Bjurhovda stone box
The end-Neolithic stone box of Bjurhovda ( Swedish Hällkistan från Bjurhovda ) is located in the Bjurhovda district of Västerås in Västmanland in Sweden . Stone boxes are a rare type of monument in the Mälar Valley .
In 1968 a burial ground was excavated on a hill in Bjurhovda in order to be documented and removed. Most of the total of 70 round stone settings were cremation graves from the Late Viking Age with grave goods. At the highest point of the site was a 1.0 m high burial mound with a diameter of 10.0 m, which had been damaged on the side by gravel mining. Some of the burials closest to the hill were from the Bronze Age .
When the archaeologists excavated the hill, they discovered a late Neolithic (2000–1800 BC) stone box about 4.0 m long and 1.25 m wide. Six large and six smaller lateral bearing stones have been preserved, but no cap stones. In the box were the cremated remains of at least four people, some pieces of flint, a pair of slate pendants , a soapstone pendants , a stone ax and uncremated bones of a horse or a cow. There were several burned human and animal bones around the box. Next to the burned skeleton of a woman between the ages of 20 and 25 who was in the remains of an oak coffin was a flint dagger from the dagger era (around 1600 BC). The burial ground was removed after the excavation, but the stone box was rebuilt in its original location in 1995.
See also
literature
- Mårten Stenberger : Nordic prehistory. Volume 4: Prehistory of Sweden. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1977, ISBN 3-529-01805-8 .
- Hille Jaanusson: Hällkistan från Bjurhovda i Västerås , in: Fornvännen , 1969, pp. 149–160. ( online )
Web links
- Bjurhovda stone box - entry in the database "Fornsök" des Riksantikvarieämbetet (Swedish)
Coordinates: 59 ° 37 ′ 31.5 ″ N , 16 ° 36 ′ 46.5 ″ E