European Adventures - 22. Lindholm Hoje Museum and Cemetery, Aalborg

22. Lindholm Hoje Museum and Cemetery, Aalborg

Before leaving Aalborg this morning we spent a few hours visiting the dead. 

Marker Outside the Museum

Viking Helmet

First, we toured the Lindholm Hoje Museum and learned about the history of the area and the Vikings who lived here. The graves were discovered in the late 1800s but the area was not excavated until 1952 -1958. There were displays of their clothing, ships, burial rituals and cooking practices. 

Cremation Ceremony

Then we crossed a small park to enter the Viking Cemetery. 

Aalborg Viking Cemetery

Triangular Graves From the 5th or 6th Century

Warrior's Grave With Large Stones, Mounded Earth Topped With Flint Blocks

It was an honor to pay tribute to these warriors, or, as some called them raiders or Vikings. You see, Aalborg has the largest Viking cemetery in the world and is well preserved. It is open to the public, you can just park your car and pay tribute to people who lived in the 5^th century AD and during the Stone Age. Well, some others were buried here between 1000 and 1500 AD. No matter the dates, those are Viking graves. Or better, Memorials, erected to pay tribute. The larger the grave, the more elaborate the stones and the higher or ‘more’ important the deceased was. 

Male graves were marked with triangles or ship shaped stone edifices, women with circular or oval graves. 

This place was not eerie, it was peaceful. The area is so large it does not feel crowded and I had time to sit on a bench and contemplate the surroundings. Here I sat and birds chirped in the trees, the wind swayed the branches of the trees taking energy from the ocean, right past my view. There were no other sounds. A few sheep grazed in the distance, I saw a horse in the pasture below me. I could have been in any century; I could pretend to be in the 9^th century, too. 

Circular Woman's Grave With Smaller Stones

Those people who lay here now were living beings, had their daily struggles, tried to make a living, eat daily and chased after perceived wealth. Just as we still do today. They did not live like the movies project them to us. The people here struggled through their lives, just like we do today, but a bit differently because they had different beliefs; their minds were not like ours.

The area we are in today is called Lindholm Hoje, where Hoje stands for the word ‘high’ or hill. So we are on Lindholm’s Hill. The actual village of the Vikings is long gone; it was below, near the water’s edge. All that remains is this spot, but it is

Oval or Ship-Shaped Male Grave

a beautiful spot. It was preserved by a sand cover for over 1000 years until it was excavated. The sand came because the land was exhausted by overuse, by over-cutting the trees, by over-grazing. The sand acted like a band-aid, preserving, covering up, and healing the land underneath.

Today, the land is still fragile but has recovered some; the sand again grows trees, bushes, grass. But it took over a millennium. Maybe we can learn something from the past, from the things the Vikings did wrong?

A Very Small Area of the Cemetery

Yes, we drove to Aarhus after our Viking Cemetery visit, but we spent most of the morning and early afternoon here, taking in the surroundings of this place of honor for any Viking.

Parking for Electric Cars, Aarhus

We slept however at the Hotel Zleep, in Aarhus, a nice hotel, modern, quiet with parking that was easy but again a bit quirky. You just park your car, walk up to the hotel reception but then you have to type in your license plate number into an iPad like tablet: that is it.

Now the ‘authorities’ know you are in the hotel; Strange that they have to know this.

There are a lot of strange, hidden things around here……now that is eerie.