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Abandon Ship! Digging out the Dead

from the Vendel Boat-Graves
a
Alison Klevnäs
a
Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm
University, Stockholm, Sweden
Published online: 16 Feb 2015.

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To cite this article: Alison Klevnäs (2015): Abandon Ship! Digging out the Dead from the Vendel
Boat-Graves, Norwegian Archaeological Review, DOI: 10.1080/00293652.2015.1007892

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 ARTICLE Norwegian Archaeological Review, 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00293652.2015.1007892

Abandon Ship! Digging out the Dead from

the Vendel Boat-Graves
ALISON KLEVNÄS

The boat-grave cemetery at Vendel, Uppland, is one of the iconic sites of first-
millennium Sweden. The high-status grave-goods and weaponry have been
widely displayed and studied since their discovery over 130 years ago. Yet it
is rarely mentioned that the burial ground had been almost completely ran-
sacked long before archaeologists stepped in. The celebrated finds are only a
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fraction of the wealth that was originally buried at the site.

This is the first evaluation of the evidence of disturbance from Vendel since
the excavations in the late 19th century. The ancient re-opening of the graves is
reconstructed through the letters and diaries of the excavator, Hjalmar Stolpe,
as well as the various preliminary and final reports. Evidence is presented that
the main parts of the burials, notably the human bones, were systematically
dug out of nearly every grave and removed from the site. The reopening
probably took place during the Christianization period, before or during the
construction of the nearby church in the 13th century. This is an example of the
widespread reworking of monuments at this time, specifically highlighting the
significance accorded to buried human remains.
Keywords: grave disturbance; looting; mound-breaking; re-burial; Vendel
Period; Viking Age; conversion; ship burial; monument reuse; cult places;
Christianization

INTRODUCTION
The boat-grave cemetery at Vendel,
Uppland, is one of the iconic sites of first-
millennium Sweden (Fig. 1). The high-status
grave-goods, including swords, shields,
spears, arrows, cauldrons, beads, horse
equipment, and sacrificed animals, have
been widely displayed and studied since
their discovery over 130 years ago. The hel-
mets in particular are familiar images from
books and websites, conjuring up the warrior
aesthetic of the age. The site gives its name to
the Vendel Period (c. AD 550–750) between
the Migration Period and Viking Age of
Scandinavia, although several of the graves
are Viking Age in date. In recent years the
Vendel boat-graves have been used in archae-
ological studies ranging from gender,
ethnicity, trade, art styles, kinship, ship sym-
bolism or weaponry to horses or food
(Ambrosiani 1981, Arrhenius 1983, 2002,
Varenius 1995, Malmström 1996, Hansson
1997, Lindbom 1997, Price 2000, Herschend
2001, Götherström 2002).
Yet, in all the discussion of the Vendel
discoveries, it is rarely mentioned that the
burial ground had been almost completely
ransacked long before archaeologists stepped

Alison Margaret Klevnäs, Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
E-mail: alison.klevnas@ark.su.se

© 2015 Norwegian Archaeological Review

 2 Alison Margaret Klevnäs
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Fig. 1. Map of southern Scandinavia.
in. The celebrated finds are only a fraction of
the wealth that was originally buried at the
site. The early disturbance of most of the
graves has had a significant impact on our
ability to reconstruct the original state of the
cemetery and to understand who may have
been interred there.
The disturbance is also an important epi-
sode in the site’s history in its own right.
When and how was it carried out? What
can we deduce about who did it and why?
Reconstructing the timing and process of the
reopening gives insights into the meanings of
the graves for their makers and for subse-
quent generations. In the first part of this
article, the disturbance is investigated
through the letters and diaries of the excava-
tor, Hjalmar Stolpe, as well as the various
preliminary and final reports. This is the first
evaluation of the disturbance evidence at
Vendel since the excavations in the late 19th
century.
Vendel is best known for the boat-grave
cemetery, but this district is one of the most
intensively excavated areas of Uppland.
Low-intensity agriculture and widespread
use of stone settings and mounds over graves
mean that large numbers of ancient burials
are a visible part of the landscape into the
present day. Has grave robbery been a com-
mon activity over the centuries? To what
extent does the disturbance of the boat-
grave cemetery stand out as an unusual
occurrence? Did the boat-grave reopeners
use their experience to go on and open more
local burials? The second part of this article
presents results from an investigation of the
records of all excavated graves in the parish
of Vendel, in order to place the disturbance
of the boat-grave cemetery in its local
context.
Finally, the disturbance of the Vendel cem-
etery is discussed in a broader Scandinavian
context. A range of grave reopening practices
is increasingly well attested from the Viking
Age and into the Middle Ages. Where does
Vendel fit into this picture? In particular, the
Vendel reopening is considered against a
background of pre-Christian cultic activities
at burial grounds, and reworking of signifi-
cant pagan sites during the Christianization
process.
 Digging out the Dead from the Vendel Boat-Graves 3

EXCAVATING THE VENDEL BOAT- Stolpe reports that, when the workmen
GRAVES saw the artefacts, they thought they had
found a gold hoard. They immediately dug
The famous boat-graves are part of a much
into the area with their picks and crowbars.
larger pre-Christian burial ground, raised
Much of the grave and most of the grave-
above the surrounding farmland and forest
goods were destroyed, with a helmet and at
on a ridge. This cemetery was broken up by
least three glass vessels in fragments. A visit-
the construction of the medieval church at
ing smith then took up the sword and took a
the top of the rise and has been excavated
swing with it ‘to test the steel’, breaking it
piecemeal, but should almost certainly be
into pieces (Stolpe 1884, pp. 1–2).1
seen as one extensive site. The other graves
Hoards rather than graves evidently held
are cremations, many within stone settings.
prime place in the masons’ minds as sources
Burial took place here from the Migration
of wealth from the past. That the possibility of
Period to the Viking Age, then continued
obtaining valuables from ancient graves did not
within the churchyard (Fig. 2).
readily occur to 19th-century Vendel dwellers
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The boat-graves were brought to archaeo-

