The Crime of Sandby Borg: Site of a 1,600-Year-Old Tragedy in Sweden

Something terrible happened on Sweden’s Öland Island about 1,600 years ago. It was so bad that after an attack on a small fort there the site was taboo for years.

Possibly hundreds of people were killed in an attack on the fort, called Sandby borg, their unburied bodies left to rot, some with sheep and goats’ teeth stuffed in their mouths. The people of the village had some wealth in the form of gold and silver jewelry and gold coins. Archaeologists think that the site wasn’t looted until 2010, when people with metal detectors began digging around.

In 2010, archaeologists also began excavations and noted that modern treasure hunters had dug holes near the fort. They think they may have been looking for gold coins.

“Professional metal detectorists were mobilized to search for anything the looters had missed,” says a detailed article about the massacre on Archaeology.org. “They uncovered five different jewelry stashes from houses at the center of the fort. The caches include silver brooches and bells, gold rings, and amber and glass beads. There were even cowrie shell fragments, pierced to be strung on a necklace.”

One of the brooches. (Pierre Rosberg/Kalmar läns museum)