Welcome to Kiviksgraven: This is The King's Grave near Kivik in the southeastern portion of the Swedish province of Skane. No one knows who was buried here, but this is an awesome sight. My only wish was that I could have climbed a tower to take some photos, because I could only capture a small portion of this phenomenal tomb. I am continually blown away by the extravagance of the tombs from medieval times.

Kivik Grave Pictorial: This is a drawing of what people think this grave site looked like originally 3,000 years ago. This grave is from the Bronze Age (prior to the arrival of the Vikings). It is the largest circular burial mound in the whole of Sweden. It is 243.75 feet in diameter and may have been 33 feet high when first built. Today, it is about 11.5 feet high. And, if you are wondering, this is one big pile of rocks! In the burial chamber, there are ten stone slabs with carved symbols that are not quite understood today. The stones carry pictures of people, animals, ships, and weapons. They were possibly intended to portray a procession or funeral ceremony.

Stones of huge grave site: This site has been in existence since 1,000 BC (3,000 years ago). It was used as a quarry until 1748, before people knew it was a grave site of very important people from prehistoric times. It is located in the Southeastern coast of Sweden.

Pathway to tomb entrance: Can you imagine digging up and placing all these stones to create a tomb? The entire grave site was reconstructed in the 1930s, the doorway was built, and a new chamber was constructed out of concrete to make it safe to enter. This was done due to the massive quarrying that occurred through the ages before evidence of the tomb was known. This reconstruction is based on knowledge gained from similar grave sites around Europe.

Ulla Britt at entrance to The King's Grave: This photo shows you the scale of the height of the grave. No one knows the actual height of the original mound of stones making up the grave. It may have been 3 times higher than this 3,000 years ago.

Cist lined with Petroglyphs: This is the burial site of one of the individuals in this tomb. A second cist was found in the 1930's. This tomb is special in Europe in that there are petroglyphs adorning the grave. By the time the tomb had been properly excavated and restored, only a few artifacts were found dating from the late Stone Age and the Bronze Age, namely some flintstone, bronze, and teeth fragments.

Cist definition: 

a neolithic or Bronze Age burial chamber typically lined with stone.

Petroglyph Chariot: Did you know that the word Petroglyph comes from the Greek words petros meaning "stone", and glyphein meaning "to carve"? This is a way cool petroglyph showing a horse-drawn chariot, complete with wheels, an assortment of animals, some people in long robes, and some people dancing the Watusi (as far as I can imagine)! Gee...isn't it exciting to be seeing stones carved in 1,000 BC? TOTALLY AWESOME ;-)

Petroglyph Axes: Those axes look rather fearsome. I wouldn't want to fight anybody wielding those weapons! The circles could represent shields. What do you think?

Petroglyph Horses: Ya gotta love horses! I was particularly taken with this petroglyph.

Petroyglyph Omega: This was one of my favorite petroglyph designs. I wish I could have gotten a better photo of it, but space was tight within the tomb. We cannot fathom the meaning of the sideways Omega symbols. It looks like the robed individuals are standing on either side of a fire, and two of the top figures look to be holding weapons of some sort, like hammers (could one of them be Thor?), while one individual looks to be blowing some kind of horn. The two top, left-hand figures may be buried in a tomb. What do you think? FUN!

Petroglyph Shields: Your guess is as good as mine as to what these symbols are supposed to represent. This was the last of my favorite designs lining this cist.