Observations placeholder
Paul Devereux - The realm of the dead
Identifier
017125
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Paul Devereux – Sacred Places
[there is a] profoundly ancient Scandinavian belief associating death with the sea. This is disclosed archaeologically in a number of ways. One is that drawings of ships have been found on stones in Bronze Age burial mounds in Sweden and another is the very ancient Scandinavian tradition of ship burials. Further, canoes have been found in Mesolithic and Neolithic burial sites and stones arranged in ship settings have been found beneath Bronze Age mounds. The tradition continued in the form of ship shaped settings of standing stones surrounding burials through the Iron Age to the Viking and medieval periods..
The sea was also associated with the realm of the dead and corpses would have to be carried out to islands by means of boats.