Archaeologists from Arkeologerna, a part of Sweden’s National Historical Museum, have uncovered two rare Viking boat graves in the Swedish village of Gamla Uppsala. Boat burial was only reserved for social elites during the Vendel Period, from about A.D. 550 to 800, and the Viking Age, from about A.D. 800 to 1050. In this kind of burial, the person and his or her riches would be placed in a boat that was then put into the ground.
There are only about 10 other similar boat burial sites in Sweden. “It is a small group of people who were buried in this way. You can suspect that they were distinguished people in the society of the time since burial ships in general are very rare,” said archeologist Anton Seiler.
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