Antiquity Publications Ltd/Rimstad et al/R. Fortuna, National Museum of Denmark
The remains of a Viking have been rediscovered after being missing for more than a century. They were safely stored in a museum the whole time, but had been mislabelled.
The person was buried with expensive grave goods, suggesting they were an elite person or even royalty. They also seem to have been wearing long trousers with elaborate decorations.
Advertisement
The story begins in 1868, near the village of Mammen in Denmark. A local landowner named Laust Pedersen Skomager enlisted local farmers to help him remove the topsoil from a mound on his estate. They found it concealed a wooden Viking burial chamber, now called Bjerringhøj. The farmers dug up the contents and shared them out – so when academics arrived on the scene soon after, they had first to recover the remains from their new owners.