Discovered Viking Blacksmith’s Grave in the Garden

By ThorNews on September 9, 2014 • ( 0 )

Findings from the 800s: A Viking sword and a pair of blacksmith’s tongs are among the objects found in the garden in Sogn. (Photo from NRK video)

When Leif Arne Nordheim living in the Sogndalsdalen valley in Sogn was going to remove some flagstones that had irritated him, he got a big surprise.

– I had noticed that there were some flagstones sticking up so that I had to lift the lawn mower over them. The neighbor had an excavator in his garden so I would take the opportunity to remove them, he says to NRK.

First he found a pair of tongs that could have belonged to a blacksmith, but did not give it much attention.

– When I found a sword sticking up from the ground, I realized that it was more than a few hundred years old.

Now it is established that the findings are from the Viking era. The items will be cleaned and preserved and be made available at the University Museum of Bergen.

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Gardening postponed: Archaeologists digging in the garden where it was made historic finds. (Photo: Vidar Gudvangen / NRK)

Not Far From the Eggja Runic Flagstone

Norheim did not know anything about the fact that his house stands on historic ground. But in 1917, only about one kilometer from the farm, the Eggja Runic Flagstone was found.

The stone measures 160 × 70 × 10 centimeters and has been used as roof on a small tomb. The tomb, which is archaeological dated back to the second half of the 600s, has probably never contained dead bodies and may have been a memorial to people who have died at sea.

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The Eggja Runic Flagstone found in Sogn. (Photo: The University Museum of Bergen)

The runic inscription contains approximately 200 runes and is the longest inscription found using the elder runic alphabet. The inscription has three lines; two long lines and one short. There is also a picture of a horse.

The challenge with the Eggja runic flagstone has not been the translation of the mysterious text, but the interpretation.

You can read more about the different interpretations here.