Borre mound cemetery

About

Borre mound cemetery (Norwegian: Borrehaugene from the Old Norse words borró and haugr meaning mound) forms part of the Borre National Park at Horten in Vestfold, Norway. It is home to seven large and 21 smaller burial mounds. Excavations in the 1980s revealed that the oldest mounds date to 600 AD, i.e. prior to the Viking Age.

The park covers 45 acres (182,000 m2) and its collection of burial mounds is exceptional in Scandinavia. Today, seven large mounds and one cairn can be seen. At least two mounds and one cairn have been destroyed in modern times. There are also 25 smaller cairns and the cemetery may have been larger. Some of the monuments are over 45m in diameter and up to 6m high. Borrehaugene provides important historical knowledge and can be seen as evidence that there was a local power center from the Merovingian period to the Viking Age. The first investigations of the cemetery took place in 1851–1852. Local road-builders used one of the mounds as a gravel-pit and in the process destroyed large parts of a richly equipped grave in a Viking ship. Antiquarian Nicolay Nicolaysen examined what was left of the mound. The grave contained weapons and riding equipment...