No, Vikings Didn't Drink from Skulls. What They Did Do Was Weirder.

Buried, Displayed, Recycled, or Ritualized—Vikings Didn't Waste a Good Skull

Short on eggs this easter? Try painting a skull instead, like a Viking.

A new archaeological review published in Praehistorische Zeitschrift caught my attention this week. Authored by Martin Rundkvist of Uniwersytet Łódzki Instytut Archeologii Łódź, in Poland, it catalogs 34 manipulated human skulls from 18 different Viking Age sites across Sweden and Denmark, all dating to between AD 750 and 1050—the heart of the Viking Age.

But these weren’t just ordinary burial finds. These were isolated skulls, often altered, sometimes prominently displayed, occasionally retrieved from older graves, and in several cases, deposited in wetlands.

In other words, something strange was going on.

Modern pop culture loves the idea of Vikings quaffing mead from the skulls of their enemies—a trope that appears everywhere from death metal lyrics to TV shows. It’s mostly poetic license, drawn from a mistranslation of Skaldic verse (they likely drank in honor of the slain, not from them).

But let’s be honest—they were still doing some seriously weird stuff with skulls.

Even if they weren’t tipping back blood-red brews from hollowed-out craniums, they were altering them (perhaps even decorating), hoisting them on palisades, tossing them in bogs, and digging them up to mark sacred spaces. If anything, reality might be stranger—and more complicated to explain—than fiction.

Heads Without Bodies

Rundkvist suggests that Viking Age Scandinavians had a complicated relationship with the human head. While decapitation itself was considered shameful and something reserved for slaves or criminals, there was something potent and magical about the head once removed from the body.

The skulls analyzed turned up in some unusual places:

• At the edge of grave pits, suggesting funerary decapitations, possibly of slaves or attendants sacrificed to follow a chieftain into death.

• On palisades around proto-urban settlements, like grim trophies or public warnings.

• In wetlands and bogs, which, as we know from Iron Age ritual sites, were often associated with offerings to the gods.

• Reburied or reused—including one example tied to the inauguration of an assembly platform, a ritual act that may have carried legal or spiritual significance.

Most intriguingly, there’s evidence that skulls were sometimes taken from older graves and manipulated (perhaps even decorated). Whether for magic, memory, or macabre ritual, we can only guess.

Why the Skull?

The Old Norse literary tradition gives us a clue.

Despite the shame of decapitation, the head was seen as a vessel of power and knowledge. The god Óðinn carries around Mímir’s decapitated head, which continues to offer him counsel. This isn’t just a poetic invention. It reflects a deeper cultural motif: the head retains its essence. It’s sacred. Perhaps even dangerous. Oh my!

That might explain why skulls appear in boundary places, at the edge of graves, on city walls, or in liminal spaces like bogs. These weren’t just corpses. They were symbols. Warnings. Offerings. Anchors to the divine.

Ultimately, we aren’t sure of their precise meaning and significance, but this new study, combined with literary sources, gives us a clue.

What About Norway?

Interestingly, Rundkvist found no comparable skulls from Norway. Rundkvist notes that it’s not because they didn’t exist but because soil chemistry in much of Norway is notoriously bad for bone preservation. So, we shouldn’t assume Norwegians were less inclined toward these practices. They just didn’t leave us much to dig up.

My Take

Rundkvist's study offers intriguing new clues about Viking ritual behavior, but like much of what we uncover from the Viking Age, it raises more questions than answers. We’re left with a pattern of activity—burials, displays, bog deposits, and reuse—but no clear explanation for what it all meant to the people who did it.

In short, we still don’t know what they were doing with all those skulls.

And maybe—just maybe—we should be cautious about asking.