Hot take: Was the Oseberg ship buried with a living person's grave goods or just ceremonial?

I saw the 1904 Oseberg excavation photos versus the modern 3D scans, and the difference in how the burial chamber was arranged is huge. The older team assumed it was a queen's tomb, but the new scans show the second skeleton might have been a sacrifice, not a servant. Does the layout of the goods near the skeletons change your read on who was meant to use them in the afterlife?

1 comments

1 Comment

skylerw8722d ago

...and honestly that's the thing that gets me, the way the goods are stacked around the second skeleton versus the main one. The older photos make it look like everything was laid out neat for a queen to wake up and grab her stuff, but the 3D scans show the smaller skeleton is kind of shoved in with the animal bones and the cart parts. I can't tell if that's just how it settled over a thousand years or if the original dig team just made it look nicer for the drawings they published. I mean, I once rearranged my living room to look better for a Zoom call and then couldn't find my keys for a week, so maybe I'm not the best judge of spatial intent. But the new scan showing the second body with the sled and the bucket, not the fancy textiles, does lean more "leftover stuff" than "equal partner in the afterlife".