Lindholm Høje

• 1. Introduction

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  Archaeologists have opened 589 of the roughly 700 graves cut into the hillside at Lindholm Høje, a burial ground north of Aalborg, Denmark. Two very different groups of people chose this same hill for their dead. One buried there during the Nordic Iron Age, the other deep in the Viking Age, generations apart. The name itself, Lindholm Høje, comes from Old Norse haugr, meaning hill or mound. Something eventually drove the people living there away entirely, and something else kept their graves hidden from view for centuries afterward. What was buried on that hillside, and why did it take so long for anyone to notice?

• 2. Two Ages Under One Hill

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  The lower, southern ground at Lindholm Høje dates from 1000-1050, placing it firmly in the Viking Age. Its higher, northern stretch reaches back to the 5th century, part of the earlier Nordic Iron Age, hundreds of years before the Vikings arrived.

  Quarrying stripped an unknown number of stones from the hillside over the centuries. Much of what was removed went into road construction during the 19th century. That stone-robbing hit the Viking Age graves on the lower slope far harder than the older Iron Age burials above.

  People first dug into the ground here in 1889, though the first major, systematic excavation didn't begin until 1952. Remains of villages have also turned up alongside the graves, proof that this hillside was a home as well as a graveyard.

• 3. The Only Way Across

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  The Limfjord splits the Jutland peninsula in two, and Lindholm Høje's settlement sat right at one of its few crossing points. During the Viking Age, travelers could only cross here or far to the west at Aggersund, because swampland lined the fjord's banks everywhere else.

  Glassware, gems, and Arab coins have all turned up in the ground at the settlement, unlikely objects for a small Danish community to possess. That mix of finds points to trade routes stretching far beyond Denmark, made possible by the settlement's grip on one of the fjord's only two crossing points.

  One grave held an 11th century silver brooch in the Urnes style, carved with the flowing, interlaced animal patterns typical of that art. Jewelers in Lund later used that same brooch as the model for bronze copies of their own, casting them in the early 12th century. A single grave good from Lindholm Høje had become a template followed in a different town entirely.

• 4. Ships of Stone

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  Cremation accounts for most of the burials excavated at Lindholm Høje, though a good number of graves held un-burned bodies instead. Which practice won out depended on the era, and cremation gradually replaced inhumation as the Viking Age went on.

  The earliest, pre-Viking graves were built as mounds, heaped earth over the dead rather than open stone outlines. Later burials switched to marking the ground with rocks instead of mounds. A number of women's graves stand out for rocks set in a circle or oval shape. Most graves, though, use rocks arranged in a triangle or in the outline of a boat, a shape known as a stone ship.

  Lindholm Høje holds the largest surviving collection of these stone ship outlines anywhere. The size and shape of each grave's outline seems to have marked the status of the person buried beneath it. A bigger or more elaborate outline signaled greater standing. The same ship-shaped burials turn up among Anglo-Saxon graves, among Norwegian and Swedish Vikings, and among other ancient Germanic societies. Centuries after the last stone ship was laid here, the settlement above these graves would vanish beneath drifting sand.

• 5. Buried by Drifting Sand

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  Around 1200, the people living at Lindholm Høje abandoned the settlement for good, most likely driven out by sand drifting in from the western coast. Heavy deforestation had stripped away the vegetation holding that coastal sand in place, leaving it exposed to rough westerly winds that carried it inland. Sand swallowed the houses and the graveyard alike.

  Drifting sand sealed the site off from later disturbance. It protected a large part of Lindholm Høje through the centuries that followed. Graves and house remains stayed intact underneath it until archaeologists began to dig.

• 6. A Cement Company's Museum

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  A cement company called Aalborg Portland A/S paid for the museum standing beside the burial ground today. It opened the building in 1992 to mark the firm's own centennial, placing it right next to the graves it now helps protect.

  In 2008, the museum expanded, adding a new exhibition on the broader prehistory of the Limfjord region beyond Lindholm Høje itself. A cement company's one-time anniversary gift has become an expanding record of everything buried along this stretch of the Limfjord.