suggests such practices were not then common
logical attention by chance during the expan-
in the neighbourhood. This is perhaps unex-
sion of the churchyard in late autumn 1881,
pected, given the abundance of grave monu-
when workmen digging a foundation trench
ments in the surrounding landscape. However,
for the new wall turned up a sword and other
several of Sweden’s most notable chance finds
ancient artefacts. The state antiquarian
of Iron Age gold come from this immediate
authority dispatched Hjalmar Stolpe, fresh
area, including a medallion dug out of a ditch
from his excavations at Birka, to investigate.
in Hjälsta parish in 1818 and a large ring from
Before winter set in he was able to establish
Börstil found in 1834. Just a few years before
that the workmen had opened a burial in a
the Vendel finds, in 1876, a farmer had happe-
boat, and to record and draw what remained
ned upon what is still the country’s largest
of the vessel, grave-goods, and animal skele-
bracteate find, in Söderby in Danmark parish,
tons. This grave came to be known as Vendel I.

Fig. 2. Photograph of Vendel church site (reproduced by permission of Riksantikvarieämbetet).

 4 Alison Margaret Klevnäs

Uppland. Knowledge of such finds may have Table 1. The Vendel graves.
been the background to the reaction of the
Grave Disturbance Form
Vendel workmen.
Winter then prevented further work, but I Unrobbed, 1881 damage Boat
the following spring Stolpe returned to see II Robbed Boat
whether more boat-graves might be found. III Robbed Boat
In this campaign he unearthed another 10 IV Robbed Boat
burials, almost all in boats (Table 1, Fig. 3). V Robbed? No
The first two (Vendel II and V) were discov- VI Robbed Boat
VII Robbed Boat
ered through finds of horse bones along the
VIII Robbed No
same wall foundation ditch as Vendel I. Next
IX Unrobbed Boat
Stolpe learned that several boat-shaped hol- X Robbed Boat
lows, similar to the one seen over Vendel I, XI Robbed Boat
had been visible within the area now enclosed XII Unrobbed, 1893 damage Boat
by the new churchyard wall until its recent
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XIII Unrobbed, road building damage Boat

covering with an extra soil layer. Two such XIV Unrobbed Boat
hollows could still be seen outside the wall on
each side of Vendel I, revealing the presence
of Vendel X (Fig. 4 below) and XI (Fig. 5 five further dips indicating graves (Vendel
below). Stolpe ran exploratory trenches IV, VI, VII, VIII, IX). Yet another (Vendel
through the newly walled area and found III) was located by information from the

Fig. 3. Plan of Vendel churchyard showing the disturbed graves marked ‘R’ (adapted from Stolpe and
Arne 1912).
 Digging out the Dead from the Vendel Boat-Graves 5

Fig. 4. Stolpe’s plan of Vendel X (reproduced by permission of Riksantikvarieämbetet).

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Fig. 5. Stolpe’s plan of Vendel XI (reproduced by permission of Riksantikvarieämbetet).

