boats. A 3. 8 m long boat contained the burials of three people, including a child of nine
to eleven years. The boat burials are distributed evenly on the excavated part of the
churchyard. This and other conditions indicate that the use of boat parts as coffins
mainly served a practical purpose, as well as expressing the maritime connection. Several
other graves contained iron nails and spikes, probably from boats or boat parts.
A number of graves had traces of wooden coffins. As is the case with the boat graves,
the surface of the wood was apparently burnt. Most coffins are rectangular, but trapez-
ium coffins occur. A small group of wooden coffins may be troughs or the like. There are
probably graves without any coffin.
THE DEADThe preservation conditions for the skeletons vary. Several graves contain skeletal parts
from more persons, probably due to the overlapping of graves. One person was buried
lying on the side, whereas the rest had been placed on the back, always with the head
towards the west. In approximately 18 per cent of the graves, boat graves included, the
head was supported by a ‘pillow’. In most cases, this was probably a turf, but also
burnt flint, bones, granite stones or clay were used as ‘pillows’. In a few graves, two
stones formed a niche around the head.
Anthropological analyses and the height of the skeletons show that women were
mainly buried north of the church and men on the southern side. However, this
sex-based division was not applied consistently, perhaps due to changes in burial
practice over the years. The children’s graves clearly tend to be concentrated, for instance
near the eastern part of the church and in the north-eastern corner of the churchyard.
Other aspects than sex and age seem to have influenced the choice of burial place. The
largest graves tend to lie in groups and have more free space around them. Only in one
case, one of these graves was overlapped by another grave (a child’s grave). Maybe this
tendency reflects the custom of burying leading persons (men especially) or families in
specific areas. Perhaps the woman in the stone coffin was buried on the southern side of
the church because she was the head of the family.
THE STONE CHURCHWritten sources mention a church situated on Skt Nikolaj Bjerg, and a small-scale
excavation in 2002 proved this to be correct. Before the building of the church began,
the site was levelled with a sand layer, which was up to 50 cm thick. The church, which
was built from granite ashlars, had a length of roughly 20 m. It consisted of a nave and a
narrower chancel. Several pieces of mortar with whitewash on one side indicate that the
inner walls were whitewashed.
Traces of crafts, such as forging, connected to the building of the church, were noted
at several places. A partly intact building layer was found underneath the foundation
layer for the floor, which consisted of flint blocks and granite stones, covered by a layer of
mortar. Some fashioned lime flags are probably remnants of the floor. In the western end,
large flint blocks placed on end created the base of the font. Pieces of fashioned lime
blocks found in a nearby layer may have covered the visible part of the font platform.
Fragments of yellow bricks of typical medieval shape were found in the eastern part of
the chancel. They are probably the remains of a brick altar.
–– Jens N. Nielsen––