'It epitomises the strangeness of Sutton Hoo': 6th-century bucket found at Anglo-Saxon ship burial holds human cremation

A copper-alloy bucket that has turned brown and green shows incised designs of a person and wild animals.

A copper bucket found at Sutton Hoo in England decades ago is much more than a pretty artifact: A new micro-excavation of the sixth-century container reveals it held the cremated remains of an elite individual, along with animal bones and an antler comb.

The copper-alloy Bromeswell Bucket was found in 1986 at the Anglo-Saxon ship burial site of Sutton Hoo, but the Byzantine-era bucket predates the ship by at least a century and was likely imported from Turkey.