Bizarre 2,500-year-old burial of woman found with knife stuck to grave

Researchers also found evidence of two houses and an ancient warehouse buried at the site

Archaeologists have unearthed a strange 2,500-year-old burial of an Iron Age woman in Sweden with a small knife stuck to her grave.

The latest dig at the ancient cemetery site in Pryssgården in eastern Sweden unravelled nearly 50 burials dating to between 500 BC and 400 AD.

Of these burials, the woman’s was peculiar as the people who buried her seemed to have “stuck the knife in.”

“We don’t know why, but it is clear that it is meant for the woman,” Moa Gillberg, an archaeologist at Sweden’s National Historical Museums, said in a statement.

Archaeologists discovered the site with clues from text written as early as 1667 by the Swedish priest Ericus Hemengius, who catalogued ancient cemeteries within his parish.

Archaeologist Tamara Gomez Kobayashi works in the field with one of the graves (Henrik Pihl)

However, researchers were unsure whether anything would be left of the graves today until they found bones during their preliminary investigations earlier this year.

“When we started to excavate the earth, there were two more small skull fragments and then smaller stone packings. We also found two fibulas, costume buckles, and a costume pin at the launch site with the detector,” archaeologist Moa Gillberg, who is part of the latest dig, said.

“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,” Dr Gillberg said.

One grave was peculiar, researchers say.

It was found to have an extremely sooty and thick layer of fire and had an iron folding knife poked straight into the ground.

“We don’t know why, but it is clear that it is meant for the woman. It is also very well preserved and may have been on the pyre before it was staked,” Dr Gillberg said.

Archaeologist Moa Gillberg in the process of excavating one of the graves (Henrik Pihl)

The woman likely had arthritis in the big toe, researchers say, adding that similar women’s graves have been found in other Swedish burial grounds where the dead also brought knives of the same type.

Archaeologists believe there could be about 50 graves in the area and also found signs of two houses, a large ancient warehouse, and a well buried in the region.

“One pit turned out to be a fairly large post hole, so it may have been part of some kind of superstructure or boundary for the burial ground. We want to see if we find more such pits,” Dr Gillberg said.