(Price 2002 : 132 – 9 ). Remains of slim iron chains around the bodies suggest that the
corpses were tied to the back of a chair to hold them in place.
The meaning of seated burial is not known, though it is clear that in at least some
instances the graves have been deliberately oriented so that the dead seem to ‘look out’
over a specific vista. At Birka, for example, the chamber graves with seated women are
all positioned so that their occupants’ faces would be turned inwards to the town,
perhaps watching over it (Robbins 2004 ).
Seated burials are vividly described in some of the Icelandic sources, with especially
detailed examples being found in Njáls saga and Grettis saga (discussed in Price 2002 :
134 – 5 ). In the former, the burial mound of Gunnar of Hliðarendi inexplicably opens
when two passers-by are near, and by moonlight they see him sitting in a chair, with
‘lights’ in his grave, singing happily. In Grettis saga an episode of attempted grave-
robbing turns nasty when the undead occupant of the burial objects to the theft and
starts to fight the intruder. The rather disturbing description of this battle inside the
lightless mound makes it clear that it is a chamber grave, with even the rafters over the
burial pit being mentioned. Jumping through a hole dug in the ceiling of the chamber,
the robber lands on horse bones at one end of the grave, and blundering about in the
dark he can feel the upright back of a chair with someone sitting in it. Even the stale air
of the long-sealed tomb is described.
We should also note that seated burial is mentioned in a different kind of source,
Ibn Fadlan’s eyewitness account of the Volga ship cremation. Here, cushions are used to
prop up the dead chieftain’s body in a sitting position on top of a bench that has been
made up as a bed.
SHIPS AND THE DEADStone settings in the shape of ships have been mentioned above, but the most spectacu-
lar burial rite of the Viking Age involved the deposition of actual ships in the graves
(Müller-Wille 1970 ). A second category of ship graves involves the burning of the
vessel, as in the famous account of Ibn Fadlan discussed further below.
In Sweden ship burials cluster in the Mälar valley, especially at the site of Valsgärde
in central Uppland, which has a continuity of boat graves at a rate of one per generation
since several centuries prior to the Viking Age (Lamm and Nordström 1983 ). Danish
ship burials are fewer in number but no less dramatic, including the remarkable grave
from Ladby (Sørensen 2001 ) and the example from Hedeby (Müller-Wille 1976 ).
Here the tradition of boat burial has its origins earlier in the Iron Age, and may offer
clues as to the significance of the vessels in that parts of ships were buried with the dead
in the absence of the complete craft (as at Slusegård: Andersen et al. 1991 ). The most
dramatic examples of the ship-burial rite have been found in Norwegian Vestfold, with
the famous burials at Oseberg, Gokstad and Tune (Nicolaysen 1882 ; Brøgger et al.
1917 – 28 ). Due to their unusual degree of preservation which has left not just the vessels
themselves but also organic grave goods intact, these burials are among our richest
sources for the detailed inventories of high-status graves anywhere in the Viking world.
Beyond Scandinavia, boat burials are found in the British Isles, especially in island
communities on the Orkneys and Man. In the Northern Isles especially, these burials are
sometimes lined with stones in the prow and stern (Graham-Campbell and Batey 1998 :
135 – 40 ). Beyond Denmark, there is only one Scandinavian ship burial in Continental
–– Neil Price––