A burial mound on the small Norwegian island of Leka has revealed one of the oldest ship burials in Scandinavia, a finding that challenges long-held assumptions about when monumental maritime burial practices began in Norway.
Researchers published the discovery in the journal Antiquity, concluding that the mound, known as Herlaugshaugen, dates to around AD 700, nearly a century before the Viking Age traditionally begins.
Lead author Geir Grønnesby and his team from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology excavated the site in 2023. They recovered 29 large iron clinker nails along with wood fragments inside the mound, which stretches 62 meters (203 feet) in diameter.
Radiocarbon dating of the wood and charcoal samples showed the ship was built after AD 670, with the mound raised in the late seventh or early eighth century. The vessel measured over 20 meters (66 feet) in length, comparable in size to the famous Gokstad and Oseberg ships discovered further south in Norway.
Norway’s ship burial tradition predates the Viking Age by a century
The discovery fills a critical gap in the historical record. Previously, the oldest known ship mounds in Scandinavia dated to the late eighth century, found on the island of Karmøy in western Norway.
Herlaugshaugen now connects the early seventh-century Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo in England to Norway’s later Viking Age ship burials, pointing to a continuous burial tradition stretching across the North Sea.
The mound carries a long history of attention. A 13th-century Norse saga recorded by Snorri Sturluson identified it as the burial place of King Herlaug, a pre-Viking ruler of Namdalen who, according to legend, sealed himself inside the mound rather than submit to King Harald Fairhair.
Excavations carried out in 1755, 1775, and 1780 uncovered a skeleton, a sword, animal bones, and wooden beams with iron nails. Those finds were interpreted at the time as confirming the saga.
The sword and skeleton were taken to Trondheim but lost at the start of the 20th century. It was not until 1917 that researcher Theodor Petersen first proposed that the mound was a ship burial. The 2023 excavation confirms that interpretation with scientific evidence.
Leka’s harbour emerges as an ancient hub of regional power
The mound sits by the harbour on Leka, facing the mainland across a narrow strait. Grønnesby’s team notes that arriving seafarers would have seen it immediately, making it a deliberate display of power and territorial claim.
Local place names point to markets, communal games, and governing assemblies once taking place on the island, suggesting Leka served as a regional center. The researchers argue it functioned as a node in a broader network connecting the Norwegian coast to continental Europe through the trade of goods, including fish, furs, iron, and whetstones.
Two charcoal layers in the upper section of the mound may indicate cremation burials added after the original ship burial, though this remains uncertain.
The ship burial adds solid evidence that political hierarchisation and territorial control in northern Scandinavia were well established in Norway far earlier than previously recognized.
