One alternative to the cenotaph theory was the possibility that the body had been removed soon after burial, perhaps for a Christian interment, but this does not seem to be a very realistic solution as the grave showed no signs of disturbance apart from the late sixteenth-century robbers' trench.
A second alternative was the 'acid- bath' theory. It is well known that bodies buried in acid soil will very gradually leach away leaving little evidence of their once quite substantial bulk except for a shadowy stain and the occasional tooth or fragment of dense bone. (Age also makes a difference - the bones of children and people towards the end of their life will dissolve more rapidly and completely than those of fit adults.) It was argued that in soil as generally acid as Sutton Hoo (pH 3- 4) a body would disintegrate fairly rapidly after burial and that in the freak conditions of a ship-burial there would probably be a compounding of the 'acid effect'. This was because the hull would initially trap rainwater percolating from the top of the mound so that the conditions in the burial chamber would be continually damp, if not actually wet, and highly acidic. In such conditions it would not be surprising for all the organic elements in the burial to be destroyed unless they were protected to some degree through contact with corroding metals. Unfortunately, apart from the narrow iron sword blade, which was anyway sheathed in a leather-bound wooden scabbard, all the metal in the 'body; area of the burial was high quality gold which does not corrode. Thus there was no possibility of fragments of textile from the dead man's clothes being preserved, nor the leather of his shoes.
Another clue to the presence of a body would have been given by large amounts of residual phosphates in the chamber. All living things contain phosphates and as flesh decays they are released into the surrounding environment, where they may be trapped, as for example at Sutton Hoo in the sand of the burial chamber. In 1967 the British Museum made a survey of residual phosphates throughout the burial and compared the results inside the chamber with those of the sand outside. The results showed that phosphate levels inside were markedly higher than those outside. By plotting the contours of the phosphate levels it could also be seen that the concentration increased towards the centre of the deposit where a body would have been placed. Unfortunately this process can only demonstrate that the burial chamber once contained a large phosphatic source - it cannot identify that source as being of human origin.
However, the coincidence of higher phosphate levels in the central area of the chamber must strengthen the argument that the grave is an inhumation even if it cannot entirely confirm it. This interpretation has been given additional support by the excavation of 'sand-bodies' between the mounds and on the eastern edge of the site which had demonstrated how 'bodies' can survive at Sutton Hoo in a totally decayed state in which only fragments of bone remain within a fragile concretion of sand that uncannily reflects the fleshed-out body. But in the conditions that must have existed within the chamber be fore the roof collapsed it is probable that the body would have decayed many years before the sand finally engulfed the burial, leaving only disturbed bone to vanish into the sand. This would leave no visible trace except perhaps for a faint dark shadow in the already dark sand that fell into the chamber. It would have been a remarkable achievement for a shadow such as this to have been traced on the 1939 excavations.'
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