Balladoole ship grave

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Viking shipyard

Balladool's ship grave is located in the southeast of the island near Castletown on Chapell Hill. Balladoole was first excavated in 1945 by the German archaeologist Gerhard Bersu and again in 1974 by JR Bruce.

description

The grave contained a Viking ship and the remains of a grown man with his belongings ( spurs and stirrups , but no weapons ). In grave hill are remains found other individuals. On the one hand, a female skull disintegrated into six pieces, along with four bones, one of the two bones of the forearm and a metatarsal bone of a small child. Further fragments of a fibula bone, measured in terms of size, are very likely to belong to the forearm and metatarsal bones. Finally, another skull was found.

Gerhard Bersu assumes that the skulls and bones were accidentally mixed up when the burial mound was built with the boat burial. However, he reserves the right to rule out that the woman was a victim.

The ship (actually a boat because of its short length) was about 11 meters long and 3.5 meters wide and was similar to the Skuldelev III , built in 1040 , which could carry 4.5 tons of cargo and was sailed by five men.

Also on the Ile de Groix one was ship grave of Viking excavated. In addition to game pieces made from walrus bones , it contained the incomplete remains of an adult woman without grave goods.

Chapel Hill is the site of an ancient keeill (chapel) that existed from about AD 900 to 1000 and was excavated in 1918. A Bronze Age grave from around 1000 BC BC is also on the hill.

See also

literature

  • Gerhard Bersu , David M. Wilson: Three Viking Graves in the Isle of Man. The Society for Medieval Archeology. (= Monograph Series 1.) London 1966.
  • James Graham-Campbell: The Vikings . Munich 1994.
  • Christine Fell, Peter Foote, James Graham-Campbell, Robert Thompson (Eds.): 9th Viking Congress, Isle of Man, 1981: Select Papers: Viking Age in the Isle of Man . Select Papers Viking Society for Northern Research, London 1983, ISBN 0-903521-16-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gerhard Bersu / David M. Wilson: Three Viking Graves in the Isle of Man. The Society for Medieval Archeology. Monograph Series 1, London (1966)

Web links

Coordinates: 54 ° 4 ′ 46.7 "  N , 4 ° 40 ′ 52"  W.