masons, who had come across a collection of
large stones by the lower corner of the
churchyard wall (Stolpe 1884, pp. 14–15).
Since these finds were of huge significance,
following Ultuna as some of the first excavated
boat-graves (Hildebrand and Hildebrand 1873,
Almgren 1902), Stolpe was greatly disap-
pointed to find that almost all had previously
been opened and robbed. None of the burials
was able to answer Stolpe’s questions about
the form and construction of the ruined helmet
from Vendel I. The only definitely intact grave,
Vendel IX, was one of the latest burials at the
site and much less lavishly furnished than the
earlier examples.
Exasperatingly, it seemed that the most
promising unrobbed burial so far had been
the first, destroyed by the workmen during its
discovery:
No reason was found for thinking that this grave
had been plundered in early times, quite the oppo-
site, this grave had evidently been the only one of
all the surrounding burials from the same period
which was entirely undisturbed, until it fell into
the hands of a gang of workers who, to their own
injury, did all they could to destroy one of the
most important finds for cultural research which
has ever been made in our land. (Stolpe 1884, p. 9)
No more boat-graves were discovered until
1893, when gravediggers in the new part of
the churchyard turned up some clinker rivets.
They immediately ransacked the area, break-
ing into fragments a helmet, a shield, three
swords, and a glass vessel. This wrecked
grave is known as Vendel XII. By the great-
est misfortune it had been, like Vendel I, one
of the few burials untouched by ancient robb-
ers, only to be destroyed in discovery.
 6 Alison Margaret Klevnäs
Stolpe (1894, p. 102) was furious, but per-
haps a degree of blame was his. He had
evidently failed to impress on the parish
gravediggers, who were after all the men
most likely to come across further burials, a
sense of their antiquarian responsibilities.
They seem only to have had the vaguest
idea of what sorts of artefacts might be
found, and none at all of how they might
enrich themselves by their retrieval. They
failed to recognize or recover any intact valu-
ables, breaking everything they came across
into pieces.
In response to this discovery and dis-
appointment, Stolpe made a second effort to
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locate any remaining boat-graves. An
exploratory trench found Vendel XIV,
which, along with Vendel IX, turned out to
be one of the only intact graves at the site. A
boat-shaped patch of richer grass near the
main road divulged Vendel XIII, which was
probably unrobbed but badly damaged by
the road-building.
THE REOPENING EVIDENCE
The main Vendel publication, compiled some
years later by Ture Johnsson Arne (Stolpe
and Arne 1912), plays down the impact of
the ancient plundering. Disturbance is men-
tioned only in passing and the graves are
presented as though they were in their origi-
nal condition. By contrast, Stolpe’s note-
books, his letters from the excavation (now
held in the Antikvarisk-topografiska arkivet,
Riksantikvarieämbetet, Stockholm), and the
preliminary published articles (Stolpe 1884,
1894) all put the evidence of robbery in the
foreground. Stolpe himself evidently consid-
ered the reopening a significant episode,
which he was keen to investigate further.
Among his complaints about the remoteness
of the site, the food and the constant paper
shortage, are observations and deductions
about the process and date of the disturbance
which put to shame many a more recent
excavation.
Stolpe’s records indicate that he only gra-
dually realized that he was excavating signs
of ancient disturbance. It was not until he
came to Vendel XI that he was sure about
the evidence. A letter of 1882 shows this
process, though it ends most frustratingly
for the researcher:
Grave XI…has been very important for the inter-
pretation of the whole. It showed itself in the most
evident way to have been plundered in ancient
times, and that by someone who knew where the
valuables usually lay in the boat. That the grave
had been plundered was evident since the boat
rivets were missing just in the area where the
valuables should lie and where now fragments of
artefacts were found in the fill….
I consider myself to have gained an important
correction in my interpretation of several graves.
For several reasons I am inclined to think that this
plundering happened quite early, while the tradi-
tion of the graves’ riches and contents still lived.
More on that when I see you. (Stolpe 1882)
By the 1894 publication Stolpe had refined
his interpretation. In the fill of one of the
disturbed graves he had found a piece of
brick of the type used for the church. The
robbery, he therefore suggested, must have
happened during the construction of this
building in the 13th century (Stolpe 1894,
p. 98). More detail on this dating is given in
the 1912 publication, which identifies the
relevant burial as Vendel X. By this time
the brick fragment has become several: ‘In
the upper layer of the fill were found pieces
of the same sort of brick from which the
church is built. A fragment of pottery vessel
base (?) similarly found in the fill is thought
to belong to the Middle Ages’ (Stolpe and
Arne 1912, p. 38).
Recognition of disturbed burials and
understanding of their stratigraphy has
improved considerably since the Vendel pub-
lication a century ago. Comparison with
other sites suggests that Stolpe’s observations
represent the phenomenon by which objects
collect in hollows above disturbed graves and
are assimilated into the upper layers
 Digging out the Dead from the Vendel Boat-Graves
(Aspöck 2002, p. 66, Klevnäs 2013, pp. 58,
131). In this scenario, the stray building
material would suggest a terminus ante quem
for the looting, rather than a precise date.
Crucially, Stolpe does not report finding
brick fragments, or any other intrusive arte-
facts, in stratigraphic connection with the
disturbed grave contents.
On the other hand, on practical grounds
the building of the present church or a pre-
vious structure on the site is a likely circum-
stance for the reopening. During the
construction work both men and tools
would have been available on site, just as
they were again during the churchyard
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expansion in 1881, when the remaining
graves were located and disturbed. As dis-
cussed below, the church construction could
well have been the background either for a
chance find of furnished graves or for a delib-
erate and planned reopening operation.
A medieval disturbance date is supported
by the absence of artefacts later than the
brick material in the disturbed areas of the
grave or even in the upper layers of the intru-
sive fill. As shown by the other local disturbed
burials discussed below, post-medieval distur-
bance is often evidenced by stray debris such
as broken clay pipes in the intrusive pits. Such
finds are not reported in the boat-grave
cemetery.
The grave plans which survive from the
excavations are designed to indicate the origi-
nal appearance of the graves, rather than to
enable understanding of how they were
affected by the disturbance. There are few
profile drawings or other records to indicate,
for example, whether the remaining finds were
in situ on grave floors or mixed into disturbed
fills. There is no information about whether
distinct intrusive robber cuts were visible.
