WIEJKOWO, Poland (AP) — More than 1,000 years after his death in what is now Poland, a European king whose nickname lives on through wireless technology is at the center of an archaeological controversy.
Chronicles from the Middle Ages say that the Danish king Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson got his nickname from a tooth, probably a dead one, that appeared bluish. A chronicle of the time also says that the Viking king was buried in Roskilde, in Denmark, in the late 10th century.
But a Swedish archaeologist and a Polish researcher recently said in separate publications that they had found his most likely burial site in the village of Wiejkowo, in an area of northwestern Poland that had Viking connections during Harald’s time.
Marek Krida, author of the book Viking Poland, told The Associated Press that a “pagan mound” he claims to have found under the 19th-century Roman Catholic church in Wejkovo likely contains the king’s remains. Kryda said geological satellite images, available on a Polish government portal, reveal a round shape that looks like a Viking burial mound.
But Swedish archaeologist Sven Rosborn says Krida is wrong because Harald, who converted from paganism to Christianity and founded churches in the area, must have been given a suitable grave somewhere in the churchyard. The Wiejkowo Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary stands on top of a small round hill.
Historians at the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen say they are aware of the “suggestion” that Wiejkowo was Harald’s burial site.
Rosborne detailed his research in the 2021 book The Viking King’s Golden Hoard, and Creeda disputed some of the Swede’s findings in his own book published this year.
Harald, who died in 985, probably in Jomsborg – which is now considered the Polish city of Volyn – was one of the last Viking kings to rule what is now Denmark, northern Germany and parts of Sweden and Norway. He spread Christianity in his kingdom.
Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson named its Bluetooth wireless technology after the king, reflecting how he united much of Scandinavia during his lifetime. The technology logo is designed from the Norse runic letters for the king’s initials, HB.
Roseborn, the former director of Sweden’s Malmö City Museum, was prompted to his search in 2014 when an 11-year-old girl sought his opinion on a small, soiled coin-like object with ancient text that had been in her family’s possession for decades.
Experts have determined that the cast gold disc that piqued Maja Cielski’s curiosity dates back to the 10th century. The Latin inscription on what is now known as the “Kurmsun Disc” reads: “Harald Gormsson (Kurmsun in Latin) King of the Danes, Scania, Jomsborg, City of Aldinburg.”
Cielski’s family, who moved to Sweden from Poland in 1986, said the disc came from a find made in 1841 in a tomb beneath Wiejkowo Church, which replaced a medieval chapel.
The Sielski family acquired the disk, along with the Wiejkowo parish archive, which contained medieval parchment chronicles in Latin, in 1945, when the former German area was becoming part of Poland as a result of World War II.
A family member who knew Latin understood the value of the chronicles – which date back to the 10th century – and translated some of them into Polish. They mention Harald, another fact connecting the Wiejkowo church to him.
The nearby Baltic Sea island and town of Volyn cultivate the region’s Viking history: it has a rune stone honoring Harald Blutus and holds annual Slavic and Viking festivals.
Kryda says the Curmsun disc is “phenomenal” with its meaningful inscription and insists it would be worth exploring Wiejkowo as Harald’s burial site, but there are no current plans for excavation.
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