Lost and found: Viking Age human bones and textiles from Bjerringhoj, Denmark

The human remains recovered from the famous Bjerringhoj Viking Age burial in Denmark have been missing for more than 100 years. Recently, an assemblage of bones resembling those recorded at Bjerringhoj--some with adherent textiles--were discovered in a misplaced box in the National Museum of Denmark. Here, the authors use new skeletal and comparative textile analyses, along with radiocarbon dating, to confirm that the bones are indeed those from the Bjerringhoj burial. This rediscovery offers new data for interpreting Viking Age clothing, including the presence of long trousers, and emphasises the importance of reinvestigating old archaeological collections housed within museums and archives. Keywords: Denmark, Bjerringhoj, Viking Age, human bone, textiles, museum collections
Introduction The nineteenth-century excavation of the Bjerringhoj mound, at the village of Mammen in Jutland, recovered one of the most iconic Danish Viking Age burials. The site is particularly notable [...]