Norway's oldest known ship burial predates the Viking Age
The ship burial is older than the famous Oseberg and Gokstad Viking ships.
Herlaugshaugen seen from the air. Archaeologists have opened several trenches to investigate the inside of the mound.(Image: Hanne Bryn / NTNU University Museum)
In the new study, the researchers argue how the mound fits into a broader context alongside other early ship burials.
Linked to the famous ship burial at Sutton Hoo
Ship burials such as the Oseberg and Gokstad mounds are from the Viking Age, but the ship in Herlaugshaugen dates to around the year 700 – before the period we define as the Viking Age.
But few large ships from this period have been found. One of the best-known early ship burials is at Sutton Hoo in the UK, which has been dated to around 610–635, according to the British Museum. It's an Anglo-Saxon grave.
"There has been a great deal of debate about the relationship between Sutton Hoo and the later Viking Age ship burials," Grønnesby tells Science Norway.
This is where Herlaugshaugen becomes important, the researchers argue. A clearer picture is beginning to emerge of how these ship burial traditions spread and how they are connected, according to the Norwegian archaeologist.
Could there be even earlier ship burials than this? We will return to that question.
But first: What did they find in Herlaugshaugen?
A large ship?
The archaeologists uncovered numerous iron rivets and remains of ship planks.
Analyses of these rivets show that they almost certainly came from a ship, possibly one similar to the Oseberg or Gokstad ships, according to the new research article.
It is now clear that a ship was buried here, although the vessel itself was not mentioned when the mound was excavated for the first time.
Annonse
Iron rivets from Herlaugshaugen, also with remains of ship planks on some of the rivets.(Photo: Freia Beer / CC BY-SA 4.0)
The mound was first opened by a military company in the late 18th century. There are also accounts of other people having dug inside it.
During the excavation, a skeleton and a sword were uncovered. Both have since been lost. They may have disappeared when the NTNU University Museum moved into new premises during the 19th century.
Grønnesby says that the excavation was prompted by the writings of Snorri Sturluson. It was ordered by Gerhard Schøning, a historian and headmaster of Trondheim Cathedral School in the latter half of the 18th century.
The Viking king Herlaug
The mound is mentioned in Snorri's account of King Harald Fairhair from the 13th century, according to the study published in Antiquity.
Snorri links the burial mound to a local Viking king named Herlaug – hence the name Herlaugshaugen (Herlaug's mound).
Gerhard Schøning (1722–1780).(Image: Hans Peter Hansen, Illustreret Dansk Litteraturhistorie, Volume 2)
Grønnesby believes Gerhard Schøning's interest in the mound stemmed directly from Snorri's account.
"Back then, people treated Snorri's writings as an accurate account of history," he says.
A military company was ordered to open the mound. Inside, they found animal bones, timber, and rivets, in addition to the sword and skeleton already mentioned.
Antiquarians of the time believed the skeleton belonged to King Herlaug, based on Snorri's retelling of the legend of the brothers Herlaug and Rollaug. They thought this matched the legend of how Herlaug was sealed inside a 'storehouse'.
"But the dates we now have do not match what Snorri wrote," says Grønnesby.
No mention of a ship
The reports from that excavation make no mention of a ship among the mound's contents. Grønnesby finds that somewhat surprising, given the site's good preservation conditions.
So there should perhaps have been clearly recognisable remains of a ship inside the mound at that time. He believes the soldiers who excavated it may have realised they were uncovering parts of a ship, but that this detail was never recorded by the historians.
Instead, they may have been more interested in finding evidence that confirmed Snorri's narrative, he suggests.
Christian Krogh’s depiction of Snorri. But did he really look like this? No one knows.(Image: Christian Krohg)
Found remains that could be dated
The discoveries made during the excavations provided an excellent opportunity to date both the ship and the burial mound, according to the researchers. The findings were preciously reported by Norwegian SciTech News.
The grave contained both layers of charcoal and fragments of ship planks surrounding the iron rivets. This meant they had organic material they could date.
"We could hardly have asked for a better basis for dating than what we found in the mound," says Grønnesby.
The results place the burial at around the year 700. This makes it the earliest known ship burial in Norway, according to Grønnesby.
The next two oldest are located on Karmøy, where two burial mounds have been dated to 779 and 790, according to Rogaland county council (link in Norwegian).
A 'missing link'
Even so, Herlaugshaugen is still somewhat younger than the famous Sutton Hoo burial, which has been dated to around 610-630.