Nonetheless, the drawings provide a level of
detail from which it is possible to reconstruct
several aspects of the disturbance.
The graves were in an advanced state of
decay by the time they were reopened. The
wooden sides of the clinker-built boats had
rotted so that their rivets lay loose in the soil
7
and were displaced or removed by the dig-
gers’ spades. The skeletons of humans and
animals were fully disarticulated, while the
corroding metal grave-goods left broken
fragments in the disturbed fills. The com-
ments on Vendel III are typical: ‘The stern
of the boat was completely rifled, so that the
clinker nails lay spread here and there in the
fill’ (Stolpe and Arne 1912, p. 19). Some
considerable time had evidently passed
between burial and reopening, even for the
latest graves at the site.
The displaced boat rivets are also the clear-
est evidence for which burials had been dis-
turbed and for the extent of the reopened
area in each grave. In the graves without
boats, especially Vendel V, it is much more
difficult to judge whether empty spaces on
the grave plans represent areas from which
objects have been dug out, or areas in which
organic objects have decomposed, or areas
which were originally empty. In the case of
Vendel V, Stolpe himself leaves the question
open. In the boat-graves, by contrast, distinct
disturbed areas with missing or displaced riv-
ets are easily discernible.
Vendel XI is typical (Fig. 5). Skeletal
remains of various animals were found in situ
round the outside of the boat, where they must
have lain pushed up close to its sides. Limited
numbers of inorganic grave-goods, including
a large iron vessel, were undisturbed in the
fore part and stern. But a significant area,
just sternwards of the boat’s centre, had been
completely dug out. Given the regular layout
of boat-graves, this was where the body and its
equipment should have been found. Other
burials are more difficult to call: Vendel IV
shows only minimal displacement of the rivets
and Stolpe (1884, p. 28) described it as one of
the ‘least disturbed boats’. It appears that in
this case the reopeners were able to focus their
efforts exactly and efficiently on the spot
where the body lay.
In his 1894 article Stolpe argued that it is
possible to see the robbers learning about the
layout of the graves as they work through the
burial ground. After opening the first burials,
 8 Alison Margaret Klevnäs
the robbers ‘learned which area of the graves
was most worthwhile to ransack, and subse-
quently confined themselves to that part’
(Stolpe 1894, p. 98, Stolpe and Arne 1912,
p. 38). Putting together the grave and ceme-
tery plans, it is possible to reconstruct the
pattern Stolpe recognized. The NE–SW
orientation and the internal layouts of the
graves are sufficiently regular that the
reopeners would quickly realize that they
needed to dig only into the NE end of each
boat-shaped hollow in order to reach the
body and the main grave-goods.
It appears that the first graves opened were
those nearest the church. The graves on that
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side of the group have been haphazardly dug
into, while those on the other side, such as III
and X, show more precise targeting. The signs
are thus that disturbance was a single event or
limited set of events. It appears to have been
carried out by reopeners who had not pre-
viously seen the layout of a boat-grave, but
who refined their techniques as they worked.
In this scenario no memory or tradition of the
boat-grave custom is needed; knowledge is
acquired during the reopening itself.
Throughout his reports Stolpe writes of the
robbers’ finds as valuables: ‘dyrbarheterna’
and ‘dyrgriparna’. Yet such value is largely
in the eye of the archaeologist. The helmets
in particular give us a glimpse of the splen-
dour and craftsmanship that were originally
buried here, but by the time of the robbery
most of the grave-goods were too rusted and
decayed to be usable or wearable. Just possi-
bly the reopeners happened across a better-
preserved object in their first grave, perhaps a
bronze artefact or even coins, and so were
inspired to continue digging despite the poor
condition of most of their finds. However,
this was by no means great treasure; only
very few materials can have been in anything
like their original state. The removed
artefacts can in the main have been valuable
only for their antiquity or for their associa-
tion with these high-status graves: much the
same reasons for which the later finds are
celebrated today. For these reasons it is
difficult to interpret this reopening as moti-
vated by a search for valuable finds, and
especially since such large proportions of
the graves were left unexplored.
What is missing from the Vendel graves?
The most striking absence is that of human
remains: almost all the burials lack the bones
of their one-time occupants. Speculation has
arisen about the reasons for this absence,
since animal bones of many species were all
recovered, including not only horses, dogs,
cattle, swine and sheep, but also more fragile
remains such as hens and a hawk. One sug-
gestion has been that bleeding the animals at
slaughter could have slowed their skeletal
decomposition (Olsson 1980). Ritual hanging
of the human bodies leading to accelerated
decay has also been put forward (Arrhenius
1983, p. 68, Kobbergård 1997, p. 19).
More parsimonious explanations are forth-
coming once we consider the remains in
context. In the first place, bone preservation
at the site was generally rather poor, with
even the much more robust horse bone faring
badly in some graves (e.g. Vendel X (Fig. 4),
Stolpe 1884, pp. 16–17). The lower right leg
and foot of the human skeleton in Vendel
XIII seem to survive only because protected
by a bronze dish which covered them, also
preserving leather from the shoe (Stolpe
1894, p. 106).
Second, there is a marked difference in pre-
servation inside and outside the boats. Most of
the better-preserved animal bone is from crea-
tures which lay in the soil around the vessels,
while the humans were placed within the boats,
where decomposition appears to have been
much faster. Additionally, at least one of the
intact burials shows that the human corpse was
buried in a sitting position and collapsed down
to the floor of the boat during decomposition.
This arrangement, with no contact between
body and soil, may have accelerated decay
(Duday 2006). Wooden roofs of various types
are known or inferred at several boat-grave
sites (e.g. Brøgger 1945, Arbman et al. 1993,
Klevnäs 2007, p. 32), with the covered boats
forming sealed burial chambers.
 Digging out the Dead from the Vendel Boat-Graves
All this said, at Vendel the shortage of
human bone is substantially due to the
reopening. Undisturbed Vendel IX and XIV
are the only graves with any quantities of
skeletal material. Beyond these, only Vendel
XII and XIII contain partial remains. As
Stolpe observes, the robbed graves are char-
acterized by ‘the absence of human corpse
along with all its equipment, with the excep-
tion of a few fragments’ (Stolpe 1884, p. 16).
With growing precision as they worked
through the cemetery, the reopeners have
systematically and comprehensively removed
this core part of each burial deposit. The
main part of each grave has been dug out,
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bones, artefacts, rivets and all, presumably
with shovels.
The removal of such a high proportion of
