Forbidden History - The Oseberg Mystery: Secrets of the Viking Skeletons

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

The discovery of two female skeletons aboard the magnificent Oseberg ship has puzzled historians for more than a century. Who were these mysterious women, and what does their extraordinary burial reveal about Viking life, death and ritual? Cast List: Eric Meyers: Narrator Louise Loe: Archaeologist Neil Price: Archaeologist and Viking historian David Score: Archaeologist Tim Sutherland: Archaeologist and host Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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featuring live expert interviews, and deep dives into your favorite topics. Thanks for supporting the show. A mysterious mound, folklore and legend, a fortune teller's words come true, a sight unseen in centuries, the greatest icon of the Viking Age. It is definitely the symbol of the Viking Age.

A vessel on its final voyage, a ship of beauty and a ship of the dead. They clearly belong in the grave. This was their place to be. A story of ingenuity of one of the greatest excavations in Viking archaeology. The two women of Osiré are a mystery in every sense. And the discovery of the most stunning and intriguing grave ship ever found. The Mysteries of the Ossiburg. From the late 8th to the mid-11th centuries,

the Scandinavian peoples burst from their frontiers almost wherever the seas could take them. Through archaeology, we can now explore the world of Viking life by understanding the realm of the Viking dead. There is so much about the Vikings that we can't really understand. All we have left are traces. The full spectrum so far remains unrevealed. unrevealed by time and the earth. What is left to us from those times and those people is

usually connected with death, a time when the living mark the passing of the dead into the next world, and for us, into the archaeological record. This is the story of an incredible burial, and of individuals whose lives and importance we can only wonder at from the fragments which remain of their passing into that next world. One of my stories of my story of Specialist Fields is the Viking way of death. I'm really interested in how and why they deal with mortality. Ossaberry is the most spectacular Viking burial ever found. That's not just as an anticipated, it's literally true.

Osseberg was the name given to the beautiful ship buried with its amazingly well-preserved cargo more than 1,000 years ago. It was discovered at the dawn of the 20th century. The excavation was one of the first worldwide archaeological sensations, and this, almost two decades before Howard Carter, opened Tutankhammonds' tomb. One of the most famous excavations of the 20th century. Now we know it as a nationally important symbol of the whole of Norway,

and internationally, it's like famous around the world. It is the iconic Viking ship. Whenever we see Viking ships, we see some sort of representation of this ship. The Ossaburg boat, with its distinct serpent-stem head, was raised from the ground in the summer of 1904. Anorobic conditions in the grave meant that very unusually, organic objects were incredibly well-preserved. There were staggering finds of hundreds of objects, wood, bone, leather, and even textiles. Yet amid all this, in the whole ship, there were found just two human skeletons. The remains of the two women were proclaimed those of the 11th century Norwegian queen, Asa, and her servant or slave.

Norway had its legendary queen reborn in the new 20th century. It was a number of years before the ship was carefully conserved and finally reconstructed. It became known as the Osseberg. The boat is 21 and a half meters long, and just over five meters broad, and made almost entirely from oak. In fact, the museum was specially designed to house the Osseberg and its fellow graveship, the Gugstadt. For decades, archaeologists focused on the amazing preservation of the ship and the artifacts. The skeletons of the two women by comparison were all but forgotten. After they were measured and recorded, little more could be done with them, but they were

supposedly Norwegian royals, however ancient, so they were, they were reburied. There had never been any proof that the bones were those of Queen Asa, and so, with the evidence gone, the great mystery of the Osseburn went uninvestigated. Who were the two women? Why were they buried so grandly? Were they a queen and her servant? Were they both of royal blood? Or were they something else? In the early 21st century, moves were made to re-examine some of these questions. Norwegian archaeologists and osteologists revisited the story of the Osseberg and of the bones.

Tonsber archaeologist Terja Gansom was instrumental in reopening the investigation. He and everyone else wanted to find out more about the two mysterious women. Osseberg is very hard to understand and things that are hard to understand can easily be mythical and of course it's intriguing. In 2007, the skeletons were disinterred in the hope that modern science could reveal something more about the two individuals. Ellen Marie Ness is the curator of the Osseburg exhibit in Oslo's Viking Ship Museum. And I think it's so amazing that they're here, that we can see them, that we can study them, that we have them. The skeletons were forensically re-examined to confirm their sex, and as far as possible,

their age at the time of death. One is the older one, and she managed to be incredible old when she died, perhaps around 80, and the younger one, a young lady, around 50 or 60. Good ages, though, for that period. Absolutely. But, you know, it's better to be rich and healthy

than poor and sick. There are also so many things to learn from the bones. This meant that they had both been born prior to what we now consider the start of the Viking Age. around 793 AD. The two skeletons were incomplete, but from what remained, it was found that both had survived various injuries and ailments in their lives.

