Viking Grave Determined To Belong To A High Ranking Female Military Leader

[Harper]

I thought that some here might find this interesting:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... rrior.html

[Manveruon]

Saw this shared on Facebook a couple days ago! Very cool!

[Elleth]

Hunh.. that is interesting. How cool they can look so deep these days!

Curious there's no mention of jewelry or combs or other things I'd expect to *also* be buried with a high status woman, warrior or no.

Could have been a Dernhelm, perhaps with a secret carried to the grave. Or perhaps a very butch gal. (Does the body show signs of combat or combat training?)
Could have been a slave buried with a now-missing owner, or a wife buried with a missing husband's goods. (Though I'd expect womanly goods as well were she a wife, and another corpse were she a slave. Was the grave disturbed prior to the archeolgical dig?)


Happy to defer to serious students of Norse culture, but absent more evidence I'll withhold judgement on what story the grave tells.
Awesome find!

[Kortoso]

I agree, Elleth, there's a lot to be assumed and little to be proven.

People are assuming that the game board shows that she was a leader of some sort, which I think may be wishful thinking.

Yeah, I'd like to see some analysis of the bones to see what kind of wear she developed.

AFAIK, combs are also found buried in men's graves for this period. But not keys, as these were usually looked after by the women, and were found in women's graves.

Looking forward to more analysis of this and other finds.