A ship burial or boat grave is a burial in which a ship or boat is used either as a container for the dead and the grave goods, or as a part of the grave goods itself. If the ship is very small, it is called a boat grave. This style of burial was used among the Germanic peoples, particularly by Viking Age Norsemen, but has been practised in Scandinavia since at least the earliest Iron Age, as evidenced by the Hjortspring boat grave and the Nydam Mose ships. According to the Boxer Codex, ship burials were also practiced by the indigenous peoples of the Philippines.
A unique eyewitness account of a 10th-century ship burial among the Volga Vikings is given by Arab traveller Ibn Fadlan.
Scandinavia
Ladby - from Kerteminde on the island of Funen, Denmark
Gokstad - from Kongshaugen, Vestfold, Norway
Oseberg - from Oseberg farm near Tønsberg in Vestfold, Norway
Tune - from Haugen farm on Rolvsøy in Tune, Østfold, Norway
Valsgärde - from a farm on the Fyris River, Gamla Uppsala, Sweden
Vendel - from Ottarshögen (the mound of Ohthere) in Uppland, Sweden
Anundshög - the mound of Anund just outside Västerås in Västmanland, Sweden
Nabberör near Nabbelund, Öland, a ship burial from the Vendel Period with four skeletons, formerly covered by a cairn and now heavily damaged.
Balladoole and Knock-e-Dooney - Viking ship burials on the Isle of Man
Port an Eilean Mhòir - The only Viking burial yet discovered in mainland Britain, the mound was found in 2006 and excavated in 2011
The Scar boat burial - a Viking burial found on Sanday, one of the Orkney Islands
Snape - from Snape Common in Suffolk, East Anglia, England
Sutton Hoo - Anglo-Saxon burial site near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England
Salme ships - from the island of Saaremaa, Estonia
Rurikovo Gorodishche - situated on an island on the Volkhov River near Veliky Novgorod, Russia
Sarskoye Gorodishche - from a medieval fortified settlement in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia
Timerevo - from site near the village of Bolshoe Timeryovo, Yaroslavl, Russia
Black Grave - from the largest burial mound in Chernihiv, Ukraine
Ship burial Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA
