After a volcanic eruption, ancient Danes offered sun stones to the gods to bring back the light
The artefacts, found on the island of Bornholm, were "sown" into the ground in the hope of bringing back the sun and saving the crops, new research reveals.
The Art Newspaper
January 16, 2025
© Photographs by Antiquity Publications/John Lee, National Museum of Denmark
Five thousand years ago, a massive volcanic eruption dimmed the sun over northern Europe, causing a Neolithic Danish community to offer sun stones in the hope of bringing back the light and saving their crops.
Archaeologists discovered these enigmatic ancient stones on the island of Bornholm, 150 km south-east of Copenhagen, and have now used environmental data to link the timing of their burial with the eruption.
Related articles
The Art Newspaper
- Rare ancient rock art found in Saudi Arabian lava tube (Jully 2024)
- Archaeologists in Peru identified one of the oldest megalithic structures in the Americas (March 2024)
- Yatch rock art: prehistoric carvings found in Norway may be oldest nautical images in the world (May 2021)
- World's oldest war memorial may have been identified in Syria (May 2021)
- Boat carvings found in Norway may be the oldest in Europe (April 2021)
- Mysterious stone structures in Saudi Arabia are around 7,000 years old (April 2021)
- Bronze Age burial site of powerful woman discovered under ancient palace in Spain (March 2021)
- Hear the sound of an ancient conch horn, played again after 18,000 years (February 2021)
- Discoveries at Stonehenge highlight controversial new tunnel's threat to heritage (February 2021)
- Voluptuous Venus figurines may have helped prehistoric Europeans survive the Ice Age (December 2020)
- Is the Nebra Sky Disk a millennium younger than we thought? (September 2020)
- Fingerprints help identify prehistoric painters (September 2020)
- Exploding volcano mural could be world's oldest landscape (January 2014)
Science Magazine
- Stonehenge cremations shed light on where mysterious monument builders came from (August 2018)
- Human blood, organs and a surprising virus detected in ancient pottery (December 2016)
- Stone-age Italians defleshed their dead (March 2015)
Timeless Travels Magazine
- Ancient Orkney, Centre of the Neolithic World (Spring 2017)
- Malta: Island of Giants (Autumn 2015)