The Remains of Hundreds of Butchered Soldiers from a Brutal Medieval Battle

Strange Remains

Skull from the mass graves associated with the Battle of Visby. Image Credit: Xenophon on Wikipedia

In 1361 the Danish king Valdemar IV invaded the island of Gotland, Sweden because it had a diverse population that included Danes, had wealthy inhabitants, and was strategically located in the Baltic Sea. A legion of Swedish peasants tried to stop the Danish army near the city of Visby, but the inexperienced Swedish soldiers were no match for the Danes and many of them were slaughtered. After the Gotlanders surrendered, the island became a part of the Danish kingdom for a short period of time until the Swedish crown reclaimed it in the early 15^th century.

After the Battle of Visby, the fallen Gotland soldiers were buried in three mass graves near the city walls. In 1905 Dr. Oscar Wennersten exhumed a grave with 300 bodies, and between 1909 and 1928 archaeologists Bengt…

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