The Viking Age. Volume 1 (of 2) / The early history, manners, and customs of the ancestors of the English-speaking nations

by Paul B. Du Chaillu

Gallery or passage graves consisted of a chamber and a narrow gallery leading into it, the whole being covered by a mound, the base of which was generally surrounded by a circle of larger or smaller stones.

Fig. 8.—Passage grave near Karleby—front view; length of the main gallery, covered by nine large stones, 52 feet; width, 7 feet; length of passage, 40 feet; height, 6 feet.

The chamber in a passage grave is either oblong, square, oval, or nearly round; the walls are formed by large upright blocks, not quite smooth, though even on the inside; the interstices are generally carefully filled up with gravel or fragments of stone, and birch bark is sometimes found between the blocks. The roof was formed by immense flat slabs or blocks, smooth on the under side, but rough on the top, the interstices being closed in the same manner as those in the walls. The floor is sometimes covered with small flat stones, but usually with earth. On the long side of the chamber there is an opening, from which a passage was built in the same manner as the chamber, only longer and narrower. This passage, or more precisely its inner part, was covered with blocks resembling the roof blocks of the chamber, but smaller; near the inner opening of the passage, and the outer end of its covered part a kind of door setting has been often found, consisting of a stone threshold and two narrow doorposts.

Fig. 9.—Side view of passage grave near Karleby.

Fig. 10.—Ground-plan of passage grave near Karleby.
The irregular lines show the position of the slabs covering the grave.

The passage graves vary much in size. The length of the chamber is generally from 11½ to 23 feet, its width from 5 to 10 feet; height from 3½ to 4½ feet. The passage is often as long as the chamber, or even longer, and its width is from 2 to 4 feet, and height from 3 to 5 feet. But some are much larger, and are called giants’ graves. One of the largest of these graves is that of Karleby, near Falköping, Vestergötland, in Sweden, where a great number of the graves of the stone age have been found.