The Cult of the Viking Kitties has no comment as to any of our members' whereabouts the night of 834 AD.
Investigators have revealed that the Viking princess was buried at the following location:
Posted on 12/07/2003 10:33:38 AM PST by blam
Viking queen may be exhumed for clues to killing
Sun 7 December, 2003 05:17
By Alister Doyle
OSLO (Reuters) - The grave of a mysterious Viking queen may hold the key to a 1,200 year-old case of suspected ritual killing, and scientists are planning to unearth her bones to find out.
She is one of two women whose fate has been a riddle ever since their bones were found in 1904 in a 22 metre (72 feet) longboat buried at Oseberg in south Norway, its oaken form preserved miraculously, with even its menacing, curling prow intact.
No one even knows the name of the queen, but the Oseberg boat stirred one of the archaeological sensations of the 20th century two decades before the discovery of the tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings.
Scientists now hope to exhume the women, reburied in the mound in 1947 and largely forgotten, reckoning that modern genetic tests could give clues to resolve whether one was the victim of a ritual sacrifice.
Archaeologists almost a century ago concluded that the body of a woman in her 50s was the queen and the second woman, probably in her 20s, was a slave or lady-in-waiting killed to accompany her mistress to an afterlife in Valhalla.
But DNA tests of genetic material might acquit the Vikings of sacrifice in 834 AD if they show the two were relatives.
"You never know if there's enough DNA left in old bones for analysis, but it would be fascinating to try," said Professor Arne Emil Christensen, the head of Oslo's Viking Ship Museum where the Oseberg boat is on display.
"A DNA test would only tell us if the women were related," Christensen told Reuters. "They might be mother and daughter. If that's the case it's more reasonable to believe that they simply died of the same disease.
"That would be new information, with implications for Viking burials," he said. Ritual sacrifice was sometimes practised in Viking times.
HEADLESS CORPSE
A contemporary account by an Arab traveller of the burial of a Viking chieftain in Sweden, for instance, includes an execution of a female slave. And in one Danish Viking grave, an old man lying next to a younger man had been decapitated.
The Oseberg grave could be reopened next year if Oslo University, which oversees Norway's longboats, gives permission.
Nothing is known of the Oseberg queen apart from the spectacular grave, which contained equipment ranging from carved wooden sledges to buckets made of yew wood that were probably plundered in a raid on Ireland or Britain.
Down the centuries, grave robbers may have taken gold and valuables from the ship, which had space for 30-50 warriors.
Christensen said the elder Oseberg woman was probably queen because the grave contained two pairs of shoes that would fit her feet, which were swollen by arthritis. A slave would hardly get a change of footwear for the afterlife.
Christensen said a forensic test of carbon 13 isotopes could also be used to indicate if the women had a fish-rich diet.
He said that Viking rulers might have favoured meat -- like elk -- over commonplace fish. So if only one of the women had a meat-rich diet, she was most likely the queen.
SEALED IN CLAY
The Viking longboats were the most feared craft of the time. Their design let Norse warriors land, pillage and plunder and sail off knowing that no other vessels could catch up.
The Oseberg ship, built from oak hewn in about 820, is the most spectacular of three big Viking-era ships found in burial mounds in Norway, preserved by the air-tight seal of the blue clay found in the area.
More than 250 Viking-era ship burial mounds have been found from Russia to Iceland. The Oseberg boat was dragged out of the sea and buried.
Norway is planning to examine another burial site in the south of the country, but Christensen said another find like Oseberg was highly unlikely.
"The best chance of finding Viking ships now would be in old harbours rather than in graves. But then of course you'd find a wreck instead of a well-furnished ship," he said.
The Cult of the Viking Kitties has no comment as to any of our members' whereabouts the night of 834 AD.
Investigators have revealed that the Viking princess was buried at the following location:
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this ping list.
When I first read your comment I thought you were referring to the movie called "Erik the Viking" from 1989. It too was almost a good movie. Imogen Stubbs is usually cute in any movie she's in, and this was no exception.
The head, presumably was singing that old song, "I ain't got no body."
The clouds
Never expect it
When it rains
But the sea
Changes colours
But the sea
Does not change
And so with the slow
Graceful flow of age
I went forth
With an age old desire
To please
On the edge of
Seventeen
[A Welsh Witch at the Edge of Seventeen]
I can see a guy aft. He's probably manning the rudder, but I can easily imagine him sitting there holding onto the sail ropes like a stagecoach driver holds onto the reins. 'Course anyone strong enough to do that would make Arnold look like a real pencil neck.
The ropes form a kind of net, into which the sail is set to catch the wind. I just love the whole look of it. What can I say, lol?
Wish someone would write a sail simulator for a Viking longboat.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.