But there was nothing to confirm what had killed either individual, although it was found that the older woman had suffered for some time with cancer. Analysis of the isotopes contained within their tooth enamel revealed that one of the women was probably Scandinavian in origin or descent, while the other, the older, may have descended from further east, even as far as what is now Iran. The story of the excavation to raise the Osberg is also intriguing. Tim travels south from Oslo to see for himself the mysterious mound in which the ship rested for more than a millennium. Tonsber is one of the oldest towns in Norway. Bora, not far away, seems to have been an area for royal burials. Numerous mounds have been

found here. But the Osseberg mound is on its own, well away from here, and not in any known burial ground. Perhaps that's why it lay untouched for so long. Tim's met with local Tonsber historian Tor Oydwine. He's studied the story of the burial's discovery and the archaeological dig which followed. It's a strange tale, with its own blend of myth, folklore, and superstition. The mound itself isn't exactly hidden, but nor is it in a prominent position in the broad, shallow valley. It's low down, tucked away by a small winding creek. Such places were suspected to contain ancient burials, but later generations were wary of digging into them, lest dire consequences should befallen.

Everybody thought that this was a burial site from the Black Plague. If you started to dig in it, you would dig up the pest, and of course all of Norway would die again. Fear of the medieval pestilence meant that the mound remained undisturbed until almost the end of the 19th century. Then in the late 1800 there comes a farmer, Johannes Hansen. Little is known about Hansen. He moved to Tonspere to farm the rich land here. Yet like his forebears in the Viking Age, he was, it seems, no stranger to the sea. He was not only a farmer, he was also a seaman, a sailor, and he used for periods of time

to travel to the United States to be a skipper on the barge on the river in New York City. Hansen was a pilot, guiding the great sailing boats on the Hudson River, and like many sailors of all eras, he was superstitious. Like many others, he was visiting a fortune teller there. The fortune teller asked Hansen why on earth he'd come to New York, when the fortune he sought was back home on his farm in Norway in the mysterious mound, the supposed plague burial. So he went back home and he started trying to dig a little bit and he used a long iron rod. And all that came out was some yellow stinking water, which of course made the local population

said, what have we told you? We told you so. Stop doing it. This is the black plague. You stopped doing this. Whether or not it had to do with the foul effulant from the mound, Hansen soon out of the after became sick and died. The stage was then set for the next important character in the story.

Around the year 1900, a man named Oskar Room purchased the farm. It's not known if he did so because of the mound and its stories. He buys the farm. He must have had a hunch because he started systematically to excavate the mound. And in the summer of 1903, on Friday the 7th of August in 1903, he comes home to his family, drenched in clay and very dirty, but very happy because he has with him a piece of wood with intrigue carvings on it. So far as anyone can be sure, this piece of wood was the first fragment recovered from the burial beneath the mound. Room could have no clue exactly what it was yet, but it was a sample of what was yet to come.

He had to try and gain the interest of Norway's top archaeologist, and he didn't waste any time. And the next day, which was a very extremely hot August day in 1903, he takes the steamboat into Christiania, as Oslo was called at that time. And he walks the short way from Bikiside up to the... a relatively new built cultural institute. And he walks in and there sits Professor Gabriel Gustafson. Gustafsen was actually Swedish. He was already well respected in Oslo's Cultural Institute. But he could have no idea that what Oscar Room brought him

would one day lead him to becoming one of the most celebrated archaeologists in the world. This farmer Oscar comes in and says, I think I have found something very interesting on my property. And then Oscar takes out the piece of wood and shows it to him. And then the professor came to life. Gustafson was hooked. The very next day, on his birthday, he traveled to see the mound for himself, and the process was set in motion.

