SLAGEN, Norway (Reuters) - Archaeologists exhumed the body of a Viking queen on Monday, hoping to solve a riddle about whether a woman buried with her 1,200 years ago was a servant killed to be a companion into the afterlife.
"We will do DNA tests to try to find out. I don't know of any Viking skeletons that have been analyzed as we plan to do," Egil Mikkelsen, director of Oslo's Museum of Cultural History, told Reuters at the graveside.
A servant might have been the victim of a ritual killing, perhaps her throat slit to accompany her queen to an afterlife in Valhalla. In one Danish Viking grave, for instance, an old man lying by a younger man had been decapitated.
The archaeologists placed a Norwegian 20 crown coin -- dated 2007 and with a picture of the prow of the Oseberg ship on one side -- in the sarcophagus to show any future generations when the grave had been disturbed.
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Viking History
In Viking times meat was prized and poor people ate fish. Servants would have been eating fish. Elk was saved by those who could afford it.
This grave was from 834 and contained an aluminum coffin. Until I read this, I had never considered aluminum as being used until more recently in human history.
Archaelogy Technique
"The archaeologists placed a Norwegian 20 crown coin ... in the sarcophagus to show any future generations when the grave had been disturbed."
Having visited the Iron Age Museum outside Stavanger (a farm still being excavated when I was there in 1987), I was aware of the use of both bronze and aluminum at an early era, but admit I'd not heard of aluminum being used for coffins. Interesting!
ReplyDeleteIf I ever knew that, I'd forgotten. Stavanger. I would love to visit Norway someday. My grandfather was Norwegian. Some of my relatives are still in contact with relatives over there.
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