ARCHAEOLOGISTS UNEARTH TWO VIKING AGE SWORDS IN BURIAL GROUND

[themirrorthief]

not if they were restricted to viking weapons,,

I am going cremation...dont want be dug up someday by some a hole in thick glasses

 

[Yarddog]

This seems to me to be theft. It belonged to the person buried it. No, they no longer need it but it's still theirs.

What??? you never heard of the thousand year rule?? it's something like the three second rule but slightly different. Besides... maybe that person from long ago would wish to be remembered. Now that their possession is brought to light, who knows? maybe their memory is more honored than if you just bury the swords back into the ground.

 

[Yarddog]

Pretty sure Seal Team Six could take out an entire village of Vikings while they're still having breakfast...

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ERRrrrr I'm not necessarily too sure about that.... depends on what the Vikings eat for breakfast.

What do Vikings eat for breakfast anyway??

 

[whitehall]

They call it grave robbing unless a museum steals the stuff.

 

[sparky]

Archaeologists from Arkeologerna

man, try and say that 3 times fast....... ~S~

 

[bodecea]

Really? Archaeologists from Arkeologerna? Discovering Viking swords (known throughout the ages as being a symbol of warrior men) in Vast Man Land? Outside of Koping (coping) Sweden?

This actually sounds like something from the Babylon Bee.

BTW OP, if you consider this grave robbing and wrong, how do you feel about all the Egyptian excavations that have happened over the years? Not only did they "rob" the graves, they also took the bodies!

Q: Name something in Great Britain that isn't British.

A: The contents of the British Museum.

 

[bodecea]

Lo there do I see my father; Lo there do I see my mother and my sisters and my brothers; Lo there do I see the line of my people, back to the beginning. Lo, they do call to me, they bid me take my place among them, in the halls of Valhalla, where the brave may live forever.

 

[1srelluc]

They call it grave robbing unless a museum steals the stuff.

That would be about like some future descendants of ours digging-up graves at Arlington National Cemetery for uniform accouterments.....Oh look what we "discovered".

 

[whitehall]

Around the turn of the 20th century a "museum" in Richmond Va. excavated (plundered) an Indian Mound in Rockbridge Co. Virginia and carted off the skeletons and artifacts, effectively destroying a priceless treasure. About a decade ago the local Monacan Indian Tribe sued to recover the human remains for a Tribal burial and the "museum" claimed they didn't have enough time (more than 100 years) to study the remains. The Indians won the suit but the Indian Mound that could have been a tourist attraction was destroyed forever by "scientists" and "archeologists".

 

[1srelluc]

Around the turn of the 20th century a "museum" in Richmond Va. excavated (plundered) an Indian Mound in Rockbridge Co. Virginia and carted off the skeletons and artifacts, effectively destroying a priceless treasure. About a decade ago the local Monacan Indian Tribe sued to recover the human remains for a Tribal burial and the "museum" claimed they didn't have enough time (more than 100 years) to study the remains. The Indians won the suit but the Indian Mound that could have been a tourist attraction was destroyed forever by "scientists" and "archeologists".

Add to that the number of such low-end "museums" that suddenly go under and the "exhibits" are sold to the highest bidder.

We had that happen here in the Shenandoah Valley 20-odd years ago.....As soon as the auction was over the "curators" suddenly up and RUNN OFT.

 

[Pellinore]

Add to that the number of such low-end "museums" that suddenly go under and the "exhibits" are sold to the highest bidder.

We had that happen here in the Shenandoah Valley 20-odd years ago.....As soon as the auction was over the "curators" suddenly up and RUNN OFT.

I believe they found a photo of one of those curators.

 

[Pellinore]

Most countries have strict laws separating grave robbing from archaeology. Here in the USA, we have (among others) the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, designed to prevent people from selling artifacts they steal from Native American graves. Most auctioneers and antique dealers know all about it; mess with NAGPRA, and undercover DoI agents will come kick your ass.

In practice, the dividing line is (usually) if no one knows who the buried person is. These Vikings were buried so long ago, that there is no record of their names, relatives, positions, etc., and the stuff with them is likely to be culturally relevant. On the other hand, George Washington's tomb is pretty well marked, so cracking that open would be grave robbing.

There are exceptions, of course. No one knows exactly which of the Pilgrims are buried where, but no one's anxious to go digging up Burial Hill in Plymouth, either. And, Howard Carter knew exactly who was in King Tut's tomb, but ... well, that gets into imperialism and the Imperial British tendency to help themselves, which Swedish archaeologists working in Sweden, and presumably having navigated all of the Swedish laws beforehand, don't have to worry about that.

 

[whitehall]

Most countries have strict laws separating grave robbing from archaeology. Here in the USA, we have (among others) the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, designed to prevent people from selling artifacts they steal from Native American graves. Most auctioneers and antique dealers know all about it; mess with NAGPRA, and undercover DoI agents will come kick your ass.

