Mälaren

DNA testing has revealed that a warrior’s grave discovered in the Viking-era town of Birka in the late nineteenth century contained the remains of a woman. Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson of Uppsala University told The Local that the woman stood about one metre and 67cm tall, and was over the age of 30 at the time of her death.

The discovery of an Islamic inscription on a ring inside a Viking coffin has confirmed ancient tales about contact between Viking-era peoples in Scandinavia and the Islamic world.