Herlaugshaugen
 


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

 

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