Is the Danish king who named his bluetooth buried in Poland?

WIEJKOWO, Poland (AP) – More than 1,000 years after his death in what is now Poland, a European monarch living his title through wireless technology is at the center of an archaeological dispute.

Medieval records indicate that King Harald “Bluetooth” Gormson of Denmark got his nickname because of an age, possibly dead, that looked bluish. One historical record from that time also says that the Viking king was buried in Roskilde, in Denmark, in the late 10th century.

But a Polish-Swedish archaeologist and researcher recently claimed in separate publications that they located the most likely burial site in the village of Wiejkowo, in a region of northwestern Poland that had links with the Vikings in Harald’s time.

Marek Creda, author of “Viking Poland,” told The Associated Press that a “pagan hill” allegedly located below Wiejkowo’s 19th-century Roman Catholic church likely contained the king’s remains. Creda said that geological satellite images available on the Polish government portal revealed a rounded shape resembling a Viking burial mound.

But Swedish archaeologist Sven Roseborn says Creda is wrong because Harald, who converted from paganism to Christianity and founded churches in the area, must have received a suitable grave somewhere in the churchyard. The Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary in Wiejkowo is located on top of a small, round knoll.

Historians at the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen say they are aware of the “suggestion” that Wiejkowo is Harald’s burial place.

Roseborn detailed his research in the 2021 book, The Golden Treasure of the Vikings King, and Creda challenges some of the Swede’s findings in his book published this year.

Harald, who died in 985, probably in Jomsburg – now believed to be the Polish city of Wolin – was one of the last Viking kings who ruled what is now Denmark, northern Germany, and parts of Sweden and Norway. Spread Christianity in his kingdom.

The Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson named Bluetooth wireless link technology King, reflecting how he united much of Scandinavia during his lifetime. The technology logo is designed from the Scandinavian runes for the initials of the king, HB.

Roseborn, a former director of the Swedish City Museum of Malmö, was spurred on in his quest in 2014 when an 11-year-old girl sought his opinion on a small, coin-like object with old-looking text that had been in her family’s possession for decades.

Experts have determined that the gold-cast disc that intrigued Maja Sielski dates back to the 10th century. The Latin inscription on what is now known as the “Curmsun disk” reads: “Harald Gormsson (Curmsun in Latin) King of the Danes, Scania, Gomsburg, the town of Aldinburg.”

The Selski family, who moved to Sweden from Poland in 1986, said the disc came from a treasure found in 1841 in a cemetery under Vikovo Church, which replaced a medieval church.

The disc, along with the Wiejkowo Parish archives containing medieval manuscript records in Latin, was acquired by the Sielski family in 1945 when the former German region became part of Poland as a result of World War II.

A family member who knew Latin understood the value of the records – dating back to the 10th century – and translated some into Polish. They mention Harald, another fact that connects the Wiejkowo Church to him.

The nearby Baltic Sea island and town of Wolin cultivates the region’s Viking history: it contains a runestone in honor of Harald Bluetooth and holds annual festivals for the Slavs and Vikings.

Kryda says the Curmsun tablet is “exceptional” with its meaningful inscriptions and insists it would be useful to examine Wiejkowo as Harald’s burial place, but there are no current plans for any excavations.