Archaeologists have discovered a 2,500-year-old burial of a woman found with a knife stuck in her grave.
A group of archaeologists recently discovered the gravesite in Pryssgården, Sweden after finding clues about it in ancient texts written by a Swedish priest Ericus Hemengius.
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“We found a human bone during the preliminary investigation this spring, and when we started to excavate the earth, there were two more small skull fragments and then smaller stone packings,” Moa Gillberg, an archaeologist at Sweden’s National Historical Museums, said in a statement.
“We also found two fibulas, costume buckles, and a costume pin at the launch site with the detector. Then we realized that we were probably on to something and that it could be about the burial ground that the priest was talking about.”
When they continued to dig, archaeologists unveiled a woman who had an iron pocketknife jabbed into her grave.
“We don’t know why, but it is clear that it is meant for the woman,” said Gillberg. “It is also very well preserved and may have been on the pyre before it was staked.”
The cemetery itself dates back to between 500 B.C. and 400 A.D. and has at least 50 burials, many of which contained cremated remains. Some had bone pieces and were covered with stones.
When they found the burial of the woman with the knife, they saw evidence of both ashes and bones.
“When we dug down, we saw that they had put an iron folding knife straight into the ground,” in addition to a small needle, Gillberg said. She added that the knife might have been used for leather preparation.
While it’s unclear why, exactly, the knife was there, it might have something to do with the woman’s health condition.
“Part of a toe bone showed that she probably had osteoarthritis in the big toe,” Gillberg explained. “Similar women’s graves have been found in the Fiskeby burial ground, where the dead also brought needles and knives of the same type.”
Archeologists plan on continuing to dig and make more discoveries at the site.
