Rare Viking “death house” discovered in Denmark

Grave goods suggest that medieval high-born couple may have traveled the world.

Annalee Newitz

Silkeborg Museum

From the Silkeborg Museum, this is a recreation of the high-status woman's grave found in a Viking "death house" in Denmark.

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   Silkeborg Museum

   From the Silkeborg Museum, this is a recreation of the high-status woman's grave found in a Viking "death house" in Denmark.
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   Silkeborg Museum

   This is the layout of the Viking tomb known as a dødehus, a rare discovery in Denmark. At left are the graves of the couple, and at right is the grave of a man that was added later.
   
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   Silkeborg Museum

   At the excavation site, you can see the outline of the dødehus on the ground.
   
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   Silkeborg Museum.

   This is the grave of the third man, added after the couple was buried. He may have been the couple's heir.
   
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   Silkeborg Museum

   Two silver coins, found in the dødehus, hailed from a region in what is now Afghanistan. The couple may have traveled to the Middle East themselves or gotten it from long-distance traders.
   
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   Silkeborg Museum

   This clay pot from the Baltic was among the grave goods, which is a further indication that the couple had possessions from all over the world.
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   Silkeborg Museum

   This enormous blade, from a Dane Axe, was found buried with the man. Massive and expensive, it would have been used to break shields apart on the battlefield.
   
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   Silkeborg Museum

   This Dane Axe head was found with the third man and was slightly smaller than the one buried with the male member of the couple. Nevertheless it was still a hefty weapon, often called the "machine gun" of Viking warfare.
   

Construction of a new highway in Hårup, southwest Denmark, has unearthed farms and houses from the Middle Ages, including a rare Viking dødehus or "death house" dated to 950 C.E., packed with grave goods that reveal a lot about the three people buried within it. The death house was a common form of Viking tomb, but the Hårup death house has a very unusual design. It appears to have been inspired by early stave churches of Western Europe, with large wooden posts holding up heavy roof beams. Inside, archaeologists found other international influences. A ceramic vase came from the Baltic and two silver coins hail from the region now known as Afghanistan. These discoveries are testimony to how far Vikings traveled and how extensive their trade networks were. The tomb itself is fairly roomy at 13 x 43 feet and was initially the resting place of a wealthy couple. Later, a third grave was added for another man. Though little remains of the bodies themselves, a few strands of the woman's black hair stood the test of time, as did the two keys she wore around her neck. The larger of these keys would have symbolized that she was the lady of a great house, and the other unlocked an unusual shrine. She was buried in a small wooden wagon, an honor also reserved only for noblewomen. At the woman's feet was the shrine, full of golden thread (probably used in fabric), fur, glass beads, and fine wool. Her husband was also buried in high style, with a massive Dane Axe, popular among high status men and seriously destructive on the battlefield. The third man, possibly the couple's heir, was buried with a slightly smaller Dane Axe.

The Silkeborg Museum made a 3D rendering of the dødehus site, which gives you an idea of the size of the excavation.

First discovered in 2012, the grave has now been thoroughly analyzed, and many items from the excavation are on display in Denmark's Silkeborg Museum—including a recreation of the woman's grave, which you can see in our gallery above. Kirsten Nelleman Nielsen, leader of the excavation, said she could only speculate about who the people might have been. "It could be the gentleman and the lady of the local area and maybe their successor. They’ve at least been honoured in a special way, so they must have been important." But she's certain that the couple were both of the same status, because they were buried together, with equal sumptuousness: "It’s very special that the man and woman’s graves are marked by the same tomb or palisade. It’s unusual that we’re able to establish that the man and woman were equals with such certainty."

Nielsen added that both the grave design and the goods inside confirm once again that Vikings traveled the world:

Many of us think that people didn’t move around much in the past. But [the Viking grave] is a good example of how the opposite is true... It wouldn’t surprise me that the idea [for the dødehus] came from [outside Scandinavia]...The design is a bit like an early stave church, so maybe someone saw such a place elsewhere and made something similar... We’ve also found Baltic ceramics in the form of a clay vessel and silver coins from what is today Afghanistan, so the residents must have been quite international.

This is the first dødehus found in Denmark, but archaeologists believe there might be more.

Listing image by Silkeborg Museum