SCI Mysterious boat-shaped rock structure is discovered in a Icelandic cave that Vikings likely used to ward off the apocalypse

[Melodi]

I tried going to the original journal article but is behind an institutional paywall, but the UK Daily Mail article is actually pretty good as far as it goes. I can't wait to show this to Nightwolf - although I think this was more about trying to talk the god in charge of Volcanos (Sert) into not pouring any more lava on folks though the eruption might have been large and scary enough for people to think it was the end of the world. - Melodi

Boat-shaped rock structure is discovered in a 'satanic' Icelandic cave

The discovery is in a cave near a volcano that erupted almost 1,100 years ago at a time when the Vikings had recently colonised Iceland.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Mysterious boat-shaped rock structure is discovered in a 'satanic' Icelandic cave that Vikings likely used to ward off the apocalypse 1,100 years ago

Researchers excavated a cave in Iceland associated with the 'end of the world'

It was used by Vikings 1,100 years ago to lay tributes and make sacrifices

These were designed to try to stop the onset of Ragnarok, the end-times event

Even after Christianity took over in Iceland the cave was associated with Judgement-Day and thought to be where Satan would return to the Earth

By RYAN MORRISON FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 18:53, 28 April 2021 | UPDATED: 09:41, 29 April 2021

A strange boat-shaped rock has been discovered in a 'satanic' Icelandic cave and Vikings likely used it to ward off the apocalypse 1,100 years ago, study suggests.

The discovery is in a cave near a volcano that erupted almost 1,100 years ago at a time when the Vikings had recently colonised Iceland.

Within the cave there was a boat-shaped structure made from stone and a series of trade goods from the middle east, likely placed to try and avert Ragnarok, an end-times event where the world would be engulfed in flames.

Lead author Kevin Smith from Brown University said the eruption of the volcano would have been 'unsettling' and posing existential challenges to the new arrivals.

Even after Christianity became dominant in Iceland, people associated the cave with the end of the world, according to the study authors, who said the historical record records it as 'the place where Satan would emerge on Judgment Day.'

A strange boat-shaped rock has been discovered in an Icelandic cave and Vikings likely used it to ward off the apocalypse 1,100 years ago, study suggests

The discovery is in a cave near a volcano that erupted almost 1,100 years ago at a time when the Vikings had recently colonised Iceland

Surtshellir Cave: The doorway to the end of the world in Iceland

Surtshellir Cave is a lava cave in western Iceland situated about 35 miles from Borgames.

The cave is about a mile long and was the first known lava tube in the world.

Iceland’s Viking Age settlers maintained a ritual site inside Surtshellir for more than 80 years.

Vikings created a boat-shaped structure out of stone in the cave that would have been used for rituals. .

Surtshellir was abandoned within a generation after Iceland’s conversion to Christianity.

The researchers found that as the lava from the eruption began to cool, the Vikings entered the cave and constructed the 'boat-shaped structure'.

Once complete they would have burned animal bones in sacrifice, including those from sheep, goat, cattle and pigs.

The Vikings may have done this to try to avert another eruption, or what they may have perceived as signs of Ragnarök.

As well as the boat shaped formation made from rock there were 'trade goods' inside the cave.

Archaeologists from Brown University found 63 beads inside the cave, including three from Iraq.

Smith, who is chief curator of the Haffenreffer Museum at Brown University lead the excavation.

During the the work Smith and colleagues found a mineral from Turkey called orpiment alongside the beads.

This mineral was used to decorate objects such as beads and other items, however very few examples of it have been found in Scandinavia.

They were all found within Surtshellir Cave, which is 30ft below the Hullmundarhraun lava field.

 

[Melodi]

Here is the public information from the actual science journal, looks like they kept using the cave for 80 years; this would have been around the "conversion period" which would explain things if there were both Heathen and Christian elements found there (looks like both animal sacrifices and at least one cross but hard to tell with just the UK Daily Mail article).

Ritual responses to catastrophic volcanism in Viking Age Iceland: Reconsidering Surtshellir Cave through Bayesian analyses of AMS dates, tephrochronology, and texts

Surtshellir, a 1600-m-long lava cave in the interior of Iceland, contains a unique Viking Age archaeological site located nearly 300 m from its entran…

www.sciencedirect.com

Ritual responses to catastrophic volcanism in Viking Age Iceland: Reconsidering Surtshellir Cave through Bayesian analyses of AMS dates, tephrochronology, and texts
Kevin P.SmithaGuðmundurÓlafssonbAlbína HuldaPálsdóttircaHaffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Brown University, Providence, RI, USAbÞjoðminjasafn Íslands/National Museum of Iceland, emeritus, Reykjavík, IcelandcCentre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES), Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Norway
Received 10 August 2020, Revised 27 November 2020, Accepted 21 December 2020, Available online 2 March 2021


Highlights

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Dates of the Hallmundarhraun eruption and Surtshellir, a unique Viking Age ritual site in Iceland, are refined.
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Surtshellir Cave formed in the first major effusive eruption seen by northern Europeans since the Pleistocene.
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Iceland’s Viking Age settlers maintained a ritual site 300 meters inside Surtshellir for more than 80 years.
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Artifacts link Surtshellir to elite Viking Age practices and trade networks extending from Iceland to eastern Turkey.
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Surtshellir was abandoned within a generation after Iceland’s conversion to Christianity, then avoided for >600 years.

Abstract
Surtshellir, a 1600-m-long lava cave in the interior of Iceland, contains a unique Viking Age archaeological site located nearly 300 m from its entrance and more than 10 m below the surface of the Hallmundarhraun lava field. Since the 1750s, the site has been interpreted as an outlaw shelter, yet in the 12th-13th centuries it was associated with actions directed towards an elemental being – Surtr – for whom the site was named and who, according to medieval Icelandic accounts of Viking Age mythology, was present at the world's creation and would destroy it after the battle of Ragnarök.

Archaeological fieldwork inside Surtshellir in 2001, 2012, and 2013 produced 20 new AMS dates that, combined with three earlier radiocarbon and tephrochronological dates, provide the basis for Bayesian analyses which suggest (1) that the cave formed in the first major volcanic eruption directly witnessed by northern Europeans since the Late Pleistocene; (2) that this took place shortly after the Norse colonization of Iceland began; (3) that people entered the cave soon afterwards; (4) that for 80–120 years they deposited the fragmented bones of slaughtered domestic animals in piles stretching 120 m through the cave's “dark zone”, burning others at high temperatures in a dry-stone structure built deep inside a raised side passage; and (5) that these activities ended shortly after Iceland's conversion to Christianity.

Surtshellir provides important new insights into Viking Age ritual practice, Iceland's settlement and conversion, and the cultural responses of Iceland's newly arrived settlers to the existential challenges posed by previously unimagined catastrophic volcanism.