Luxurious Viking Grave Exceeding 100m2 Excavated

On a normal day of 1951, a farmer was crossing a road construction at Næsby in the North of Jutland peninsula, Denmark. Under his feet, he felt something belonging to the ancient times that the construction machines were tearing into pieces. 

Without hesitation, the farmer informed the local museum about the case. And very soon the road construction was ceased. The archaeologists joined the game only to discover a hoard of artifact below the surface of the road construction project. 

The burial site that met the road construction

When the archaeologists finished the excavation, they were completely dazzled to the core. The burial was surrounded by a circle of large stones. They made up the high square fence. The burial might have been richly decorated. At a rough guess, the burial site reached up to 100m2.

Bjarne Henning Nielsen, an archaeologist at Vesthimmerlands Museum, was responsible for the excavation. He told that the finding was so unique. His team of archaeologists could not compare the burial site with anything else because it is the first time they have seen such a luxurious burial mound. In the site, they found out 25 graves more. But none of them was as large as the burial mound belonging to a Viking horseman. 

One thing they know for sure is: the man resting inside the 100-meter-square burial site was not just someone. 

The examinations led the archaeologists to believe that the burial site dated back to the time of Harald Bluetooth. Another luxurious grave, less lavish compared with the horseman's grave, belonged to an axe-man who rested with an axe next to him. The archaeologists believed the two knew each other very well. 

The rest of the site included many graves belonging to several generations of the same family. 

This burial site is always open to debate because of its mysteries:

• The women wore the clothes different from what the other women in the country wore at their time. Their armholes had the decoration patterns similar to the  Frankish-Byzantine costumes.
• The women wore modest jewelry around their neck: only small glass beads. While the Viking women were supposed to wear the large breast jewelry with a big chain. 
• The horseman's grave was not seen in any excavation in Denmark
• During this time, most of the Vikings converted themselves into Christians. But the people inside the burial mound were still buried in a Viking tradition: burying with the daily personal items.

Nielsen suggested that the people buried there were baptized and became the Christians. But somehow, they still retained their traditional way of living.