material and human remains has significantly
skewed our picture of the site. In particular,
it has led to an assumption of the Vendel
boat burials as exclusively the graves of
men. Although the better-preserved graves
do indeed have characteristically male assem-
blages, several lack the human bone or arte-
facts needed for gender attribution.
Despite the large amount of material that
was dug out of each disturbed grave, there is
no indication that grave contents were strewn
over the site. Stolpe (e.g. Stolpe and Arne
1912, p. 27) notes stray finds or when pre-
vious finds are reported to him, so we can be
as sure as negative evidence allows that the
field was not a mess of ransacked grave fill.
Quite the reverse, it appears that the main
burial was dug out of each grave and carried
away, bones and artefacts alike. It does not
appear that any selection of items to remove
was made: the aim here was to empty the
graves as completely as possible of their
core contents.
There is evidence at Vendel, as at other
boat-grave sites, that the burials may origin-
ally have had substantial above-ground mar-
kers, although not mounds. Vendel III, for
example, was indicated to the excavators by
a collection of large stones, probably the
remains of a stone setting. This suggests
9
that, although the grave was reopened and
emptied of its human occupant, at least part
of its surface monument remained in situ.
The reopeners were thorough in their
approach to burial contents, but not in
removing grave monuments. That said,
there are indications that the surface of the
burial ground has undergone significant
reworking over the centuries. Notable here
is the find in undisturbed Vendel IX – or
more probably in the fill of its hollow – of a
fractured piece of sculptured stone which
may originally have stood as a grave orb
above this or one of the other burials.
The records give little indication of the
extent to which the graves were deliberately
backfilled after reopening; Stolpe does not
explicitly consider the question. However,
his finds of church construction material in
the intrusive fill imply either that substantial
cuts into the disturbed burials remained open
for some while or that this material is itself
evidence of immediate and deliberate back-
filling. Perhaps the latter interpretation was
the one he intended, and the reason for his
close association of the reopening with the
church-building.
THE VENDEL REOPENING IN ITS
LOCAL CONTEXT
A key question for interpreting the signifi-
cance of the boat-grave disturbance is how
unique it can be shown to be in the immedi-
ate area. Ancient burial monuments are a
prominent feature of the local landscape
even today, and have stood for centuries as
potential targets for exploitation. Was this
just one episode in a recurring practice of
grave robbery? Did the reopeners who car-
ried out such a determined campaign in the
boat-grave cemetery turn their attentions to
any other local monuments?
The research on which this section is based
investigated the records of over 50 excava-
tions in Vendel parish carried out since the
1880s, including those of at least 200 ancient
graves. The parish, which starts some 35km
 10 Alison Margaret Klevnäs
north of Uppsala, covers around 169km2, or
approximately 14.5 by 20.5km at its greatest
extent, providing a substantial district in
which to seek evidence of disturbance. This
study was greatly facilitated by a recent land-
scape history (Seiler 2001) which catalogued
all local excavations to date.
The investigation showed that there is no
evidence of any other grave disturbance
in the area on anything like the scale of
the reopening of the boat-grave cemetery.
Despite the abundance of monuments in the
local landscape, only a very few other exca-
vated graves show signs of having been delib-
erately reopened in antiquity. Perhaps local
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inhabitants were aware that the visible graves
were likely to contain little more than cera-
mic vessels with burnt bones and artefacts,
since cremation was the predominant rite
over the prehistory of the area. There are
no signs that the boat-grave reopeners were
active either in the immediate vicinity of the
cemetery or further afield.
A fair proportion, over 10%, of recorded
burials in the district are reported as
damaged. However, most of these were
compromised by gravel extraction or road-
building. Fewer than ten sites show evidence
of deliberate attempts at reopening. At these,
the datable disturbances are all post-medieval,
and mostly 19th century. The more recent
reopenings in particular may well have been
fuelled by visits to the district by artefact-
seeking antiquarians and the rise of antiquar-
ianism at large. Indeed, the boundary between
treasure-hunting and unrecorded early exca-
vations is indistinct in several cases. However,
exploitation of graves was not a common
activity in Vendel parish at any point until
antiquarianism and archaeology came on the
scene.
A pivotal point in the development of
Swedish antiquarianism came in the 1660s
with the national ‘rannsakningar om antiqvi-
teterna’ (‘inventory of antiquities’) in which
parish priests were requested to report on
local ancient monuments (Ståhle 1960). The
Vendel contribution dates from 26 August
1677, when two local inhabitants were
summoned and questioned about antiquities
in the area. They reported that ‘[t]here are
many earth mounds here’, mentioning speci-
fically the large mound at Husby known as
Ottars Hög, two or three mounds at Karby, a
large mound near Prästgården, and some
mounds north of the church, ‘which are said
to be graves’ (Ståhle 1960, p. 24). The rather
cursory interest they display seems genuinely
reflected in the near-absence of pre-modern
digging at these and other ancient monu-
ments in the parish.
The disturbance of the boat-grave cemetery
at Vendel is therefore left as a unique event in
its local area, in both the scale and the early
date of the reopening. Beyond the boat-
graves, Vendel parish shows only limited evi-
dence of small-scale, probably quite unpro-
ductive grave-robbing, much later in date.
Attempts at robbery were frequently half-
hearted, affecting only a few graves at each
site and often failing to reach central burials.
Some of this digging may even have been a
pastime of children. Whatever the motivation
for the boat-grave reopening, it was evidently
focused on these specific monuments. The
motive was strong enough to drive the digging
out of at least nine sizeable burials, far more
than any other local reopening in any period.
Vendel parish sites
Six sites illustrate the types of grave distur-
bance seen in the area (Fig. 6).
Prästgården, Raä 8 One of the sites men-
tioned by the 17th-century residents is almost
certainly Vendlas Hög, a prominent monu-
ment with many tales and legends associated
with it (Seiler 2002). A letter of 2 October
1930 from Nils Åberg to Riksantikvarien
(ATA, Stockholm) reporting on his search
for further boat-graves near the church men-
tions that the two mounds known as Vendlas
Hög were both damaged through digging
undertaken ‘in old times’, though possibly
with the burials still intact. When a recent
excavation was carried out at the site,
 Digging out the Dead from the Vendel Boat-Graves 11
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Fig. 6. Map of Vendel parish showing the sites under discussion (adapted from Seiler 2001).

