The Birka Warrior

One thousand and one hundred years ago a Viking lived and died in a region now known as Birka, Sweden. The skeleton remained at peace for 1000 years before the grave was excavated in 1878. The man buried in this grave was considered someone very special and became known as the ‘Birka warrior’.

The burial chamber of the Birka warrior.

Sketch of archaeological grave found and labelled "Bj581" by Hjalmar Stolpe in Birka, Sweden. Published 1889 [Public Domain]

The Birka warrior was buried surrounded by weaponry - two spears, two knives, two shields, and a quiver of 25 arrows. To the left of the body lay a sword, to the right lay an axe; when you look at sketches of the grave it almost appears as if they were placed beside either hand to be at the ready; in case he woke up and had to quickly grab his weapons and return to battle. Perhaps he would ride one of the two horses who shared his grave (one of them already had a bridle on, ready to go).

But why on earth would you bury someone with so many things that could still be used on earth? Well, because the Viking belief was that the dead would need them in the afterlife.

‘The Valkyrie’ by hans Makart, 1877 [Public Domain]

In Viking culture a warrior’s last battle on earth was not, necessarily, their final battle. They believed that they were followed out onto the battlefield by mythological women known as Valkaries who served the god of war, Odin. Once the battle had reached an end the Valkaries would choose those warriors who fought with great bravery and skill to join Odin in ‘Valhalla’. Their time there would be spent half in party mode and half in battle with each other. This fighting wasn’t just for the heck of it: it was for training. Their belief was that they would eventually be called upon to fight a great battle known as Ragnorok.

For one-hundred-years after discovery, the grave, and the man buried in it, were said to represent the ‘ultimate Viking’ warrior. But then, a century later, scientist started making discoveries that mean we need to reconsider everything we think we know about Viking history.

The great Birka warrior was actually… a woman!

And we know this thanks in great part to the hard-work of modern day female scientists.

‘Birka chamber grave’ by N Stjerna, CC BY 2.0.

Scientists like Anna Kjellström. Anna is a bioarchaeologist: someone who studies bones found at archaeological sites to learn about people’s diets, health, migration, lifestyle… and sex. She was the first to closely examine the pelvic bones and mandible (lower jaw) and found they were the size you would expect from a woman, not a man.

However… this didn’t sit well with eveyone. Some archaeologists suggested perhaps she had made a mistake - the bones were old so maybe they weren’t labelled correctly? Maybe they got mixed up with the bones from another grave?

But her work raised new questions and inspired other researchers. Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson had previously done her PhD on the Birka warrior, and she went on to lead a group of scientists who took an even closer look at the bones and the DNA stored within them. And in 2017 they published their results - yes, the Birka grave did in fact belong to a woman.

Much like Anna before her, people started to debate what Charlotte and her team had discovered. For so long the Birka warrior was considered to be a great male warrior, and they seem to believe that if we remove the ‘male’ we have to remove the ‘warrior’ part too.

But as Charlotte told ScienceMag:  

“‘This has been known as a warrior grave since the 1880s and nobody has questioned it before. Nobody has made that comment before they knew the bones were from a woman. The archaeology has not changed. The only thing that has changed is our knowledge that it’s a woman and not a man.’ ”

Her discoveries received so much scrutiny that her team went on to publish another paper two years later addressing the questions that were brought up. They said “we have not ‘gone looking’ for female viking warriors”, and this statement is very important! Why? Because a good scientist doesn’t go out there with their mind already made up about what they are going to discover; they have to keep an open mind and avoid bias. They form their question, conduct their experiment, and allow the results to provide the answers (and yeah, sometimes those answers are really surprising and unexpected).

Viking Age grave field at Birka archaeological site on Björkö island, Uppland, Sweden, by Harald Faith-Ell, 1926.

Charlotte maintains it “was the grave of a woman who lived as a professional warrior” and it is likely we will find more Viking Age female warriors like her; maybe we find them in new graves waiting to be discovered, or by going back over old finds and looking at them with fresh eyes.

Vikings may have believed that they were joined on the battlefield by mythical women there to choose their fate, but it turns out they may have actually been joined by real, living women there to fight at their side.

WHAT YOU KNOW NOW!

• The ‘Birka warrior” lived and died over a thousand years ago

• When the grave of the Birka warrior was discovered it was assumed the remains were that of a male who had been a great warrior

• Recent investigations, focused on bone structure and DNA, have shown the Birka warrior was anatomically female

References

A female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics

How Did The Vikings Honor Their Dead?

How do you get to Viking Valhalla?

How the female Viking warrior was written out of history

Once this Viking warrior was revealed to be a woman, some began to question her battle bona fides