Sweden's first female Viking grave in the mountains was discovered by accident. Here's the story

Eskil told the Swedish news agency TT, that, "My first thought was that I had found a mine, but then when I had dug around, I understood that it couldn't be that."

Instead of a deadly explosive, the find turned out to be a brooch dating back 1200 years. The brooch came from what is believed to be the first tomb belonging to a Viking woman that has been found in the Swedish mountains.

Old Viking artifacts

After finding it, Eskil brought it home so that he could see if anyone else knew what it might be. 

With no luck, he contacted the Museum Jamtli in Östersund a year later, who could tell him that it was indeed an old Viking artifact. 

• READ MORE: The Viking history of Sweden at a glance

Archeologist Anders Hansson was the first to examine the site at which Eskil found the brooch. 

There, he found both soot and burnt bones, as well as another brooch. Usually, these brooches are found in pairs, so the discovery of a second one was not too surprising.

A cremation grave

Hansson explained that what he found was a cremation grave from the Viking Age (c 793 - 1066 CE), which most likely belonged to a woman. 

Of the five other Viking graves that have been discovered in the Swedish mountains, all belonged to men, making this an exciting discovery.

As Hansson described the scene, "You get the feeling that these people were on their way somewhere when the woman died. The burial took place here, where the woman took her last breath. They could have taken the woman home where they lived, but instead, they made a cremation pit on the mountain."

Hansson also explains that the woman was buried with all her most precious objects, yet there were no monuments, burial mounds, or cairns. 

It was simply just a flat hill. Thus, this grave is not like the Viking graves found in Iron age settlements.

With that, Eskil's accidental discovery turned out to be important; for the first time, it added a female grave to the Swedish archeologists' records of Viking graves in the mountains. 

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