Archaeologists find the place where the Vikings tried to stop Ragnarok

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Archaeologists find the place where the Vikings tried to stop Ragnarok
Archaeologists find the place where the Vikings tried to stop Ragnarok
Anonim

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of rare artifacts from the Middle East in an Icelandic cave, which the Vikings associated with the mythical Ragnarok - “the end of times”, when the gods will be killed and the whole world will perish in flames.

The cave is next to a volcano that erupted almost 1,100 years ago, at a time when the Vikings were already colonizing Iceland.

“This eruption and its consequences must have made the newly arrived settlers think about life and death, start worrying about the fate of the world and their own destinies,” the authors of the scientific work believe.

Archaeological research has shown that after the lava cooled and froze, the Vikings entered the cave and built a structure in the form of a boat out of stones. After that, in this place they began to perform rituals of sacrifice - to burn in the center of the "boat" the bones of animals - sheep, goats, horses and pigs. Perhaps the Vikings believed they could prevent Ragnarok in this way, scientists write.

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Viking stone "boat"

“We found 63 beads next to the stone boat, 3 of which were brought from Iraq,” explains Kevin Smith, deputy director and chief curator of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology at Brown University, who leads the team of archaeologists who excavated the cave.

The team also found remnants of the orpiment mineral brought from eastern Turkey near the stone structure. At that time, this mineral was used as a decorative decoration, but in Scandinavia it was almost unknown.

The sources note that the Vikings associated this cave with Surt - a fire giant who, according to Scandinavian mythology, will fight the gods on the day of Ragnarok, kill the fertility god Freyr, collect all the deadly power of the fire subject to him and bring it down to the ground, destroying the most the whole world.

Archaeologists do not know why such rare items from the Middle East were left in the cave. Perhaps they came to Iceland along trade routes, but most likely the artifacts were brought to the cave on purpose to calm the mythical Surt and convince him not to incinerate the world. According to another version, these gifts were supposed to give more strength to the enemy of the giant, the god of fertility Freyr, so that he could stop Surt.

“The fact that the gifts were presented to Frey is also indicated by the bones of animals that the Vikings associated with fertility. All these sacrifices were supposed to give strength to the god of fertility so that he could withstand the battle with the giant and defeat him,”says Smith.

Conversion to Christianity

Iceland was converted to Christianity about 1000 years ago and soon after, people stopped offering sacrifices and gifts to the cave. "The last offerings, placed in a stone" boat "- a set of scales with a weight in the form of a Christian cross," - say the researchers.

Even after the adoption of Christianity, people in Iceland continued to identify this cave with the end of the world, only now with a Christian one: Icelandic Christians believed that it was here that Satan would appear on the Day of Judgment.

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