The Osseberg boat and its silent passengers would be revealed. News of the Osseberg and its treasures spread far and wide, as word got out among archaeologists and people interested. in Viking history. Archaeology itself was changing at the time, from the leisurely pursuit of amateur antiquarians to something more scientific. It's because of this that there are other treasures

from the Ossiburg, which helped now to tell the story of this incredible dig. Anabred Haversen is the archivist in charge of this unique trove in Norway's archaeological heritage. She has the documentation of Gustafson's diaries and sketchbook from the excavation at Ossiburg in 1904. So these are his day-to-day thoughts and what he was doing

and what his plans might be. Yes, it is. Contained in the notes are traces of the character of an archaeologist who perhaps knew he was working on the most important dig of his life. Yes, but he used, this is quite modern techniques, actually, writing it all down, having it, having artists, drawing. I think what's really important about,

about this is that this these are the first days the first minutes of the excavations and of course this went on to be a national nationally important site and of course it was initially a something brought in by a farmer it was it was something that could have been something and nothing but it turned into something massive something nationally important you can just imagine it it's a hot day he's waiting to go home and somebody comes into the office with a piece of wood that's potentially going to change his life and little does he know what it's going to turn into, but that was the day that literally changed his life.

His eyes must have opened and he goes, ah, this is quite important. I have to check this out. It started with one piece of wood, but it turned out to be something that is now iconic. Absolutely. More than 100 years after the excavation, the Osserberg still has a major international appeal. Many of the artifacts too are now displayed in the Viking Ship Museum. There are so many that even more are kept in storage. For some items, the conservation process is still going on.

It's fascinating to compare some of these pieces with the drawings in the Dig Archive. Perhaps most of all, the carved piece of wood that first aroused Gustafsson's curiosity. It's actually the very top of one of the Osberg's distinctive serpent-stem heads. In fact, the artifacts are dominated by animal imagery. Among the most striking are four figureheads. They're carved from wood in incredible detail. Each one different. Leopards, lizards, or a dragon's head.

Like the serpent stem heads of the ship itself, they're famous and almost everywhere you look in the imagery of the Viking Age. What makes the Osberg artifact so special is that the vast majority of them are of organic material, mostly wood, bone, or textiles. It's very rare that these kinds of materials survive so long in the grave. Something we tend to forget when we think of the Viking concept of value is textiles. Textiles are very, very time consuming to make. Other kinds of materials, particularly silk, very expensive, and we know from some of the

burials of the Viking Age that really, really flat. Clashy clothing. Covered in silk, lots of different colors and textures, things that would catch the light when you're in a firelit hall clothes that would shimmer and glow. That is another kind of wealth and a very important one. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales using automation, analytics and smarter work workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result?

Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. As well as the boat itself, the dead were provided with other means of transportation. There are several sleds and the largest item, a large wooden cart. Maybe the two women, advanced in years or too sick or infirm to walk, use these in life. Again, everything is ornately carved. On the cart is depicted the goddess Freya, who, it said, also had a carriage pulled by cats. The many animal carvings, the goddess imagery.

Did the women have a spiritual or shaman-like importance beyond conventional status through wealth? there's a lot of that equipment that is not easy to explain because a lot of things is not just functional, they're quite symbolic. And you have a lot of things preserved that we haven't seen before. And of course, it's intriguing when two women have all these equipment. It's placed in the landscape and it's hard to try to compare it. with other finds, because it's unique.

As well as the sketches that were made, many of these artifacts were also recorded in a different way, one that in 1905 was a technology very new to archaeology. Photography had been around for over half a century, but it was only really now that cameras were becoming practical enough to use as a means of accurate documentary recording. Photographs were taken during the excavations. They not only record the event for us now,

they're also glimpses of a lost world and of some of the first modern archaeologists. So what we're looking at is some of the photos that they took at excavation, and back then in 1904, it was really something to spend so much resources on taking photos. That's the remains of the burial chamber, the Staring Or, the prow.

It's a wonderful thing. quality and it tells us so much. They're black and white large format slides, so they contain a huge amount of detail. Today we take hundreds of pictures every day and just snapshots of everything. But back then, every picture had a price. Yeah, and every picture took a long time to take. You didn't just walk up, take it and walk away. You took a long time to prepare it.

And it's so valuable for us today. Photographs of the dig and the artifacts went around the world. But while people marveled at the grave goods and the ship, the site of the excavation, the mound itself, was forgotten. Terja Gansom has been intrigued by the Osserberg burial since his childhood. He's studied Gustafsson's archive more than anyone. But it's not just the amount of records that Gustafsson kept. It's the kind of things he recorded that Terrier found so useful.