‘craters’ were noted on top of each mound
(Seiler 2002, p. 3). As suspected, these turned
out to be evidence of previous digging. In
particular, cairn A1:1 within large mound
A1 had been dug into, leaving bone and arte-
fact fragments among the stones. However,
most of the grave-goods were found within
the burnt layer as expected. These included
two combs, gaming pieces, broken pottery
and bronze and iron nails. The asymmetrical
and unfinished intrusive cut meant this was
considered to be robbery rather than an unrec-
orded excavation. Two copper coins were
found in the robbers’ pit, dated 1851 and
1863 (Seiler 2002, pp. 5–11).
Brunnby, Raä 90 One cremation grave at this
site is reported as robbed (‘skattegrävd’) by
Anderbjörk (1935), though the reasons for
this diagnosis are not set out. Anderbjörk
suggests that this may well have been the
source of the finds from the site obtained by
 12 Alison Margaret Klevnäs
Stolpe (Arne 1932, p. 9). A 19th-century dis-
turbance date is therefore likely.
Hovgårdsberg, Raä 32 A letter from Ingemar
Atterman to Riksantikvarien dated 30
November 1933 (ATA, Stockholm) reports
Graves 29a, 29, and 32 as plundered.
However, by 1935 Atterman (1935, p. 139)
had decided the disturbance looked more like
a previous excavation, probably by Stolpe.
Graves 19 and 55, on the other hand, he
considered to have been targets of unsuccess-
ful robbery attempts. Both had been dug
into, but the robbers failed to reach the
deposits buried deep in the centre of each
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cairn. Although these were cremation graves
and only rather minimally furnished, for our
purposes it is notable that only some of the
grave-goods were fire-damaged, so, if the
robbers had persisted, they would have been
rewarded with at least a few undamaged
beads – though by no means a treasure trove.
Hovgårdsberg, Raä 216 Nine mounds were
identified and mapped for a research project
during the 1990s (Seiler 1998, pp. 9–14).
Most were damaged, at least three by a
path. Three others showed ‘clear robbers’
pits’ in the middle. Burial mounds A1, A3
and A4 were excavated and all three had
been previously robbed. This was thought to
have occurred since the 1600s, due to multi-
ple finds of modern materials, including win-
dow glass and part of a clay pipe, in the
robbers’ pits (Seiler 1998, p. 11).
Torkelsbo, Raä 166 This is a stone ship set-
ting about 14.5 or 15m long and 2–3m wide.
A pit in the centre, plus the removal of stones
from each side, showed that the monument
had previously been plundered. Whether any-
thing was found in this central pit is unclear.
The only finds were two undisturbed deposits
of burnt bone found under the stones
towards the end of one long side (letter
dated 16 May 1961 from Anna-Märta Berg
to Riksantikvarieämbetet, reporting on
investigations into historic monuments Raä
166 and 193 in Torkelsbo, Vendel parish,
Uppland. ATA, Stockholm).
Fembäcke, Raä 295 This area was assessed in
advance of road-building in the 1990s
(Eriksson and Larsson 1997, pp. 7–8). Three
stone settings were registered and several
more observed, probably representing a pre-
viously unknown cemetery. Only one, about
7m in diameter, was excavated. This had
almost certainly been a grave. A large pit,
0.7m deep and 1.6m across, inside the setting
but somewhat off-centre towards the north,
was thought a probable robbers’ pit.
It is worth noting that not all pits above
graves or on top of mounds turn out to be
evidence of plundering. The two mounds
excavated in Prästgården Raä 26, for exam-
ple, both had shallow holes in the top, but
these were thought to have been left not by
grave robbers but by decayed wooden stumps,
perhaps grave markers (Seiler 1997, p. 58).
Sadly unauthorized digging continues in
the parish: in spring 2003 up to 40 small
pits made by metal detectorists were discov-
ered at the site known as Ottarshögen (2003
report to police, ATA Stockholm).
THE VENDEL REOPENING IN A
SCANDINAVIAN CONTEXT
Grave disturbance: widespread, varied,
sometimes necromantic
The Vendel boat-grave reopening stands out
in its local area, but, seen in the wider regional
context of high-status burials, it is much less
exceptional. During the Migration Period of
central Sweden, the reopening of well-furn-
ished chamber graves, probably within a
short time of burial, appears to have been a
regular practice (Arwidsson 1962, Groop
2000, Fischer and Victor 2008). Later, distur-
bance of Viking Age graves is both wide-
spread and varied throughout Scandinavia.
Viking Age burial practice has been
 Digging out the Dead from the Vendel Boat-Graves
characterized as consisting of ‘an abundance
of varieties’ (Lund 2013, p. 48) and the range
of reopening activities to which Viking Age
burials were subjected both during the period
itself and in the Middle Ages can be described
in similar terms. Grave disturbance is well
known from the written sources in several
different forms and is increasingly also recog-
nized in the archaeological evidence (e.g.
Brøgger 1945, Brendalsmo and Røthe 1992,
Aspeborg 2007, Gansum 2008, Gardeła 2013,
Lund 2013).
The Vendel discoveries created such a
sensation in part because this was one of the
first boat-grave cemeteries discovered in
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Scandinavia. Since then more than 20 other
Vendel- and Viking-period boat-burial sites
have been discovered in the Mälar region
alone. These monuments are some of the
most lavishly furnished burials of the age,
with high-status finds attesting to their close
association with elite material culture and
power. There are also suggestions that this
grave form bore particular mythological and
cultic connotations, perhaps linked to extended
burial rites (e.g. Crumlin-Pedersen and
Thye 1995, Herschend 2001, pp. 68–91,
Gansum 2002).
Boat-graves seem to have been particularly
vulnerable to reopening, perhaps because
they often involved inhumation rather than
cremation. However, the reopening of boat-
graves is by no means a single phenomenon:
the timing, methods and motives of the dis-
turbance vary considerably. When the evi-
dence is considered in detail, it reveals
activities from straightforward grave robbery
for material gain to symbolically motivated
reworking of contents (Draper 2004). Some
graves were disturbed almost immediately
after burial, or perhaps even during the pro-
cess of monument construction (Klevnäs
2007). In fact, given how frequently boat-
burials are found disturbed, it is striking
that the image of them as statements by a
powerful elite has dominated the archaeo-
logical narrative to such an extent that the
reopenings are almost excluded. Despite
13
ample evidence of their activities, the distur-
bers of graves often appear as little more
than a taphonomic footnote.
In Scandinavia, as in other areas, some
grave reopening should probably be seen as
part of a broader spectrum of post-funerary
ritual activities carried out at burial sites.
Ritual practices in cemeteries beyond burial
are under-researched and may leave only
minor traces in the archaeological record
(Bartelheim and Heyd 2001). However,
there are multiple indications that during
the Viking Age both contemporary and
ancient burial places were used for acts invol-
ving veneration of the dead, and perhaps even
communication with them (e.g. Arrhenius
1970, Artelius and Lindqvist 2007, pp.
121–153, Petré 2010, p. 406). These practices
are connected to the well-attested belief that
the dead in some sense dwelt in their burial
places, being at least sometimes present there
in an animate state.
