A ground-penetrating radar analysis has revealed that a Viking Age burial mound in Norway, previously believed to be empty, actually contains the remains of a ship burial.
The discovery indicates that the ship burial occurred during the late eighth century AD, at the very start of the Viking Age.
It would be the third early Viking ship burial found in the region, on the coast of the island of Karmøy in southwestern Norway.
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The location is considered the origin of Viking culture and was an important place for 3,000 years, from the Bronze Age until the Medieval period.
The Salhushaugen mound, where the ship-shaped signals were detected, was first excavated in 1904 by the Norwegian archaeologist Haakon Shetelig.
However, he only found arrowheads and wooden spades, as he stopped digging when his team struck a rock layer near the bottom of the mound.
The signals from the ground-penetrating radar equipment indicate a ship burial of approximately 65 feet long, buried within the rock layer.
The University of Stavanger team hopes to carry out further excavations of the Salhushaugen mound later this year to confirm their findings.
Ship burials were made in clusters, and there is a possibility that the Salhushaugen mound still contains artifacts like those found at nearby mounds.
Ship burials of Viking kings and chieftains were staged to seem like they were on water, even though they were on land.
This hints that their purpose was to suggest the buried king was sailing away to be with his ancestors, a belief that predates the Vikings.
The ship burials were a way of consolidating power among Germanic peoples, as the king was believed to be a descendant of a god, such as Odin or Wotan.
Source Live Science