The re-burial of a king? The existing Jelling Church was built of calcareous tufa around 1100. Excavations between 1976 and 1979 revealed that the church had three predecessors built of wood. Beneath the floor in the first wooden church a burial chamber of oak had been constructed. It contained the re-buried remains of a man, who was between 40 and 50 years of age. Also found in the tomb were small pieces of gold brocade from a fine costume and two silver mountings in the same decorative style as the objects left after the plundering of the burial chamber in the North Mound. The dead man may be King Gorm
How did the burials take place? In the long barrows one or more people were buried in a wooden burial chamber. The long barrows were succeeded by dolmens. The oldest dolmen chambers, made of large granite blocks, were smaller than their successors. The chamber was closed by laying the top stone over it. Later the chambers grew larger and a passage was added. Perhaps the deceased were only placed in the burial chamber after their skin and flesh had decomposed. This was the custom of the contemporary Neolithic population in northern Germany, where it has been possible in several cases to document
The chamber-graves of the Viking Age Some of the Viking Age ’s wealthiest people were buried in chamber-graves. A chamber-grave consists of a wooden chamber, which is either dug down into the earth or placed in a mound. From Denmark and the old Danish area we know of around 60 chamber-graves. Most of the burials have been found in the area south of the Danish-German border. But they can also be found [...] the pitched roof. Tree-ring dating of the grave revealed that the dead man was buried around 970-971 – a few years after Denmark officially became Christian. Section drawing of burial mound and burial chamber
Mound and the South Mound, he erected a wooden church, with a burial chamber under its floor. In the tomb were the remains of a man, who originally had been buried elsewhere. It may be that King Harald re-buried his father, King Gorm. If this was the case, Harald moved his father from the burial chamber in the North Mound to the church in order for him to be ‘christened’ after his death. The Jelling Cup. The burial chamber in the North Mound at Jelling had been emptied during the Viking Age and little was found when the mound was excavated in the 19th century.
of earth over wooden burial chambers. The earthen long barrows were oriented east-west and were widest at the eastern end, where there was a façade of large posts. This was where rituals took place. The long barrows of earth and wood were precursors of the dolmens with their chambers of stone. Two parallel earthen long barrows at Barkær in Djursland. In each mound there were two burial chambers [...] are small and thought to have been for single burials. Later the dolmen chambers became larger and an entrance was added, so they could be used for several burials. The dolmen chambers were covered
The megalithic tombs of the Stone Age In the open, cultivated countryside, the farmers of the Stone Age built barrows or burial mounds. In the oldest barrows the burial chambers were built of wood. Later the chambers were constructed of large granite blocks. The burial mounds were monuments to ancestors and they were built in their thousands. They testify to great engineering skills, and it took [...] Watercolours by J. Kornerup, A.P. Madsen and Rondahl of dolmens and passage graves in Denmark. The passage grave Kong Svendshøj on Lolland, after restoration in 1991. The chamber of the passage grave Svinø
The North Mound and the South Mound The two large mounds at Jelling are called the North Mound and the South Mound. In the North Mound, which is the earliest, a burial chamber was built in 958-59 AD. [...] special significance? All of the contents of the North Mound’s burial chamber, as well as remains of the dead, were removed in a robbery during the Viking period. The South Mound is the largest of the two, measuring 10 m in height and 70 m in diameter, and was constructed around 970. It did not contain any burials. Hidden underneath the mounds lie the remains of the oldest monument at Jelling: a huge,
Dating methods The grave from Mammen can be dated to the winter of 970/971 AD. The precision of the dating is due to the preserved wood in the burial chamber. This wood’s felling date can be established with the help of so-called dendrochronology – known more popularly as “tree-ring dating”. In dendrochronology the width of year rings is measured in a given piece of wood. Next the width of the year [...] of the dendrochronological dating of the grave from Mammen, were found in 1986. In this year the chamber was uncovered again by archaeological excavation. Princippet bag dendrokronologien.
New excavations at Jelling In 2007 Vejle Museum undertook new excavations around the monuments at Jelling. Here a very large palisaded enclosure, which covers an area of c. 120,000 m2, was revealed. The palisade encompasses the large ship-setting, the two large mounds, the church and the two rune stones. The North Mound with the burial chamber lies exactly in the middle of the large enclosure. Several [...] will perhaps clarify whether the royal manor is the site’s oldest structure, while the ship-setting, burial mounds and rune stones are later monuments, or perhaps other possibilities
The hoard from Mammen The hoard from Mammen appeared during gravel quarrying near the chamber-grave. It contained two fine harness bows for carriage horses. The harness bows are of wood, with fittings and decoration made from gilded bronze. The two pieces were part of the harness and were placed on the backs of the horses. Besides being decorative and indicating wealth, they functioned as a guide [...] has not survived. This is how the harness bow may have sat on the horse's back. Harness bow made of wood and gold. From the burial mound, Mammen parish.
