SCANDINAVIAN WARRIORS BURIED IN DEATH HOUSES

ARCHAEOLOGISTS in Poland were stunned to discover the skeletal remains of four Scandinavian warriors many hundreds of miles from their homeland.

The 11th-century remains were discovered at a peculiar burial site dubbed by the archaeologists a death house. A chemical and genetic analysis of the remains found the four men were from Scandinavia, most likely from Denmark.

According to Dr Sławomir Wadyl of the Gdańsk Archeological Museum, the warriors were buried alongside a plethora of trinkets and Ormaments.

The archaeologist told the Polish Press Agency (PAP): “In the central part of the cemetery, there were four very well-equipped chamber graves.

“Men, probably warriors, were buried in them as evidenced by weapons and equestrian equipment laid together with them.”

The four warriors were unearthed in the village of Ciepłe in Eastern Pomerania or Pomorze Wschodnie, northern Poland.

he Danish warriors would have been buried during the Piast dynasty – the first Polish dynasty to rule from the 10th century to the end of the 14th century.

Dr Wadyl said: “It turned out that all of the dead buried in the central part of the cemetery were not from the Piast State, but from Scandinavia, most likely from Denmark.”

The warriors were buried within a larger necropolis, dating back to the Polish King Bolesław Chrobry or Bolesław the Brave I.

Alongside them, the archaeologists uncovered a treasure-trove of weapons such as decorative swords and spears.

Evidence suggests the four men were skilled horse riders, due to the buckles, stirrups and spurs found next to their bodies.

The archaeologists also uncovered old coins, metal trinkets, combs, pots and even the remains of animals.

The burial site itself is interesting because it is more typical of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.

The warriors were laid to rest in wooden chambers measuring about 11.5ft by 6.5ft (3.5m by 2m).

The chambers were built much like a log cabin, with intersecting planks or logs of wood stacked on top of one another.

Dr Wadyl said: “It was one of the more popular house building methods at the time, so you could say they were a ‘death house’.”

In another part of the cemetery, the archaeologists found another different but equally intriguing burial method.

The archaeologists unearthed two large coffins laid to rest inside of a chamber built from vertical, sharpened poles forced into the ground.

Dr Wadyl said: “These are the biggest chests of their kind that we know of in Poland’s territories at this time.”

The collection of burial sites was likely surrounded by some form of fencing or a wooden palisade.

Dr Wadyl believes the Danish warriors were likely part of the local elite due to their elaborate and flashy burials.

He said: “Those buried in the central part of the cement ray represented the social elite of the time, as evidenced by the monumental character of their graves and rich furnishings.

“They probably belonged to a group of elite riders but their role was probably was not limited to the function of warriors.”

The archaeologist also thinks the men collected taxes from the local populace due to a set of weights found next to two of the dead.

But these are not the first mysterious burial sites uncovered by archaeologists in Poland.

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Mikalgar∂r, the Gotlandic Constantinople

Image result for Mikalgarâr, the Gotlandic Constantinople

The frst documented visit by a delegation of Gotlandic merchants, Rhos, Varangians, to Miklagarðr is in 838. It is documented by three written sources and
also a coin has been found in the Spillings’ treasure with Emperor Theophilos’
name (829-842).
One of the references related to the Rus’ khaganate comes from the Frankish
Annals of St. Bertin, which refer to a group of Norsemen who called themselves Rhos, “qui se, id est gentem suam, Rhos vocari dicebant”, and visited
Constantinople around the year 838. They were fearful of returning home via
the steppes, that would leave them vulnerable to attacks by the Magyars.
Around 830, a rebellion had broken out in the Khazar khaganate. As a result,
three Kabar tribes of the Khazars joined the Hungarians and moved to what
the Hungarians call the Etelköz. Therefore these Rhos got permission to accompany Greek ambassadors from the Byzantine emperor Theophilus, who
were travelling through the Frankish Empire to the Frankish Emperor Louis
the Pious at Ingelheim. When questioned by the Frankish Emperor Louis the
Pious they stated that their leader was known as Chacanus, the Latin word for
“Khagan”, and that they lived far to the north.

Ibn Khordadhbeh (c. 820 – 912) depicts that also probably about the year 846
al-Rus’ merchants visited Miklagarðr and Baghdad. However some Gotlandic
Varangians remained in Mikagar∂r in 838 and joined the Emperor’s service and
took Byzantine wives.
So did the Gotlandic Varangian Ingr who married a Martiniakoi, a distant relative to the imperial family. In 840 a daughter Eudokia Ingerina (Greek: Ευδοκία
Ιγγερίνα) (c. 840 – c. 882) was borne.
On June 18, 860, at sunset, a feet of about 200 Rhos vessels sailed into the
Bosporus and started pillaging the suburbs of Constantinople, Miklagarðr. The
attackers were setting homes on fre, drowning and stabbing the residents. The
attack took the Greeks by surprise, ‘like a thunderbolt from heaven’.
The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Photius (858-867 and 877-886)
says that it came suddenly and unexpectedly, ‘like a swarm of wasps’. Unable to
do anything to repel the invaders, Patriarch Photius urged his fock to implore
the Theotokos to save the city.
Emperor Michael III and the Imperial Army, including the troops normally
stationed closest to the capital, and the dreaded feet, which discouraged with
the deadly Greek Fire, fought against the Arabs in Asia Minor. The exceptional time of the attack when the Rhos, Gotlandic Varangians, caught Constantinople unprepared suggests that the Rhos had information about the city’s
weaknesses. It shows that the Rhos trade and communication with Miklagarðr
continued into the 840s and 850s. We don’t know how many Gotlanders took
service in the Imperial Guard in 838 and if they were involved from inside.
Still, the attack by the Rhos in 860 came as a surprise.
The Rhos–Byzantine War of 860-861 was the only major military expedition
from the Rus’ Khaganate recorded in Byzantine and Western European sources.
At the same time all the centres of the Rus’ Khaganate in North-Western Russia were destroyed by fre. Archaeologists have found convincing evidence that
Aldeigjuborg, Alaborg, Holmgard, Izborsk and other local centres were burnt
to the ground in the 860s. Some of these settlements were permanently abandoned after the confagration.

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CLAN CARRUTHERS-SCANDINAVIAN WARRIORS BURIED IN DEATH HOUSES