Gustavson was very into having a biologist along. Geologist was also there. And a lot of different fields of expertise were collaborating here. That's very forward thinking for his time then, isn't it? Yeah, and we should be very grateful that it was the Swedish Gustafsson, who actually did the excavation. And he was a lot more advanced. than the Norwegian archaeologist used to be. Gustafsen had trained at Uppsala University,

and he'd gained a wealth of experience excavating many Viking-Aid sites in Sweden, where he'd learned new techniques. The data collected by Gustafsson was so comprehensive that, in conjunction with the new work done on the bones, Teria was able to interpret the funeral in which the nameless women were laid to rest. We saw that we could divide the stages of the building process into several phases.

And actually one of the phases ended up with an interpretation that half of the mound was built incorporating the ship. And the ship was standing out from that mound, and that is actually the ritual scene. Teryeiard believes the Osseberg ship was half buried, the front part of the mound deliberately left open, with the foreship exposed to the elements and visible to the living. And it's in that foreship all the offerings and the rituals took place. The bodies of the women were probably laid in a chamber or bed that might also have been left partly or completely open, almost like a state funeral, perhaps for people to view the bodies or pay their respects.

The mound stayed half open for some time, perhaps half a year, They know this because of seed samples of flowers collected by Gustafsian's biologist. Those from the front part of the grave were of a different season to those in the enclosed rear part. And now we can study the archaeology of the archaeology. And it's by having notes like this, you can actually do this. Otherwise, we wouldn't have a clue, would we really? No, we had to just settle with artifacts. Treat the mound as a container.

But now we can see that the mound is a construction, very much linked to all the action taking place. Whether they took place in one great ceremony or several over most of a year, the funeral rites must have been impressive. Every Viking funeral was different. We can classify them into groups, say you have boat burials or what we call chamber graves, they're kind of little underground rooms where you put the dead, sometimes seated in chairs. But when you go inside those graves,

what they actually do for just this dead person, on this occasion, in this place, is always individual. If you look at the objects, what they do with them, where are they placed in the grave, how? Sometimes you can get a sequence of actions.

You can reconstruct how that grave was made. And then with our imaginations and sometimes from written sources as well, you can fill in the blank. of, well, what was going on? Were they talking? Were they singing? Was it at night?

Some of the graves you find evidence for big bonfires and things. Some written descriptions we have, eyewitness accounts of Viking funerals, are at night. The effects of firelight in darkness can be very dramatic. As well as the myriad objects,

decorations and implements, many animals were also consigned to the Osseberg grave. The noises, sights and smells must have been intense. It's hard for us to imagine the impact of all of this on those who were taking part. There are whole worlds of belief and shades of belief, different people thinking different things, just as at our funerals. Do you love the dead person? Did you hate them? Is it an act of duty? You know, getting up your watch.

The Vikings did that too, but they did it in different ways to us and how people view death, how they construct death, because they're these funerals are deliberate, they can tell us a lot about how they viewed life, and that's what interests me. If the wealth of the rituals and the value of the offerings reflect the individuals, then we can assume that the two women were of high status. But in what way? A queen and her servant or slave, as the Norwegians decided after the excavation? If you really look into forensic and archaeology, there's nothing. different between those other than age. And of course it could be mother and daughter. We can't tell because the DNA doesn't give us any real answers yet. So actually I really don't know how to decide

which position in the society these two women had. Where of course they are on the highest level of society but what kind of role did they play? I'm not sure. But they might be connected to rituals and to religion, they might be connected to the aristocracy. But in what proportion these different rules are mixed? I'm not certain. It's still a mystery. The two women of Osabani are a mystery in every sense. Personally, I think the most important thing is that the grave is that of women. This itself tells us something about who they were

and how they were regarded in society. We know very little about women at the highest levels of Viking society. The word queen might not even be accurate. We can't really say if the Osberg burial are about secular or religious power. There have been theories on both of them, both the queen theory and the more sorceress theories. But I think that one thing that we tend to do in modern society that we separate the secular and the religious spheres of society.

