Four mass graves

The first few decades of the 20th century saw the discovery of four mass graves at the city walls of Visby. The first as early as 1905. It was examined by the archaeologist Oscar Wennersten and found to contain 256 skeletons, closely intertwined. Several of these were clad in chain mail hoods.

Grave two was first examined in 1912, also by Wennersten. Thordeman concluded the excavation of the mass grave, which contained 798 skeletons, between the years 1928-1930. Here too, the skeletons were intertwined. The finds in the grave include two mail-clad gloves, one leather pouch containing coins, one hunting knife and one silver ring.

In grave three, Thordeman found 119 skeletons during his excavations of the late 1920s. Parts of the bone finds were lying strewn in the grave, like in the two previous graves, while others had been placed in east-west rows, as was the Christian custom. Perhaps, having been wounded in the battle, they died later and were buried under more orderly circumstances. Another theory is that they were Danish and received a more dignified burial. In this third grave, there were few pieces of armour and other objects.

A fourth grave was discovered in 1930. At the top there were several skeletons in a row, in the same way as in grave three. Only one humerus with stab wounds was brought up; the rest of the grave was left untouched.