Oseberg Ship Burial – Vestfold Viking Grave
Osebergskipet · Oseberghaugen
Viking Age (Merovingian to Viking)·Viking Norse (Yngling dynasty)·🇳🇴 Vestfold, Tønsberg Municipality, Oseberg farm, Norway
About
About Oseberg Ship Burial – Vestfold Viking Grave
6-m clinker-built Oseberg karvi (834 CE dendro) buried under a 44-m dia. 6-m high turf mound at Oseberg farm, excavated 1904–1905 by Gabriel Gustafson. The ship — oak clinker with iron rivets, richly carved stem — held two high-status women (DNA: maternal granddaughter, age 50–70 and 20–30) on a burial chamber amidside with lavish grave goods: four animal-head posts, textiles, beds, sledges, a cart and sacrificed horses/oxen. Preservation in heavy blue clay over the 9th-century water table is exceptional for wooden ship, textiles and skeletons (despite 10th-century robber trench).
Dendro fixes felling at 822 CE, burial at 834 CE; the women are speculatively Queen Åsa or völva priestesses.
Why it mattersBest-preserved Viking ship and richest female burial; source for carving and textile art.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Identity of the two women (Åsa vs völva)
Theories
- 01Völva priestess double burial
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.834 CE (dendro burial)
- Period
- Viking Age (Merovingian to Viking)
- Culture
- Viking Norse (Yngling dynasty)
- Builders
- Vestfold Yngling elite shipwrights
- Purpose
- High-status female double ship burial with chamber
- Rediscovered
- 1904 Gustafson excavation after farm-owner report
- Excavation
- Excavated
822 CE
Oseberg oak felling (dendro)
834 CE
Burial of two women with ship-chamber
1904
Gustafson excavates mound, finds ship
On the ground
Structures & features
59.3200° N · 10.4600° E · 20 m · 2 mapped features
Oseberg Karvi Hull
hydraulic21.6-m oak clinker karvi with iron rivets and carvings
59.3210° N · 10.4610° EBurial Chamber & Animal-Head Posts
tumulusChamber amidship with four animal-head posts and textiles
59.3200° N · 10.4590° E
Gallery