Year of birth unknown House of Wuffingas