Bredaror on Kivik: a monumental cairn and the history of its interpretation

The famous monumental Bronze Age cairn Bredaror on Kivik with its decorated stone coffin or cist has been described as a 'pyramid of the north'. Situating his work as the latest stage in a long history of interpretation that began in the eighteenth century, the author analyses the human bone that survived from the 1930s excavation and shows that the cist and chamber must have remained open to receive burials over a period of 600 years. Keywords: south Scandinavia, Kivik, Bronze Age, rock art, burial rites, interpretation history
Introduction The Bronze Age cairn Bredaror on Kivik, which is situated in Scania in south-east Sweden (Figure 1), is one of the largest burial monuments in northern Europe. The cairn, [...]