Sutton Hoo is particularly famous for its spectacular grave goods, including the iconic Sutton Hoo helmet. It has a bird stretching across the front of the helmet.
The surviving remains of the famous Sutton Hoo helmet. The bird can be seen in the centre of the face, with its wings extending across the eyes.(Photo: Geni / Public Domain)
Grønnesby also points to several burial sites in Sweden, where archaeologists have found a similar helmet as well as boat graves. These graves date from between the 6th and 8th centuries, according to this article (link in Swedish).
"They also contain magnificent helmets and remarkable swords," says Grønnesby. "But the graves are much smaller."
Below is the iron helmet from Vendel in Sweden, which bears a striking resemblance to the one from Sutton Hoo.
The famous iron helmet from Vendel.(Photo: Swedish History Museum / CC BY 2.5)
Grønnesby argues that these sites may represent different expressions of the same burial tradition. In his view, Sutton Hoo, the Swedish graves, and Herlaugshaugen all belong to the same broader cultural tradition.
He also suggests that Herlaugshaugen helps fill what has long been a 'missing link' between the early ship burial at Sutton Hoo, the burial mounds on Karmøy, and the Norwegian ship burials of the Viking Age.
The landscape surrounding the Sutton Hoo burial site.(Photo: Alex Healing / CC BY 2.0)
A shared cultural tradition
He argues that the people living across this part of the world at the time shared a common cultural tradition, including similar ideas about burying people in burial mounds that contained ships.
"The presence of a ship in Herlaugshaugen shows a kind of cultural connection with what was happening in England. There has been a great deal of discussion about the relationship between Sutton Hoo and the later ship burials of the Viking Age. Now we're beginning to see the outlines of a continuous tradition," says Grønnesby.
Archaeologists do not know whether Herlaugshaugen once contained lavish grave goods comparable to those found at Sutton Hoo or Vendel.
But if there was something there, it may have disappeared during the first excavation in the 1780s – particularly if they were made of valuable precious metals.
"It may be that they found things of value that they did not report, but that's only speculation on my part," says Grønnesby.
In other words, the mound may have been looted.
Convinced there are even earlier ship burials
Archaeologist Frans-Arne Stylegar is convinced that we still do not have the full picture of Norway's ship burials.
He works as an archaeologist at Multiconsult. Although he was not involved in the research on Herlaugshaugen, he has worked extensively on both ship burials and the period before the Viking Age.
"With the exception of sites such as Oseberg and Gokstad, very few of Norway's ship burials have been excavated by professional archaeologists," Stylegar says.
The excavation of the Oseberg burial mound in 1904.(Photo: Museum of Cultural History)
He also points out that much of the story has been lost. Valuable grave goods may have disappeared through looting or during early and careless excavations.
This also makes it difficult to make detailed comparisons between the different sites, he says.
Even so, Stylegar is convinced that similar burial customs were practiced across a wide geographic area.
"Using a large seagoing ship, placing a burial chamber inside it with the deceased, and filling it with goods and gold is absolutely a shared feature of both the Norwegian coast and East Anglia," he says.
Even older ships hidden in Norwegian burial mounds?
Stylegar welcomes the growing number of dates for early Norwegian ship burials, noting that several have emerged in recent years.
"Year by year, we're narrowing the time gap between Sutton Hoo and what belongs to the Anglo-Saxon world and the ship burials in Norway," he says.
He therefore believes that even older ships may still lie hidden beneath burial mounds along Norway's west coast.
He is more sceptical about the link to the Swedish graves. According to Stylegar, the Swedish boat graves are significantly smaller than both the Norwegian and the Anglo-Saxon examples.
Calls for more datings
More broadly, Stylegar notes that radiocarbon dating is a statistical method that produces estimates with inherent uncertainties.
He would like to see additional forms of dating to establish a more precise timeline showing when the various burial mounds were built relative to one another.
"I have no reason to doubt this dating, but we're comparing different things," he says.
The datings may be based on tree rings or artefacts. Stylegar points out that the dating of Sutton Hoo relies in part on coins, which can be traced according to, for example, the ruler who issued them.
He believes it is essential to obtain more exact calendar-year datings in order to refine the timelines we have.
For example, the Oseberg burial mound has been dated to the year 834 by looking at tree rings in timber from the grave. This very precise dating is based on the fact that tree rings differ from year to year.
"They have not got that far on Leka yet, but that may come," says Stylegar.