The Vendel area itself provides an example
of a Viking Age site with marked evidence
of continuing ritual activity after burial.
Excavations of a burial ground at Karby
(Raä 5, known as Dandandakullen), which
has a use period into the 11th century,
revealed remains of ceramic vessels, unburnt
animal and even human bone, and other
finds such as metal knives, which seem to
have been left as ritual depositions after the
burials (Seiler 2001, p. 98). It seems probable
that more such evidence for ‘peri-burial’
practices at grave sites will emerge in future
excavations as it increasingly becomes a
research object in itself.
Alongside such practices of offering and
veneration, there are indications that grave-
site rituals could sometimes include physically
accessing burials themselves. Widespread
references in early law codes, poetry, sagas
and other literature to a practice of ‘waking
the dead’ at burial sites have long been taken
to imply a ritual, or more specifically necro-
mantic, element in some grave reopening (e.g.
Brøgger 1945, Brendalsmo and Røthe 1992,
Draper 2004, Gansum 2008, Gardeła 2013).
 14 Alison Margaret Klevnäs
These references are varied in nature, but
taken together suggest at least that some
form of ritual activity involving communica-
tion with the dead was believed to take place
at grave sites, and further that this activity
could involve physical engagement with
human remains.
Such interpretations have been suggested at
certain other boat-grave sites. Late pagan
activity may be linked, for example, to some
of the later disturbance seen in the group of
boat-graves in the garden of the priest’s house
at Gamla Uppsala, some kilometres south of
Vendel (Nordahl 2001, Klevnäs 2007). When
four boat-burials were excavated at this site in
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the 1970s, only one was found intact. Grave 1
had been rifled for valuable grave-goods
while the body and artefacts were still intact.
Graves 2 and 3 had also been reopened, but
many years or even centuries later, and in a
manner which closely resembles the emptying
of the Vendel burials. Grave 3 in particular
shows the same targeting of the area where
the body and its accoutrements lay. This
grave seems also to have been indiscrimi-
nately dug out with shovels, leading to a
widening of the burial cut. There were signs
of continued possibly ritual activity in the
immediate area of the boat-graves: the back-
fill of emptied Grave 3 included a layer of
animal remains: parts of horses, dogs, pigs
and cattle (Nordahl 2001, p. 42). Nearby
was a burial of a horse, radiocarbon-
dated to the 14th century and covered with
a carefully constructed stone setting
(Nordahl 2001, p. 62).
This suggestion of continued ritual activity
at an ancient grave site so far into the Middle
Ages is out of the ordinary. However, it finds
a counterpart in the more recent excavation
of a Viking Age inhumation cemetery at
Gulli, Vestfold, Norway (Gjerpe 2005, pp.
142–146). Here at least seven burials were
disturbed before the mid-15th century, with
the graves containing boats particularly
affected. As at Vendel, the reopeners targeted
particular areas of the graves. However, at
Gulli their focus was more precisely on the
areas where the heads had lain. Since there
was little in the graves that could have
exchange or use value, the excavators argued
that the reopeners were mainly aiming to
remove the skulls from the reopened burials.
Ritual practices involving burial places
may also form the background to the
Vendel disturbance. However, in this case
both the timing and the manner of the
reopening suggest that the motivation is
more likely to have been the suppression of
cult activity associated with the graves than
its furtherance. The Vendel graves were
deliberately and methodically emptied of
their main burial deposits, notably the
human remains. However, here the human
skeletons were dug out wholescale along
with the remains of dress accessories, grave-
goods and even boat rivets. Unlike at Gulli,
there is no evidence that particular skeletal
parts were selected or specifically sought out
in a way that could suggest a search for
necromantic material. Nor are there any
signs of new depositions indicating ritual
acts. Rather, at Vendel the aim seems to
have been solely to leave the graves unoccu-
pied. If the background here is communica-
tion with the dead, then after the reopening it
could not take place: the interlocutors were
no longer present.
Reworking of monuments: cult-site continuity
and Christianization
At Vendel, the first Christian church in the
district was placed directly on top of the last
cremation graves in the extensive pagan bur-
ial ground of which the boat-graves were also
part (Seiler 1997, p. 66). This pattern of pla-
cing churches in raised, highly visible posi-
tions in the midst of pre-Christian cemeteries
is repeated many times in the region, not
least at Gamla Uppsala. Indeed Anders
Andrén (2013) has argued that the placing
of churches at earlier burial sites is the most
evident spatial continuity from pagan to
Christian in the Scandinavian landscape.
Viking Age burial sites were highly signifi-
cant as places of power, and, as discussed
 Digging out the Dead from the Vendel Boat-Graves
above, probably for more specifically cultic
associations.
The study of cult-site continuity, or more
broadly research into the Christianization of
the Viking Age landscape, has a long history
in Scandinavian archaeology (see McNicol
1997, Andrén 2013). Debate has oscillated
between a pole of site continuity, generically
as high-status places or specifically in cultic
function, and one of discontinuity, with
churches as ostentatious statements of new
taking over from old at powerful places in
the landscape. If the reopening and emptying
of the boat-grave cemetery can be seen as
part of the Christian reworking of the
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Vendel site, it is thus tied into much wider
questions about the nature of change in the
conversion period.
The timing suggests that the emptying of
the boat-graves may well have been associated
with the church construction, as Stolpe
believed, whether of the present building or a
previous structure. This article has shown that
the burials were disinterred in a single major
episode, with the building of the present
church at the end of the 13th century as the
latest possible date. The evidence points to
reopening late in the available timescale, clo-
ser to the Christian redevelopment of the site
than to the last boat-burials in the 10th cen-
tury. It was carried out by reopeners who had
little or no knowledge of the boat-grave ritual.
If the link to the church-building is direct, it
may have been simply practical, since the man-
power and tools were on site. There is no
immediately evident reason why the builders
should have been digging at this distance from
the construction site, unless perhaps for gravel,
but maybe they did accidentally uncover a
grave. Or perhaps an oral tradition of rich
graves at the site drove them to explore the
curious-looking hollows. The finds, though lit-
tle more than bones and decayed metal, might,
through historical interest or the demands of
poverty, have motivated them to continue their
search. On the other hand, by all accounts the
opportunistic approaches of the 1881 and 1893
workmen were along these lines, and those
15
ended in little more than ramshackle
destruction.
By contrast the ancient reopening was a
much more systematic affair, with as many
as nine graves opened and the main parts of
the burials removed in a targeted and moti-
