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Description
Otherwise known as "Viking age burial traditions"...

Pre-Christian burial traditions in Scandinavia varied a whole lot with the one condition that grave goods were most often included for the afterlife, as has been seen numerous times in archaeologically excavated grave materials. The very process of the funal varied from the typical and well known ship burial where the dead one is sent out with a bunch of his/her belongings on a ship, the ship is then set on fire and sinks in the waves. However, there were other kinds of burials as well, such as burying the entire ship undeground, which has been seen in both Gokstad in Norway, Vendel and Valsgärde in Sweden and even Sutton Hoo in England. In other cases, burial mounds were raised over the dead and his/her remains and possessions, or a stone ship formation, similar to that of Ale's Stones , were erected over the tomb. Worth mentioning however was that the richest grave goods only belonged to society's top representatives, such as kings or aristocrats. While burial goods and private possessions most likely followed in the tombs of the poor as well, they were probably of poorer quality and/or fewer in number, not to mention that they couldn't possibly erect any bigger grave monuments like the kings and nobles ruling them, and have therefor mostly became lost to time.

This is by the way a remake of this old pic:

Description
Otherwise known as "Viking age burial traditions"...

Pre-Christian burial traditions in Scandinavia varied a whole lot with the one condition that grave goods were most often included for the afterlife, as has been seen numerous times in archaeologically excavated grave materials. The very process of the funal varied from the typical and well known ship burial where the dead one is sent out with a bunch of his/her belongings on a ship, the ship is then set on fire and sinks in the waves. However, there were other kinds of burials as well, such as burying the entire ship undeground, which has been seen in both Gokstad in Norway, Vendel and Valsgärde in Sweden and even Sutton Hoo in England. In other cases, burial mounds were raised over the dead and his/her remains and possessions, or a stone ship formation, similar to that of Ale's Stones , were erected over the tomb. Worth mentioning however was that the richest grave goods only belonged to society's top representatives, such as kings or aristocrats. While burial goods and private possessions most likely followed in the tombs of the poor as well, they were probably of poorer quality and/or fewer in number, not to mention that they couldn't possibly erect any bigger grave monuments like the kings and nobles ruling them, and have therefor mostly became lost to time.

This is by the way a remake of this old pic: