Döden som rituellt medel

This essay consider ritual death during the ironage, and through a presentation of historical and archaeological sources. Considered ritual death I think we should study both historical and archaeological sources, to get a vider view and a new perspective. To make the essay easier to understand I have split up the early and the late Iron Age in the discussion. In order to study the ritual death I have shown archaeological examples like bogsacrifices in the early ironage, and decapitated victims in the Viking society. The victims have been considered as slaves by some archaeologist. An example of this is the grave in Bollstanäs, Uppland, when archaeologist found a cremated male with personal equipment. They also found two beheaded males. Ove Hemmendorff imply that they were slaves, buried as gravegoods, and he based this opinion of drawing parallels with other similar graves, and to literary sources like Ibn Fadlans story