Everything about Menhir Iron Age totally explained
Menhirs continued to be raised in
Scandinavia during the
Pre-Roman Iron Age and later, over the graves of deceased. In
Denmark and
Sweden, they're called
bautasten and
bautastenar respectively. They were raised both as solitary stones and in formations, such as the
stone ships and few
stone circles.
Sometimes, they were raised only as commemoration to great people, a tradition which was continued as the
runestones.
The tradition was strongest in
Bornholm,
Gotland and
Götaland and appears to have followed the
Goths to the southern shore of the
Baltic Sea, (now Northern Poland) where they're a characteristic of the
Wielbark culture (External Link
)(External Link).
Locations
Snorri Sturluson
Even if knowledge that the menhirs were usually graves was later lost, it was still fresh in the
13th century as testify these lines by
Snorri Sturluson in the introduction of the
Heimskringla:
» As to funeral rites, the earliest age is called the Age of Burning; because all the dead were consumed by fire, and over their ashes were raised standing stones.(External Link)
» For men of consequence a mound should be raised to their memory, and for all other warriors who had been distinguished for manhood a standing stone; which custom remained long after Odin's time.(External Link)
In the same work, Snorri wrote that the Swedes burnt their dead king
Vanlade and raised a stone over his ashes by the River Skyt (one of the tributaries of the
River Fyris):
» The Swedes took his body and burnt it at a river called Skytaa, where a standing stone was raised over him.(External Link)
The tradition is also mentioned in
Hávamál.
Further Information
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