17/09/2026
More than 1,200 years ago, two women were laid to rest inside one of the most extraordinary Viking burials ever discovered.
The Oseberg ship was buried in Vestfold, Norway, in AD 834. Inside were two women, 15 horses, four dogs, an ox, textiles, sledges, furniture, a magnificent carved wagon and hundreds of other objects.
The older woman was around 80 years old. She had survived serious injury and illness and lived to an exceptional age for the Viking Age.
When the burial mound was excavated in 1904, archaeologists expected something extraordinary. What they discovered was even more fascinating. Not a Viking king, but two women.
The older woman became known as the Oseberg Queen.
But there is a problem.
We don’t actually know who she was.
She may have been a queen, an aristocrat or perhaps a religious figure. The popular theory that she was Queen Åsa remains unproven.
What we can study is the extraordinary archaeological evidence she left behind. Her skeleton, the ship, the textiles, the animals, the wagon and the objects buried alongside her allow us to glimpse a world that disappeared more than a thousand years ago.
Over the next eight posts, we’ll follow the story of the woman behind one of the most famous Viking burials in history.
Who was she?
And why was she given such an extraordinary funeral?