But I don't think that that necessarily was the case in the Viking Age, and that secular and religious power were really connected to separate them. I think it will probably be wrong. The women were clearly special to the people who buried them, but perhaps beyond royalty, as we would understand it now. There's something more religious, shamanic even, suggested by the animistic imagery of the artifacts, and even the serpent stemheads of the ship itself. At first there was a theory that the Osseburg might only have been built for the grave.

Yet dendrochronology revealed it had been built many miles away in another part of Norway, and it had probably sailed for more than a decade. So where did it all start then? We really wanted to take back our heritage, and that's how the idea of building an archaeological representation of the Osberg ship came about. Right now, for a limited time, everyone's part of the Buick team, even you. Buick's employee pricing for you event is on now.

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So how important do you feel it is for Norway to have a really good replica of the Osoboog ship? I think it's very important and for several kinds of reasons and we have learned a lot on how they really constructed Viking ships, how they were built, and also, I mean, our own pride in our history and knowledge of the history. That has gotten quite a boost as well. So that's fantastic. The Osberg ship is a symbol of almost Vikings everywhere. The king and queen of Norway were present at the launch,

and the replica now sails the fjord and the sea, just like its forebear did more than 1,000 years ago. It's an exact replica of the original. Not only in its overall structure, but every strait and plank was carefully copied right down to the smallest detail, including the ship's many intricate carvings. These two have been preserved, leaving some interesting clues about the boat and the women who were buried, but also who might have sailed aboard it.

The DNA analysis of the older woman revealed that it was possible she'd suffered a condition which gave her masculine traits in later life, including maybe facial hair. Twelve hundred years ago, this was a burial ship and a boarder ship was two women. One of them was around 80 years old and she had a disease, she made her quite male, she had very deep voice and a beard. I see you... Not the most beautiful of women then. But I think quite powerful.

Possibly, yeah. And we think that this woman is the owner of the ship. We know in some cultures, powerful women were sometimes depicted with a beard to appear more masculine, so it could be symbolic, or it could just be coincidence. Some of the carvings were much more personal, and a real bonus for archaeologists to discover on the original. One of the greatest mysteries of the Osberg burial, beyond the ship, the artifacts and the skeletons, is where it was commended to the ground. This part of Norway isn't remote or a wilderness.

In the Viking Age, it was much the same as it is now, just farmland. So you don't know why the mound is there? No. At all? No, it's no roads there. We can't connect it to any communication route. And that is the most obvious thing with other rich grey mounds. And it's not directly linked to a farm.

It's like a black hole. We have tried a lot of different angles and methods, but to be honest, I really don't know how on earth they chose that place. You can say that the mound is a monument, but it is put in an anti-monumental place, lowest part in the valley, not visible from very many places from that valley. Archaeology showed that the boat had been dragged over land to this spot. The timber they had used to do this was still beneath the keel.

So it's an active choice putting it down in that valley, but we can't really know why. So it may be something that is under even the modern, what's left of the mound and the former excavated trench that they put the ship in. There may be something under the whole thing that would tell us why they did it. Maybe and maybe not. For whatever reason the location was chosen, another clue in the dig archive suggests that one thing was for sure. The two women were meant to remain right there, right where they were buried. You always hear that, well, the Vikings, they buried people in a boat so that they could sail into the kingdom of death. But not the two ladies.

They were supposed to stay put in the grave. I mean, look at the size of the stone. And that's the anger. Do you think that's the real anchor stone? It's not an anchor stone. It's just made for the funeral. So this looks like it was meant to tie that ship to the ground in that location? It certainly looked like.

It's huge. And it's so interesting, why? Those two ladies shouldn't leave the story. That's interesting. So they were supposed to stay there forever. Leaders, spiritual figures, witches, perhaps all of these at once, buried in a beautiful boat, but moored to that place,

tied to the grave for some reason. DNA and other analysis in the years to come may well reveal more about the two women, but we're unlikely ever to know all of the answers. I think that the key to this is to unpack our assumptions not to be so sure, so ready to come to conclusions about these graves, and instead to try and begin with what they are, the collections of objects,

particular combinations of people and things and actions at a particular place in a particular time and then work from there. They clearly belong in the grave. This was their place to be. The burial ship of the Osseberg weaves its mysteries yet. Thanks for exploring the past with us today. If you like this episode, don't forget to leave a comment below and feel free to leave us a rating or review. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners like you. Thanks for listening.