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If you grew up in England, you probably learned about the 1939 Sutton Hoo excavation in school. But for those of us across the pond, The Dig on Netflix has a lot to teach audiences about the true story of one of the most important archeological discoveries of the 20th century.
Novelist John Preston set about educating the masses with his 2007 novel The Dig, which has now been adapted for the screen by writer Moira Buffini and director Simon Stone, and began streaming on Netflix on Friday. However, though The Dig is based on a true story, the key source material is not so much the history as it is a historical novel. So sit back, enjoy the story, and take in the great performances by Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes—but if you’re interested in what really happened, you might want to purchase a non-fiction book. Let’s get into The Dig true story, and just how accurate The Dig is.
IS THE DIG BASED ON A TRUE STORY?
Yes. The Dig tells the true story of English landowner Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan), who hired archeologist Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) to excavate the mysterious mounds on her Sutton Hoo estate in southeast Suffolk in 1937.
WHAT IS THE DIG TRUE STORY? WHO WAS BASIL BROWN? WHAT IS SUTTON HOO?
Basil Brown was a self-taught archaeologist and astronomer who has only recently been credited for his significant role in the field. In 1939, two years after he was hired, Brown’s excavation team discovered a near-in-tact ship from the 7th century, complete with a chamber full of trinkets and treasures, such as masks, helmets, and more.
The discovery was revolutionary in historians’ understanding of the early Anglo-Saxon people who lived in medieval Britain. Weapons discovered suggested the ship may have belonged to a great war leader, a lyre spoke to the music and artistry of the people, and a Scandinavian shield suggested diplomacy with other countries. The most famed discovery was the Sutton Hoo helmet, which was reconstructed by the British Museum and has become a key image of the Anglo-Saxon period.
HOW ACCURATE IS THE DIG?
Most of the main characters in The Dig are based on real people, and the Sutton Hoo excavation was definitely real and significant. However, major liberties have been taken to dramatize the story. Mulligan plays English landowner Edith Pretty; Fiennes plays archeologist Basil Brown; and Lily James plays Peggy Piggott, an English archeologist involved in the excavation whose nephew, John Preston, wrote the historical novel the film is based on. Piggott’s first husband, Stuart Piggott (played by Ben Chaplin in the film), was also a real archeologist present at the dig, as was Charles Phillips (played by Ken Stott).
The only lead character who is entirely fictional is the one played by Johnny Flynn, aka Rory the photographer. The whirlwind romance between Peggy and Rory in The Dig is where the film veers into the “fictional” category of historical fiction. (It is true that the real Peggy Piggot and her husband Stuart Piggott separated after the excavation, and were divorced in 1956.)
In an interview with Decider about his character in The Dig, Flynn said, “I love the character because he’s actually the only character in the story that isn’t a real person. John Preston, the novelist, and Moira Buffini, the scriptwriter, made this fantastic device with Rory, where you get somebody who allows you to see Peggy. You get to see Lily James’s character through his eyes and you get to have her realize that she’s not happy in her marriage.”
Other moments were dramatized by Preston in his historical novel, including the cave-in collapsing on Fiennes’s Brown, and, as far as I can tell, the tension between Brown and The British Museum.
In response to the criticisms from reviewers on The Dig’s creative liberties, Flynn added, “Shakespeare took quite a few licenses in Macbeth, Hamlet, and Troilus and Cressida. It’s a story in the end, and when you have to make stories work in the span of several months, you have to conflate people and events and characters and try to translate that for people.”
