History Commons^™

The Viking Warrior Woman? Birka Chamber Grave Bj 581, Emily A. Stolp

ATU Research Symposium

On a very small island called Björkö in the middle of Lake Mälaren, in southern Sweden, was a Viking settlement called Birka that was occupied for about 200 years. This town was the perfect trading area where merchants and tradesmen came with goods from all over Europe, and other parts of the world. Beginning in the late nineteenth century some 1,100 graves were excavated by Swedish antiquarian Hjalmar Stolpe. One of these graves in particular, labeled Bj 581, seen as remarkable at the time of excavation would later become a significantly controversial grave. The individual in grave Bj 581 was …