Scraping at the dirt, earth thick under his fingernails, amateur archeologist Basil Brown came across a section of hard earth.
After further excavations, he found other patches stained with rust, and iron nails and rivets spread intermittently across the site.
Over several weeks, after a delicate and painsteaking operation, archologist Basil Brown saw the shape of a ship emerge from the ground in the Suffolk field.
He had discovered an 86ft Anglo-Saxon burial ship filled with a rich cargo of teasures.
The discovery at Sutton Hoo in 1939 went on to become one of the most important archologicals finds in Britain, hailed as Britain s Tutankhamun , and to this day the cache is renowned around the world.
It was the most terrifying moment of my career! the star said. I was responsible for getting the soil away from his face. As the cameras came down, all I could think was: Don t let me kill Ralph Fiennes!
It was just one of several tactics used by director Simon Stone to inject a real sense of urgency and adventure into his screen version of John Preston s historical novel.
The book is a stirring fictionalised account of the famous 1939 excavation at Sutton Hoo, in Suffolk, where the royal burial ship of an Anglo-Saxon king was discovered by self-taught archaeologist Basil Brown (Fiennes).