The metal detector discovers a tomb of rare boats containing a Viking woman and her dog

The saying says that a dog is the best friend of a man, but an archaeological excavation in Norway proves that women care about their four -legged companions as much as men, even 1,100 years ago.

Archaeologists from the Museum of the University of the Arctic of Norway revealed a 13th century Viking tomb on the Norwegian Island of Senja. The buried individual is probably a woman who belonged to an elite class, as Science Norway reported for the first time. In particular, the team found a dog carefully buried at their feet.

“It seems to have been placed with real care,” said Anja Roth Niemi, an archaeologist from the museum who probably participated in excavation in Science Norway. “There are stories of eminent people who do everything in their power when their dog has fallen ill. So, even at the time, people had deep ties with their animals. ”

A metal detector discovered the pins and the OS remains for the first time on the site at only 7.9 inches (20 centimeters) under the ground two years ago. Suspecting the presence of a burial of a Viking woman, the Museum of the University of the Arctic of Norway asked for permission to investigate and was finally able to perform an appropriate excavation when the land owner decided to extend a garage to the property.

“After the abolition of the upper layer of the soil, it has become clear that it was a boat tomb,” wrote the museum in an article on social networks. “The decaying wood of the boat was visible as a thin dark band in the basement, with the site where the bowl spindles were found approximately in the middle.”

The work revealed a boat 17.7 feet long (5.4 meters) in which a Viking woman and a dog were buried alongside objects associated with elite burials, including bone or amber balls, a pendant and ornate pins, according to Science Norway. This is not the first time that archaeologists have found dog remains alongside those who Viking, but it provides additional proof that dogs were precious companions even 1,100 years ago.

The design of the pins – with silver thread – led the team to the date of the tomb at around 900 to 950 CE, as Science Norway reported. They also indicate that the buried individual was a woman, since oval pins generally emptied jewelry for women, although only bone analysis could confirm it beyond any doubt. In addition, the tomb of the boat and the serious products suggest that the woman was a high level person.

“Only the elite would receive a burial like this,” Niemi told Science Norway. Niemi and his colleagues also discovered agricultural tools and textile instruments, the latter associate more funeral with Viking femininity. Other analyzes will confirm the sex of the individual and enlighten his age, his size, his diet and his health, while offering more knowledge of the Vikings funeral traditions. In addition, after discovering another spindle not too far from the burial, archaeologists hope to continue investigating the region in the hope of finding another tomb.

According to the museum position, the last days of excavation have been devoted to “recording all the content of the tomb and securing them for transport and storage until they can be examined in detail under conditions controlled in the Tromsø laboratory”.

I hope they keep the woman and her pet together in Tromsø, so that the dog can continue to keep his owner in the afterlife as he probably did when they were both alive.