SILKEBORG, DENMARK—Study of a wooden Viking tomb dating to A.D. 950 shows it held the remains of a man and a woman who were likely nobles who had international connections. ScienceNordic reports that the man was buried with Baltic ceramics and coins from what is now Afghanistan, along with a battle-ax. “It’s a very large ax and would have been a formidable weapon," said archaeologist Kirsten Nelleman Nielsen, who led the excavation. "People across Europe feared this type of ax, which at the time was known as the Dane Ax—something like the ‘machine gun’ of the Viking Age.” The woman was buried in a wagon, as was typical for female nobility of the period, and went to her death carrying two keys, one of which fits a small shrine that was also buried with her. To read more about the archaeology of Vikings, go to "The First Vikings."
