Ale Stenar, Swedish Stonehenge

Ale Stenar is an ancient relic of the type of ship setting. It is located at the village of Kåseberga in Valleberga parish, on Österlen in Ystad municipality on the south coast of Skåne.

The ship setting consists of 59 stones and is usually dated to the Vendel period (approx. 540 to 790). The ship’s set consists of 59 stones, each weighing around 5 tons. The entire shipwreck is approximately 67 meters long and 19 meters wide and is Sweden’s largest preserved.

It stands 32 meters above sea level on Kåsehuvud, with a view of the steep coast and Bornholm. Most of the stones are of granite from Kåsebergaåsen, but the stave stones and altar stones are of Hardeberga sandstone. The rudder is made of white quartzite.

The shipyard was built during the Vendel period, but burials may also have taken place at the site earlier in the Iron Age.
That it is a monument from the middle to late Iron Age is evident from the fact that the stones are far apart, not close together as in the Bronze Age shipwrecks. Six carbon-14 datings of organic remains excavated around and in the ship, including under some of the stones, lie within the range of 400–900 AD. with emphasis in the 7th century.

These dates were carried out under the guidance of archaeologist Märta Strömberg in connection with her investigations in the 1980s and 1990s. 

A seventh carbon-14 dating has been paid for by private researcher Bob Lind, and was made on charcoal from a hearth excavated outside the north-west stave. This sample was found to be 5300–5600 years old, indicating that the site was inhabited long before the shipyard was built.

The function of Iron Age shipwrecks is somewhat unclear as traces of any particular activities are not always found when excavating them, but they are generally regarded as burial monuments. 

Often these are cremation graves with an urn full of burnt bones buried somewhere within the stone circle.  In the case of Ale’s stones, no grave has been identified, but the facility has not yet been fully excavated.

In 1916, 40 fallen stones were raised, in some cases without knowing whether the positions were the original, and the monument was badly damaged in the removal of flying sand. 

The monument was again painstakingly restored in the 1950s without archaeological investigation, when earth masses were removed and sand was leveled with bulldozers.

Here is a video from our visit to Ale Stenar:

Here is where you can find more information about Ales stenar: https://www.sfv.se/fastigheter/sok/sverige/skane-lan/ales-stenar/

Visit our interesting post about Kåseberga:

https://travelsandfood.com/kaseberga-osterlen-sweden/

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