vated effort. It looks less like an incidental
by-product of construction at the site and
more like a planned campaign. If so, it repre-
sents a major revision of one of the most
significant monuments in the area. As we
have seen, the reopeners focused their efforts
solely on these high-status inhumation graves
close to the new church, leaving the other
monuments in the area intact.
Several potential lines of interpretation can
be traced. If the reopening is associated with
the new Christian establishment, and if we see
it as a negative act, it may be explained as an
attempt to put an end to heathen rituals and
beliefs associated with these elite ancestral
graves. In this scenario, it is notable that the
significance of the burials was so closely tied up
with the human remains, rather than the
monuments or the site. Emptied of their occu-
pants, the graves lost whatever power they held
in the landscape, whether as sites for commu-
nication with the dead or simply as remem-
bered burial places of important ancestors.
Alternatively, and including if the distur-
bance is placed earlier in the site chronology,
a negative motivation may have had its origin
in more worldly power struggles. Robbing of
the graves of a previous elite during political
upheaval has been argued at Slusegaard in
Denmark some centuries earlier (Crumlin-
Pedersen 1995). It is well-known as an inter-
pretation for the 10th-century reopening and
ransacking of the Norwegian royal mounds at
Oseberg and Gokstad (Myhre 1994, Bill and
Daly 2012).
However, the reopening methods seen at
Vendel suggest that here the intention was
not to destroy the ancestral graves, but more
specifically to exhume their occupants. There
are no recognizable signs of desecration or
insult, in contrast to the deliberate damage
observed by the excavators at Oseberg
 16 Alison Margaret Klevnäs
(Brøgger 1917). At Vendel the reopeners
refined their technique so as to remove the
main parts of the burials with minimal
destruction. The graves were left otherwise
intact and were visible as hollows in the sur-
face into the 19th century. The skeletons and
unwanted artefacts were neither strewn about
nor thrown into the backfill, but seem to have
been removed from the site altogether.
In this more benign scenario, the remains
may even have been taken in a spirit of
veneration. If the reopening is connected
with the Christian development of the site,
it is possible that they were taken to be re-
interred in the new church or churchyard, as
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an act of continuity in the conversion period.
Exhumation of bodily remains and transla-
tion to a higher-status burial place was a key
rite in the creation of an early medieval saint
(Geary 1986, 1990, Thacker 2002) and simi-
lar processes involving the transferral of secu-
lar elite bodies have been proposed – and
contested – for several major monuments
during the conversion of northern Europe to
Christianity (e.g. Myhre 1994, Musin 1998,
Herschend 2001, Knüsel 2006). In particular,
there is an ongoing debate about the possible
transferral of the bones of King Gorm of
Denmark from pagan barrow to Christian
church by his son Harald Bluetooth (Krogh
1982, 1993, Andersen 1995, Staecker 2005).
Medieval Icelanders certainly believed that
such lay translations had occurred. The early
13th century Egil’s Saga relates how, when
Iceland became Christian, Egil’s bones were
taken from his mound and buried under the
altar of the church. Sometime later they were
moved again, when a new church was built
(Pálsson and Edwards 1976, p. 238). There are
examples from Anglo-Saxon England of the
apparent transferral of lay bodies during the
development of early churches (Klevnäs 2013,
pp. 128–129). Could the Vendel reopening be
an example of a similar transferral of signifi-
cant ancestral remains? If so, the passage of
time between the burials and the reopening,
along with the large number of affected
graves, suggests that this was transferral of a
more communal form of ancestor than the
specific named individuals involved in the
royal and literary transferrals.
Vendel church has seen only limited exca-
vations within the building. Those carried out
under the church floor in 1930 did not
recover any objects that must have come
from transferred boat-graves (Arne 1930).
Although the stratigraphy at such a site is
complex, the excavators considered them-
selves to have exposed the cemetery surface
predating the church construction and to
have dug into the earlier burials. Recovered
finds included numerous neonate bones and a
bronze object, but nothing directly indicating
the contents of a boat-grave. On the other
hand, the baptismal font of the church incor-
porates an object which appears to be reused
sculpture, partially resembling a ‘grave orb’:
one of the large stone balls sometimes found
laid on pre-Christian graves, including, as
mentioned above, Vendel IX (Petré 1984,
p. 34, Westerholm 1999, Ljungkvist 2008,
p. 33, Torun Zachrisson pers. comm.).
Transferring grave material into Christian
contexts would have had a direct parallel in
the collection and display of Swedish runes-
tones and Gotlandic picture-stones in medie-
val churches (Burström 1996, Johansen 1997).
Here there is a similar debate about the extent
to which Christian requisition of earlier monu-
ments reflects peaceful continuity, a need to
legitimize power through appeals to the past
or a desire to show mastery over defeated
paganism.
The Viking Age and start of the Middle
Ages saw widespread reworking of ancient
monumental sites and remains. The emptying
of the Vendel boat-grave cemetery, whether
carried out in a pagan or a Christianizing
context, represents another key example of
this phenomenon. It underlines the continu-
ing potency of burial places in the landscape,
and above all how specifically this power was
bound up with the physical remains of the
dead themselves.
 Digging out the Dead from the Vendel Boat-Graves
CONCLUSION
This article has shown that, for the excava-
tors of the Vendel boat-grave cemetery, the
ancient disturbance of almost all the burials
was one of the most prominent features of
the site. At least nine of the 14 graves had
been reopened in antiquity, perhaps in asso-
ciation with the construction of the medieval
church. Further, the graves were reopened
with the intention of digging out the main
deposits: the human remains and their acces-
sories. It has been argued that the aim of the
reopening was to leave the graves empty of
their occupants, rather than to obliterate
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their memory or raze the site. The grave
material was not strewn across the site as
spoil, but removed or reburied elsewhere.
The motive for emptying the graves may be
linked to their association with pre-Christian
cult. Alternatively or in addition, this may be
an example of the transferral of significant
ancestral remains into a new, Christian burial
context during the period of conversion to
the new religion.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The UK Arts and Humanities Research
Council funded the research on which this
article is based. It was prepared during a
period of postdoctoral research and teaching
at the Department of Archaeology and
Classical Studies at Stockholm University.
Many thanks to Mats Burström, Anna
Sörman, Howard Williams and Torun
Zachrisson for insightful comments, and to
Anna Röst for help with images.
NOTE
1
All translations from Stolpe are by present author.
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