Mystery endures over millennium-year-old graves

The excavation at Bodzia: photo - Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences [Credit: PAN]

Archaeologists remain mystified and spellbound by a thousand-year-old cemetery with Viking traits discovered near the village of Bodzia in central Poland.


“Nothing similar has ever been found before,” said Professor Andrzej Buko of the Polish Academy of Sciences on Monday, in an interview with Polish Radio.

The excavations at the site took place between 2007-2009, in conjunction with the laying of the A1 motorway.

Some 57 graves were found, yet the funeral rites betray an unexpected mixture of traits, taking in Scandinavian, Slavic, Moravian and Byzantine traditions.

Particularly intriguing was the grave of a young warrior of about 25 years of age.

He was buried in a foetal position, north to south, clutching an ornate silver sword, echoing Viking traditions.

Yet objects found by the man suggest a provenance from Kievan Rus, a state that disintegrated in the 13th century.

Was the man a Viking warrior, hired by the one of the rulers of Kievan Rus?

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The English inspired Vikings to build cities

St. Jørgensbjerg Church in Roskilde was built in 1080 – by English builders? (Photo: Ib Rasmussen)

The first cities and churches in medieval Denmark were probably inspired by the English, sources show. A historian sheds light on how the English influenced the Vikings, culturally as well as politically.

When Danish Vikings sailed across the North Sea and conquered England, they left their mark on the English language and place names. That’s common knowledge, at least to historians.

What’s perhaps less known is that the influence cut both ways. Although England was under Danish rule in the Viking Age, the English were culturally and politically more sophisticated than their neighbours to the east.

Historian Marie Bønløkke Spejlborg was one of the more than 300 Norse mythology researchers who attended the 15th International Saga Conference held recently in Aarhus, Denmark.

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'Eggs, legs and Grimsby' - Viking words we still use

The influence of the Vikings who came to Britain can still be heard more than 1,000 years later in the English language.

They didn't just loot and leave, at the end of the 9th Century there were large settlements of Scandinavians throughout the country. 

Dr Richard Dance, of Cambridge University, tells Neil Oliver the words and places whose origins can be traced back to the Vikings.

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Vikings were “first to begin criminal profiling”, historian says

The Saga of Egil Skallagrimsson tells the story of a tenth-century Viking warrior who took part in raids in Europe and often fought with his own neighbours in Iceland. When his life’s story was written in the thirteenth-century, was the author using him as an example of the type of man that society had to worry about?

Tarrin Wills, a researcher from the University of Aberdeen, believes that Viking societies themselves were deeply concerned about these violent and unpredictable individuals – so much so that they took on the role of early criminal profilers – drafting descriptions of the most likely trouble-makers.

Wills presented his research yesterday to the British Science Festival, one of Europe’s largest science festivals. It is being held this year in Aberdeen and is expecting to attract over 50,000 people for its talks, discussions and workshops.

After examining the Icelandic sagas, Wills believes that its authors pinpointed physical characteristics of high testosterone levels – known to cause violent behaviour – creating some of the earliest ‘criminal mugshots’.

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Forget Crimewatch – the Vikings were there first

We think of Vikings as highly aggressive raiders who ravished Europe in the Early Middle Ages but how could these men be controlled when they returned to their homeland after plundering other countries?

A researcher from the University of Aberdeen, who presented today at the British Science Festival, suggested this is a problem Viking societies themselves were deeply concerned about – so much so that they took on the role of early criminal profilers – drafting descriptions of the most likely trouble-makers.

Dr Tarrin Wills, from the Centre for Scandinavian Studies, has examined early Icelandic literature and discovered that its authors pinpointed physical characteristics of high testosterone levels – known to cause violent behaviour – creating some of the earliest ‘criminal mugshots’.

Dr Wills, whose work is published in Viking and Medieval Scandinavia began investigating the link between Viking behaviour and levels of testosterone after reading an article about hormones and city traders.

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