Digging deep

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The Dig

Dir Simon Stone, UK 2021 Streaming on Netflix

This retelling of the Sutton Hoo excavation is shorn of any of its fortean elements (see FT390:72-75 if you’re interested in those), with the possible exception of the extraordinary abilities of selftaught freelance archæologist, astronomer and polymath Basil Brown (played by Ralph Fiennes) who admits, “I’ve always had a thirst for learning.”

Brown could apparently tell just from the look and the smell of earth from anywhere in Suffolk who its owner was. He was one of those archæologists who had an uncanny ‘nose’ for ‘walking’ a, part of Brown’s secret is his ability to change his mind. After being briefly buried alive by a collapsing heap of spoil early in his first attempt, he decides another mound that shows signs of a “robber’s flute” – a graverobber’s trench – might not be all that it seems; he goes for that one and literally strikes gold.