In practice, the dividing line is (usually) if no one knows who the buried person is. These Vikings were buried so long ago, that there is no record of their names, relatives, positions, etc., and the stuff with them is likely to be culturally relevant. On the other hand, George Washington's tomb is pretty well marked, so cracking that open would be grave robbing.

There are exceptions, of course. No one knows exactly which of the Pilgrims are buried where, but no one's anxious to go digging up Burial Hill in Plymouth, either. And, Howard Carter knew exactly who was in King Tut's tomb, but ... well, that gets into imperialism and the Imperial British tendency to help themselves, which Swedish archaeologists working in Sweden, and presumably having navigated all of the Swedish laws beforehand, don't have to worry about that.

NAGPR act in 1990? Who ya gonna call when Indian artifacts were systematically looted already?

 

[Seymour Flops]

This seems to me to be theft. It belonged to the person buried it. No, they no longer need it but it's still theirs.

We rarely agree, but on this one you're right.

Houses and tools and bones from butchered animals are fair game for archeologists.

But burial sites should be left alone, as they had religious and/or spiritual meaning for those who did the burial and for those buried. Permanence is the point of burial.

The most agregious is the treatment of ancient Egyption kings, mummified and put in tombs designed to last for eons while the god-kings awaited the actual gods to resurrect them. Yet, I've seen one of the exumed bodies of a king in the Houston Museum of Natural History on display behind a glass case. Not at all what he and his people had in mind.

 

[pknopp]

We rarely agree, but on this one you're right.

Houses and tools and bones from butchered animals are fair game for archeologists.

But burial sites should be left alone, as they had religious and/or spiritual meaning for those who did the burial and for those buried. Permanence is the point of burial.

The most agregious is the treatment of ancient Egyption kings, mummified and put in tombs designed to last for eons while the god-kings awaited the actual gods to resurrect them. Yet, I've seen one of the exumed bodies of a king in the Houston Museum of Natural History on display behind a glass case. Not at all what he and his people had in mind.

When I was a kid I remember going to the big museum in Niagara Falls (I hated seeing it get closed but that is another story). In it were mummies. Now as a kid I thought they were cool but it ends up one was a king that had been removed from his resting place.

A king or a pauper, a person has a right to be left alone along with their belongings.

 

[Foxfyre]

Archaeologists unearth two Viking Age swords in burial ground

Archaeologists from Arkeologerna have uncovered two Viking Age swords during excavations in Västmanland, outside of Köping, Sweden. The swords were discovered during an archaeological investigation of a Late Iron Age burial ground, which dates from around AD 600 – 1000. The site contains 100 graves and two burial mounds, with evidence of further burial activity indicated by the discovery of three stone tombs added centuries later into one of the mounds. Excavations of one of the tombs revealed a large cache of glass beads, while in the middle of the other two tombs, archaeologists found two Viking Age swords which had been placed standing upright in a shallow setting. In total, around 20 Viking Age swords have been found in the Västmanland area, however, this is the first time that two swords have been found in the same burial ground and left standing untouched. Speaking on the discovery, Anton Seiler from Arkeologerna, suggests that the swords could have been placed on the mound to honour and remember one’s relatives, being a physical marker that family members could visit and touch 1200 years-ago. Excavations also found the cremated remains of humans and animal bones, in addition to a gaming piece and parts of a comb and bear claws. Evidence of earlier occupation has also been identified, with archaeological remains of agricultural farming that dates from the Bronze Age or earlier Iron Age. Why several individuals were buried in the mound centuries later, or determining their gender is still yet to be determined, however, remains sent for an osteological analysis should hopefully provide further answers for the researchers.

Say what you will but IMHO it still amounts to grave robbing/looting.....Sending it to a museum does not make it any less so.

It's one thing for a excavator to hit something and they dig it up to get it out of the way (like that English King a few years back) but another thing entirely to dig-up a known burial site just because you can.

I have professional archeologists in my family and among my friends, and I'm torn on this one. It isn't as if any living person knows anybody in those graves or anybody they might be related to nor is there any way to know who any artifacts found belonged to.

As a kid, I often accompanied my Uncle Jack on some of his small digs and often when traveling he would spot a site that he was pretty sure was inhabited by Native Americans somewhere back in history. We would stop and poke around and invariably found some stone arrow heads or pottery shards.

I personally found it rather ghoulish to mess around what were obviously ancient graves, but then again these archeological expeditions can teach us so much about our history as humankind and what our more ancient ancestors were like. Archeological digs in and around Jordan have supported many Biblical accounts from thousands of years ago.

I'm not arguing with those of you who feel this could be immoral. Just a somewhat different perspective is all. It sort of like finding pirate's gold sometimes. That belonged to somebody else too but it is really tempting to think finders keepers too.