Skamby Grave Plan Digitised

The excellent Markus Andersson has digitised the plan of the 9th century boat grave that myself and Howard Williams excavated a year ago. I've blogged a lot about it here before:

• Grave description
  
• Horse gear
  
• Vertical photo plan of the superstructure

I really like Marcus's plan. Look at all the little clench nails from the boat! Preservation was too crappy at the centre of the trench for any nails to survive there.

On a technical note, it should be observed that the outline of the grave cut is drawn at the level where it entered the natural subsoil. This is because the top fill of the cut was indistinguishable from the Early Iron Age culture layer that surrounded it. So the trench dug by the slaves of the Viking Period mourners was somewhat wider and longer at the top than can be seen on the plan.

[More blog entries about archaeology, vikings, vikingperiod, Sweden; arkeologi, vikingar, vikingatiden, Östergötland.]