Ellen Lloyd - AncientPages.com - If you travel to the island of Öland in Sweden, many locals will tell you they still avoid going near Sandby Borg. It’s not because they are afraid or superstitious. Their reluctance to visit the place has its roots in the site’s horrible history.
People do not know exactly what has happened here, but they do know something dangerous occurred and it’s better to avoid Sandby Borg.
The coin and gold rings. Photo: Daniel Lindskog
It has not been easy to unravel the mystery of the Sandby Borg massacre. However, there are now new clues that may shed light on what took place on the island of Öland 1,500 years ago.
Nicknamed the Swedish Pompeii, Sandby Borg remains an ancient unsolved mystery. Archaeologists and historians know a horrible massacre ended the lives of 200, or possibly even as many as 250 people here. This may seem like a small number compared to other ancient massacres, but what happened on Öland is still unclear and there are still many answered questions regarding this incident.
We still do not know who was responsible for the massacre. Was the Swedish castle attacked by foreign enemies from far abroad? Was civil war behind the Öland massacre? Among the victims were both young and old males, but what happened to the females? What can account for the unexplained disappearance of women?
Archaeological Discoveries Shed New Light On The Sandby Borg Massacre
Archaeologists have excavated Sandby Borg and its surrounding for many years, and much progress has been made, but big pieces of this jigsaw puzzle are still missing.
Many of the unearthed artifacts are ancient treasures that can offer clues helping scientists to determine the identity of the perpetrators responsible for the brutal killings.
Fabel is the world’s first archaeology dog. Credit: DN
For example, at the site, archaeologists found two interesting rings and one coin. These ancient objects confirm a theory that the island was in close contact with the Roman Empire. Close by, the team found pieces of Roman glass in an area that was once an important house.
The coin was made in honor of Western Roman Emperor Valentinian III, who ruled between 425 and 455. The emperor is depicted on one side of the coin, with his foot resting on the head of a barbarian – a common motif in coinage from the period. A similar coin commemorating Valentinian III was found three years ago.
Fabel, the world’s first licensed archaeology dog has been a great asset to archaeologists because his sensitive nose can accomplish more than high-tech equipment. The German Shephard can locate human skeletons buried deep underground. Fabel loves to work, and has helped researchers to unravel some of the many mysteries surrounding Sandby Borg.
Scientists have discovered skeletons with wounds offering solid evidence people died in a violent massacre. When archaeologists started the investigation, it was first assumed the victims were only adults, but once skeletal remains from a small child were found previous theories had to be put aside. Obviously, children were in the ringfort when this horrific event took place.
Photo from the excavation of one of five caches of 5th century jewelry found at Sandby Borg in 2010. Photo courtesy of Jan-Henrik Fallgren.
According to Helena Victor, archaeologist and project leader at Sandby Borg one-third of the victims were children. Victor thinks those who responsible for the massacre wanted to show how much power they had, and they did this by killing everyone who was in the ringfort at the time of the attack.
What is remarkable is that archaeologists have not unearthed any female skeletons. They did find rings that may have belonged to a woman, but only one of the many skeletons found in the area has been identified as female.
Were Women Kidnapped During The Attack Of Sandby Borg?
The fact that female remains haven’t been found doesn’t necessarily imply now women were present inside Sandby Borg at the time of the attack. On the contrary, there is good reason to assume several powerful women were enjoying a good time shortly before the attack. Archaeologists have found jewelry indicating seven high-ranking women and their husbands attended a celebration. The excavations in Sandby castle show that there seems to have been a major party in the castle in connection with the massacre. If this is true, then half of Öland's leadership may have been inside when the attack was carried out.
Perhaps the attack was well-planned by those who knew the island’s leaders were at Sandby Borg.
Who Was Responsible For The Sandby Borg Massacre?
Scientists have long subscribed to the theory the castle was attacked by enemies from the other side of the Baltic Sea, but now when new clues have emerged researchers are beginning to see the details of an internal power struggle on the island, with connections far beyond the Nordic region.
This was a time when many earned lots of money and lost everything later. The migration period was the Golden Age of the Nordic countries. Just like Vikings offered their fighting services and became members of the Varangian Guard, the islanders came up with a similar idea.
Warriors from Scandinavia earned large fortunes by becoming hiring mercenaries for the great power of the time, the Roman Empire.
“I usually compare with the Vikings' travels. We think they gathered in large groups and were away for a couple of years at a time. We believe that islanders have traveled to Europe and the Roman Empire for a couple of hundred years before the Sandby Borg was established,” Victor told the Swedish Television, SVT.
The ancient golden coins found on Öland indicate that the islanders primarily served in the Western Roman army. Later, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 A.D., gold imports seemed to have stopped completely.
The ringfort. Credit: Sebastian Jakobsson
“Svear and Gutar, for example, seem to have continued to work as mercenaries into the 5th century, but the islanders seem to have lost their clients. This meant that a lot of warriors had to go home for good, and who would they fight with then? Yes, each other,” says archaeologist Jonathan Lindström.
According to Victor, the struggle for power was constantly present on the island, and the best way to gain power was to take it away from someone else.
Researchers have a list of several suspects who could have been responsible for the Öland massacres.
As Ludvig Papmehl-Dufay, project manager at Linnaeus University points out, the fact that the victims remained inside the fort and no-one bothered to take care of the dead suggests that the perpetrators stayed at the scene and may have prevented someone from entering Sandby Borg.
In those days there was a great competition between various chiefs and a number of alliances. Anyone from another region, like for example, the area around Gråborg, which was another center of power on the island during this time could have given the order to carry out the massacres.
Researchers now believe that the loss of missions as the Roman Empire's mercenaries may have contributed to the violence on Öland and the massacre at Sandby Borg. Credit: SVT
Victor understands it’s natural to assume the women were kidnapped by the killers, but she emphasizes the massacre was most likely caused by a struggle for power. If this was the case, then there are female skeletons buried somewhere, and archaeologists just haven’t unearthed them yet. The corpses of the women can be inside the fort or in its vicinity and maybe all of them are on the same place. We simply do not know.
This skeleton of an old man was found lying across the large fireplace in House 52. to him, a humerus of a small child (estimated to around 2-5 years old) was found. Photo courtesy of Kalmar County Museum.
What we do not is that those who killed people on Öland liked to humiliate the victims. One man who archaeologists believe was the highest-ranked chief in the area was found dead and there are clear indications his killers mocked him after his death.
“We can see that they have humiliated him by putting sheep teeth in his mouth, and it is no coincidence that they have ended up there, but they have been put there on purpose,” Victor says.
The Öland massacre is not only an important and interesting event in the history of Sweden but also a nasty one as it shows the brutality of human nature. Women, children, and men were murdered in a cruel way by those who struggled to gain more power.
Who was responsible for the massacre is still unclear, but as archaeologists and historians keep investigating this story we may eventually learn more about what transpired here 1,500 years ago.
Written by Ellen Lloyd – AncientPages.com
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