In Sweden, 'Looting Hits Sweden's Largest Burial Site Anundshög' (Sweden Herald 7th May 2025). The site at Anundshög, Sweden's largest ancient burial site, has been subjected to a severe bout of grave looting. The police have now set up a criminal investigation and determined that about fifty pits have been dug in the hill. The looting was discovered when an archaeologist who was also a teacher took a school party to see the site as part of a lesson.
The looting occurred on the evening of May 5th or early morning the next day. It seems that an artefact hunter went over the site with a metal detector and where the detector has given a signal, they have dug with a spade, lifted away a turf, found an object and taken it with them. The looters had probably taken iron objects with them since there are traces of rust and corrosion in the soil.
But what they have taken with them exactly, we do not know and we will probably not be able to find out – it is just gone.
The site has not been excavated archaeologically yet, so the objects that have been removed could have provided vital information about the Viking Age and Bronze Age. This one action in just a few hours had destroyed something that had been lying here for thousands of years. Who the looters were is unclear – but they have tried to leave as few traces as possible by putting back the turfs.
The incident has been reported to the County Administrative Board, which has conducted an inspection. The police also rushed to the cultural heritage site and began door-to-door questioning in the area to gather more information.
Culture Minister Parisa Liljestrand on her social media that the event makes her "damn furious". "This is not just theft: this is a downright despicable vandalism of our common cultural heritage", she adds.
No comments:
Post a Comment