The skeletons of two Viking age men who were related but died on opposite sides of the North Sea are to be reunited in an exhibition in Copenhagen thi

Skeletons of Viking men to be reunited in Danish exhibition

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2021-06-11 22:00:05

The skeletons of two Viking age men who were related but died on opposite sides of the North Sea are to be reunited in an exhibition in Copenhagen this month.

DNA tests on the ancient bones suggest the men were either half-brothers or a nephew and an uncle, according to Prof Eske Willerslev, a Danish evolutionary geneticist based at the University of Cambridge. Both of the Norsemen died following violent incidents.

The skeleton of the first man, a farmer in his 50s, was excavated in 2005 near the town of Otterup in central Denmark. Analysis of the bones found that he was 6ft, had arthritis in most of his joints, and signs of inflammation potentially indicative of tuberculosis.

But further markings on the bones – in particular, a violent lesion on the left of his pelvis – are believed to have come from a stab wound that may have proved fatal. “The wound from that blow may have cost him his life because it did not heal,” said Jesper Hansen, chief curator at Odense City Museums. The wound has led researchers to suspect the man took part in the kinds of raids that made the Vikings notorious.

The second skeleton was unearthed in 2008 under the quadrangle at St John’s College, Oxford. There, archaeologists found the remains of at least 35 young men aged 16 to 25. The men are thought to have been slaughtered in the St Brice’s Day massacre more than 1,000 years ago when – on hearing of a Danish plot to assassinate him – the Saxon king Ethelred the Unready ordered the extermination of all Danes in England.