Valsgärde or Vallsgärde is a farm on the Fyris river, about three kilometres north of

Gamla Uppsala Gamla Uppsala (, ''Old Uppsala'') is a parish and a village outside Uppsala in Sweden. It had 17,973 inhabitants in 2016. As early as the 3rd century AD and the 4th century AD and onwards, it was an important religious, economic and political c ...

, the ancient centre of the Swedish kings and of the pagan faith in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. The present farm dates from the 16th century. The farm's notability derives from the presence of a burial site from the Swedish

Vendel Age In Scandinavian prehistory, sometimes specifically Swedish prehistory, the Vendel Period, or Vendel Age (; ) appears between the Migration Period and the Viking Age. The name is taken from the rich boat inhumation cemetery at Vendel parish ...

(part of the

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

(c. 550–793) and the

Viking Age The Viking Age (about ) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their ...

); it was used for more than 300 years. The first

ship burial A ship burial or boat grave is a burial in which a ship or boat is used either as the tomb for the dead and the grave goods, or as a part of the grave goods itself. If the ship is very small, it is called a boat grave. This style of burial was pr ...

is from the 6th century and the last graves are from the 11th century.

Excavation

The site was found and excavated by archaeologists in the 1920s, and before this similar graves had only been found at

Vendel Vendel is a village at Tierp Municipality in Uppland, Sweden. The village overlooks Vendelsjön, a long inland stretch of water near the Vendel river which has its confluence with the river Fyris. Vendel was the site of an ancient royal estat ...

, which gave its name to this period of the Scandinavian Iron Age. The graves are princely, and are almost identical to ones found in

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, at

Sutton Hoo Sutton Hoo is the site of two Anglo-Saxon cemeteries dating from the 6th to 7th centuries near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England. Archaeology, Archaeologists have been excavating the area since 1938, when an undisturbed ship burial containing a wea ...

East Anglia East Anglia is an area of the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, with parts of Essex sometimes also included. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, ...

dated probably to 610–635. There are several theories about the identities of those buried, ranging from the

Yngling The Ynglings were a dynasty of kings, first in Sweden and later in Norway, primarily attested through the poem ''Ynglingatal''. The dynasty also appears as Scylfings (, ) in ''Beowulf''. When ''Beowulf'' and ''Ynglingatal'' were composed sometime ...

s (Scylfings) to powerful warriors within the

Leidang The institution known as ''leiðangr'' (Old Norse), ''leidang'' ( Norwegian), ''leding'' ( Danish), ''ledung'' ( Swedish), ''expeditio'' (Latin) or sometimes lething (English), was a form of conscription ( mass levy) to organize coastal fleets for ...

system, or local strongmen who had enriched themselves through trade due to the area's strategic position between the

fjord In physical geography, a fjord (also spelled fiord in New Zealand English; ) is a long, narrow sea inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Antarctica, the Arctic, and surrounding landmasses of the n ...

Mälaren Mälaren ( , , or ), historically referred to as Lake Malar in English, is the third-largest freshwater lake in Sweden (after Vänern and Vättern). Its area is and its greatest depth is 64 m (210 ft). Mälaren spans from east to west. The l ...

and the important region of

Tiundaland Tiundaland is a historic region, '' Folkland'', and since 1296 part of the modern province of Uppland. It originally meant the ''land of the ten hundreds'' and referred to its duty of providing 1000 men and 40 ships for the Swedish king's leidang ...

. There are so many rich graves that it is likely that most of them were royalty.

References

* Arwidsson, Greta (1942) ''Valsgärde 6'' (Almqvist & Wiksells Boktryckeri-A.B. Uppsala) *Arwidsson, Greta (1977) ''Valsgärde 7'' (Berlingska Boktryckeriet. Uppsala) *Arwidsson, Greta (1954) ''Valsgärde 8'' (Almqvist & Wiksells Boktryckeri-A.B. Uppsala) *Fridell, Allan (1930) ''First Ship burial at Valsgärde in Gamla Uppsala parish'' (Fornvännen

*Schönbäck, Bengt: (2002) ''De vikingatida båtgravarna vid Valsgärde - relativ kronologi'' (Fornvännen)

External links

Gamla Uppsala
— Archæological information from the Swedish National Heritage Board.
Ljungqvist 2008
— General article on the Valsgärde site. {{DEFAULTSORT:Valsgarde Archaeological sites in Sweden Viking Age populated places Farms in Sweden Viking ship burials Vendel Period Buildings and structures in Uppsala County Uppsala Municipality