Scientists find out why Vikings buried their houses

Norwegian scientists have found out that the Vikings had special rituals of house burials, which were similar to the funeral of their tribesmen. This is evidenced by the study of 3,000-year mounds in Sweden and Norway, reports RIA Novosti citing the European Journal of Archaeology.

According to the archaeologist Marianne Hem Eriksen, the custom of setting houses on fire and placing burial mounds over of the house remains may be reminiscent of a cremation. Eriksen argues that the burial mounds may equally well mark the cremation and burial of a house – not necessarily a human being.

'In some cases we have been unable to find human remains, even in places where we could expect such remains to have been preserved. Nevertheless, archaeologists have more or less implicitly assumed that somewhere or other, there must be a deceased individual,' she said.

The linkage between the human body and the house implies that the house borrows many features from the human body.

'Many of the Norse words that are related to houses are derived from the human body. The word "window" comes from wind and eye and refers to openings in the walls where the wind comes in. The word "gable", i.e. the top of the end wall of the house, means head or skull.'

This connection between bodies and houses may have led them to think that a house has some kind of essence, some kind of soul, Eriksen says. This may have been the reason why people at that time wanted to give their house a proper funeral when it had served its purpose, and that is perhaps why it was set on fire.

According to the researcher, it is striking that the three-aisled longhouse persisted for nearly 3000 years of Scandinavian prehistory – especially when considering the major upheavals that occurred throughout this period. In the Middle Ages the long houses of the Vikings turned into "honey halls", which became the political and religious centres of this or that clan.