A king's grave from the ninth century.
To
day nothing is left of the grave goods found in the 1770's. Only stories
survive, and whatever secrets the mound may still contain.
Herlaugshaugen stays on the Skei farm. The burial mound has been excavated
at least three times in the last 250 years. The first excavation was in
1775. Twenty yea rs later a whole military company From Naeroy dug in the
mound for a day and a half. The leader of that excavation was Lt. M.
Lehn The last big attack was by a group of farmers led by Lt.
Sommerschild. All of the digging was concentrated on the center of the
mound where it was believed the |
body of the dead king was most likely to
be found.
Based on the Sommerschilds report, we know something about the mounds
construction and contents. It was basically made of sand. Inside were
found a large amount of fist-sized rocks. A shallow ditch surrounded the
mound now easily seen on the south side. In the upper part of the
mound a layer of charcoal was found. Deeper in the mound were found brown
layers of iron pegs. Even deeper, at the level of the rocks beams of pine
were not held together with pegs.
Sommerschild made a more thorough search of the bolder layer
in 1780 and discovered that the stones made up a wall oriented in the
north - south direction. Close to this wall, at a depth of four meters was
found the well preserved remains of a person, and beneath that another
human skeleton. A large amount of animal bones were also discovered,
including those of cattle, sheep and goats. Other objects unearthed were
sword, a human figure made of iron, and a ring-shaped, engraved piece of
bronze.
The skeletal remains, but the sword were taken to the Museum
of Science at Trondheim for storage and display. It became a unique
attraction of the museum, though later, skeletal of King Herlaugs went
missing, and has never surfaced again |