[MR] Oldest Viking Ship Burial Confirmed

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble friends, Especially Vikings,

Today Archaeology News offers a story on what may be the oldest known
Viking ship burial. The site is at Herlaugshaugen, Norway, and has been
dated to around 700.

The burial mound at Herlaugshaugen has been excavated several times since
the 1700s, and most of the goodies were removed long ago. This time the
researchers were looking for evidence of a ship burial. That was exactly
what they found, indicated by a handful of clinker nails. Some still held
traces of wood, which was carbon dated to 700 CE.

The significance of this find is that it pushes back the date for Viking
ship burials, which had been thought to have begun around 800 CE. In
addition, it narrows the gap with Anglo-Saxon ship burials which date to
the 6th or 7th centuries.

The Archaeology News article is at
https://archaeologymag.com/2026/04/ancient-ship-burial-herlaugshaugen/ .

A more scholarly article is at
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/herlaugshaugen-ship-burial-closing-the-gap-between-the-east-anglian-and-scandinavian-ship-burial-traditions/D0300C5E218A904B296286EB52178310
. [Whew!]

While we associate ship burials with Dark Ages Europe, the practice has
been known around the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_burial .

Yours Aye,

Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆
Continuing a crusade to keep the original Merry Rose relevant and in
business.