About 1,500 years.
From The History Blog
A Viking grave has been discovered under the floor of a private home in Bodø, central
Norway. The Kristensens were renovating the family home and pulled the
floorboards to install new insulation under the bedroom floor. After digging up
a layer of sand and the stone rubble underneath that, something shiny caught
their eye. At first they thought the small dark circular object might be the
wheel from an old toy. A little more digging turned up a heavily corroded iron
axe and a few other iron pieces.
At this point Mariann
Kristensen contacted Nordland County officials and they dispatched
archaeologists from the Tromsø Museum to investigate the finds. The bead, axe
and other objects appear to date to the early Middle Ages, around 950-1050 A.D.
They have been transferred to the museum for study and conservation.
Archaeologists have
begun a larger excavation of the find site; ie, under the Kristensens’ house.
County archaeologist Martinus Hauglid thinks it’s most likely a grave from the
Iron Age or Viking Age. The stones the Kristensens found under the sand layer
are probably part of a burial cairn.
[Hauglid] said he had never heard of a find being made
underneath a house.
“I never heard of anything like that and I’ve been in
business for nearly 30 years,” he said. “They did a magificent job, they
reported it to use as soon as they got the suspicion that it actually was
something old.
The house had been in
the family since it was built by Mariann’s great-grandfather in 1914. There is
no family legend of Vikings in eternal slumber under the bedroom floor.
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