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 …