Dozens of perfectly preserved Viking skeletons found

A team from the Odense Museum has spent the last six months excavating Osum, which covers approximately 21,500 square feet and is believed to date back to the 9th and 10th centuries.

According to museum staff, the skeletons were buried next to artifacts brought from far beyond Denmark, indicating that the Vikings traveled extensively for trading purposes.

Michael Borre Lunde, an archaeologist and museum curator, told CNN that it is incredibly rare to find Viking remains in such a good state of preservation.

“Often when we dig up bodies from the Viking Age, we're lucky if only a few teeth turn up,” he said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

According to him, it was the conditions at the excavation site that helped keep the skeletons in such good condition.

“At this particular site there is a lot of chalk in the ground, which helps preserve the bones, and there is also a lot of natural water in the ground,” he said. “For a long time, Viking bodies were covered in water, which slowed down the decomposition of the bones.”

Archaeologists were brought in to excavate the area as part of efforts to restore the power grid, CNN reports.

“We had no idea there would be a burial ground there with Viking skeletons,” Lunde said.

“It is truly unusual to find so many well-preserved skeletons at once as those found at Osuma,” he added separately in a press release.

“This discovery opens up extraordinary opportunities for a wide range of scientific analyzes that can reveal more about the overall health, diet and origins of those buried,” he said. “The tests could even reveal whether the buried Vikings were related, which would be especially important as this has never been tested in such graves.”

Items found near the skeletons also reveal a lot about the deceased, including their social status and how far they may have traveled trading.

Perhaps the most significant of the skeletons was that of a woman found in a wagon - the top part of a Viking wagon that was used as a coffin.

Lunde's press release said: “The woman was buried in a van in which she was likely traveling. We have to imagine that she was buried with her best clothes and belongings. She was given a beautiful necklace of glass beads, an iron key, a knife with a handle decorated with silver carvings, and, most remarkably, a small shard of glass that may have served as an amulet. At the feet of the cart stood an elegantly decorated wooden chest, the contents of which we still do not know.”

In the grave of another person nearby was found an elegant bronze brooch with three petals, a single red glass bead on a cord that the deceased wore around his neck, an iron knife and a small piece of rock crystal.

According to Lunde, this particular stone was of particular interest. “Rock crystal does not occur naturally in Denmark and was probably imported from Norway. Several items from numerous graves at Osuma indicate that the buried Vikings were connected to the international trade networks that developed during the Viking Age,” the press release said.

According to the press release, the discovery of the burial site confirms that Åsum was a key geographic location for the earliest urban developments that eventually led to the formation of Odense, Denmark's third largest city.

Archaeologists are still excavating the area, but most of the skeletons and artifacts are now in the museum awaiting further study.

Lunde told CNN: “The skeletons are now drying out a bit before we can wash them and send them to Copenhagen for further study.”

Among other things, scientists in the Danish capital intend to extract DNA from the remains to learn more about those buried there.

“It will be very interesting,” Lunde told CNN. “I think this will give us a much better idea of ​​people's age, gender, what diseases they might have had and whether they were related.”