Archaeologist leaves message in Viking ship burial

Yet another note from a past archaeologist has been unearthed by present-day archaeologists, this time in a Viking ship burial. The message in a bottle was left by Anders Lorange of the Bergen Museum in 1874 when he excavated the largest Viking ship burial ever found at the Myklebust farm on Nordfjordeid, western Norway.

Myklebust was the estate of 9th century Viking king Audbjörn Frøybjørnsson of Firda. Frøybjørnsson died in battle against Harald Hairfair who successfully fought to unite the petty kingdoms of Norway into a single crown under his rule. After his death in 870, Frøybjørnsson’s body was returned to Myklebust and was given a ship burial. The burned ship was covered by a great mound known as Rundehogjen. The mound is 100 feet in diameter and 13 feet high. The ship was burned during the funeral ritual, but the remains — 7000+ rivets, the large ash pile, 44 shield bosses — made it possible for the archaeologists to extrapolate its size. It was at least 100 feet long (far longer than the Oseberg and Gokstad ships which are more famous today because they were not burned and survive intact), the largest ship that has ever been found in a Viking burial. It is also the only known cremation Viking ship burial ever discovered in Scandinavia.

The Bergen Museum dispatched Anders Lorange, its first professional conservator and archaeologist, to excavate the mound for the first time in 1874. Lorange found the skeletal remains of an adult male about 25-35 years old with sharp-force injury to his shoulder inflicted by a sword or battle axe. He also found the remains of the burned ship, weapons and other grave goods, including a bronze vessel looted from a church or monastery in Ireland in the 8th century and repurposed in this burial as a cinerary urn.

Before refilling the mound, Lorange wrote a note, rolled it up and put it in a green glass bottle along with his business card and five coins. The text of the note translates to:

“This Mound was excavated Anno Domino 1874. Of Anders Lorange, Antiqvarius Norvegiæ. The mound is built over fallen Men. They were burned in their ship with their weapons and decorations. Of shield bosses were 26 – of Swords 2 – an ax and many Arrows – in addition to many other Old Saws. The find is handed over to Bergens Museum.”

NB: There were actually 44 shield bosses in the burial, so he missed a few, nor did he mention the bronze cinerary urn. Project leader and archaeologist Morten Ramstad believes Lorange omitted these important objects from his list because he wasn’t the one who got down in the dirt. Farm laborers did the actual digging, so even though he was the lead archaeologist, Lorange didn’t have all the information by the time the burial was refilled.

He was less than conversant on another subject in his area of expertise too, but that didn’t stop him from shouting out his sweetheart.

At the bottom of the letter, Lorange has written a message in runes. But when Ramstad sought out experts in runic writing, they struggled to decipher what was written.

“Eventually we realized that Lorange did not know runes, and had only translated the sentence directly using the younger runic alphabet. Then we translated it to ‘Emma Gade my girlfriend.’ He wrote the same on his business card, which was also in the bottle, says Ramstad.

Emma Gade from Bergen later became Lorange’s wife. But this was not the first time Lorange left a letter in a bottle with a declaration of love.

“A similar bottle was found during the excavation of Raknehaugen in 1939. There, Lorange [who was the first to excavate the mound in 1869-70,] had written a declaration of love to Ingeborg Heftye, but we know that she ended up marrying someone else. Lorange was undoubtedly an amorous young man, says Ramstad.

Norway’s National Archives assigned archaeologists from the University of Bergen to re-excavate and map the Myklebust Ship mound as part of a project to document ship graves for possible inclusion on Norway’s World Heritage Site list. Excavation with modern methods and technologies revealed that much more of the mound was preserved than previously understood, and that underneath the mound were traces of the early Viking-era settlement.

“Investigations at Myklebusthaugen will undoubtedly give us a better understanding of a powerful and important Viking Age cultural environment with contacts that have gone far beyond Norway. They also confirm that the ship Lorange found was of considerable size. And not least that the mound hides several burials,” explains Ramstad.

The bottle, note, card and coins will become part of the University Museum’s collection, and will go on display at its bicentennial exhibition next year.

* This article was originally published here