The Villfara Monument

Rock Carvings, Death, Cosmology and Rituals in Early Bronze Age Scania

Abstract

The remains of at least two different graves were found by Sven Nilsson’s excavation of the Villfara mound in eastern Scania in 1863: A grave from the Late Neolithic or the Bronze Age Period I and a male grave from the Bronze Age Period II. A stone with rock carvings belongs to the latter grave. This includes a depiction which may contain several symbolic meanings: it expresses the buried male’s elaborate social status and depicts his way through the afterlife and incorporation in the Sun’s eternal journey. It also depicts the Early Bronze Age’s cosmological beliefs of the Sun’s journey during the evening and night. The rock carvings indicate that rituals took place by the mound on several occasions before, during and after the burial.