Tune Ship Burial — Rolvsøy, Østfold
Tuneskipet · Båthaugen Tune
Viking Age (Early, c.900–910 CE)·Norwegian Viking (Viken petty kingdom)·🇳🇴 Østfold, Fredrikstad Municipality, Rolvsøy island, Haugen farm (Båthaugen), Norway
About
About Tune Ship Burial — Rolvsøy, Østfold
The Tune ship (c.900 CE, built c.910 burial) is a Viking Age karve longship, 18.7 m surviving (originally ~22 m), broad and fast, found in 1867 on the Båthaugen mound on Rolvsøy island in the former Tune parish by Oluf Rygh. Clinker oak with pine stringers and iron roves, its low sides and 11–12 oar ports per side mark it as the earliest sea-going longship ancestor to Gokstad and Oseberg. The mound, 80 m diameter and 4 m high, had been heavily ploughed and robbed; only fragments of burial chamber, a glass bead, textile and a wooden spade survived, now in Viking Ship Museum, Oslo.
Why it mattersFirst excavated Viking ship (1867); typologically links Borre to Gokstad.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Full length — stern missing due to plough?
Theories
- 01Royal ship of Viken coastal control
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.900 CE built; c.910 CE burial
- Period
- Viking Age (Early, c.900–910 CE)
- Culture
- Norwegian Viking (Viken petty kingdom)
- Builders
- Norwegian Viking
- Purpose
- Chieftain ship mound burial (karve type)
- Excavation
- Excavated
c.900 CE
Karve built in Østfold oak forests
c.910 CE
Chieftain burial in ship on Båthaugen crest
1867
Farmer plough hits mound; Oluf Rygh excavates, names Tune ship
2021–2025
Viking Ship Museum Bygdøy conservation; final ship move 2025 to new Viking Age Museum
On the ground
Structures & features
59.2825° N · 11.0050° E · 15 m · 2 mapped features
Tune Hull — Karve Planking
ship hull18.7 m clinker oak hull remains with 12 strakes, 11 oar holes, pine stringers and iron rivets
59.2826° N · 11.0055° EBåthaugen Mound — Chamber Depression
tumulusFlattened 80-m mound with robber trench marking burial chamber position on crest of Rolvsøy
59.2823° N · 11.0045° E