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They Found 41 Viking Bodies, But Something Was Very Wrong

Buried Earth

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Two ancient ships were found on an island in Estonia. Inside were the remains of 41 men who had died violently. These are the Salme ship burials, an extraordinary discovery in Viking archaeology dating to around AD 750, before the Viking Age. Buried with swords, shields and gaming pieces, the men appear to have crossed the Baltic Sea from Scandinavia.

In this Buried Earth video, we follow the evidence in their bones and teeth to find out who they were, what happened at Salme, and why someone buried them inside their ships.

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20 Comments

@cerwelt 12 days ago

Only someone who knew these men would place four brothers next to one another. No other people would leave the spoils of war in the ship. They would have taken everything, including the ship. These men were prepared for Valhalla.

@cliftonmanley3882 12 days ago

Whoever buried them knew they were brothers…

@df289 13 days ago

If there are 4 brothers burried side by side , then its fair to assume that friends burried them ,survivors of the raid perhaps .

@chrissyuful 11 days ago

Whoever buried them absolutely knew the crew well. How would they know to bury the four brothers side by side, otherwise. DNA wouldn’t have been available to identify their kinship back then. Only someone with intimate knowledge of the crew would know that.

@henrikfaltskog 12 days ago

the respectful burial implies that the vikings won the fight and that the survivors burried their own fighters.

@shawnczarniak2551 11 days ago

Since they already have the DNA it would be interesting if they did a DNA search to see if any of their descendants still live in Scandinavia. When they did the DNA on Chedderman they realized that a local named Adrian Targett live less than 50 kilometers from that cave and is a history teacher who specializes in that time in history. Before anyone knew this they had done a facial reconstruction based on DNA markers and musculoskeletal marks on the bone and when reconstruction came out people would joke with Adrian that he looked like the Chedderman many years later new DNA testing confirmed he is a direct descendant.

@radwulfeboraci7504 13 days ago

There were more boats ... only their own would do this. Who ever did was probably the winner as they had the time to do it properly. One thing is sure it was not the enemy. Those swords and weapons would be spoils of war, particularly the gilded sword. Google says Vikings were not committed to bringing the dead back and did bury them where they died.

@thomasmanon 11 days ago

8:37 Across Scandinavia and early medieval Europe, it was a common pagan burial custom to heat and bend, twist, or snap a warrior's sword before placing it in a cremation or burial mound. Deforming the weapon ritually "killed" it so it could follow its owner into the afterlife, prevented grave robbing, or symbolically marked the end of the warrior's lineage. They were buried by Vikings because locals would have stolen the swords.

@SveinBringeland 12 days ago

Just a thought. Could it be that there were more ships and that they didn't lose the battle but suffered heavy losses? Then it would be the survivors that buried them.

@UnvelloInsider 12 days ago

Imagine losing four brothers in a single battle hundreds of miles from home… Do you think history books need to officially change the start date of the Viking Age now?

@RunicPathStudios 13 days ago

The difference between raiding Estonia and raiding say England France and Ireland, is that the English, French, and Irish were not used to a steady flow of heathen raiders coming to their land and wrecking stuff before looting it and moving on. Estonia and the Scandinavians have had a raiding relationship earlier than the viking age and indeed scandinavians have had sea battles with each other well before the start of the viking age, as early as the vendel period vikings were raiding each other. The viking age was when it finally came to the wider world, viking expansion.

@qowkerf 12 days ago

So the scenario building in my head looks like this: a fleet of viking raiders did what they tended to do, raided the baltics, made out with a fortune. However, they obviously had some losses in battle. So, on the way back, they took some time as soon as they were out of reach and sacrificed one of their ships to give these men a proper burial along with their share of the spoils.

@ikke12345 13 days ago

So the vikings didn't exist before they raided a site in the UK. Strange presumption

@georgiaborgford5474 11 days ago

My grandparents came to Canada from Iceland. I'm so very proud of my heritage and these narratives are just so amazing. Thank you for sharing.

@edwhatshisname3562 12 days ago

Say what you want about that old legend about a Viking king being buried in Estonia, but legneds tend to be based on fact, so it wouldn't surprise me if that grave is the very one that legend was based on. One warrior being older than all of the others and in posession of the most valuable effects? I mean that sounds like a leader of some kind to me, and presumably an expereinced one at that, who probably survived many battles. To me, the game piece meant to represent a king seems to have been put there as a marker or identifyer of sorts.

@GabeDog8851 13 days ago

If it had been locals that buried them, they would have taken their swords, spears shields, everything useful

@SorteuseLégère 12 days ago (edited)

After several minutes of watching something clicked, I opened up my 23 and me account and went to my historical DNA matches, and there it was, Vendel Period seafaring warrior; two ships found in Selme, Estonia 700-800 CE. First boat had 7 second boat had 34. My DNA match is to body VK553 from the larger, second boat. So surreal to land on your video, literally brought it to life for me!

@robertmccarthy1256 12 days ago

The Swedish Vikings weren’t defeated in the battle. Their enemies would not have buried them in such a way certainly would not have buried their weapons with their bodies. Those weapons were highly valuable. The Swedes won the battle and buried their comrades with honor.

@Opadei 12 days ago

Why would anyone be so dumb to think the Viking era started, when they attacked England? From Sweden to British Isles, when the Baltic sea offers a lot of options to invade with lesser distance?