
Swedish archaeologists reveal 5th Century massacre at Sandby borg - willvarfar
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43899393
======
ptx
As a Swede, it took me a while (perhaps in part due to insufficient quantities
of coffee) to realize that this "Oland" they were going on about, which I had
never heard of, was actually Öland.

In this age of near-universal Unicode support, is writing it properly really
too much to ask? In fact, this mysterious letter Ö is even in latin1 and
codepage 850, so the BBC would have had access to it even if they were still
using MS-DOS.

~~~
willvarfar
Its Oland in English.

Do you mind that SVT doesn't say Helsinki or that it doesn't call Bejing after
its proper name 北京?

~~~
mncharity
As I recall, there was a time when Google Maps showed native names and glyphs,
with english/latin "subtitles". I liked it. And I hoped it was the start the
new way this would be handled. Regrettably not.

------
INTPenis
For those of you in Sweden: This was mentioned in a documentary that is
available on svtplay right now.

[https://www.svtplay.se/vikingarnas-tid](https://www.svtplay.se/vikingarnas-
tid)

Episode 1 has the Öland fortress.

It's a shame but they don't have english subs and since it's swedish public
broadcasting it's most likely geo blocked.

~~~
zeristor
Tack ska du ha.

brew install youtube-dl

youtube-dl [https://www.svtplay.se/video/16392410/vikingarnas-
tid/viking...](https://www.svtplay.se/video/16392410/vikingarnas-
tid/vikingarnas-tid-sasong-1-alla-vagar-leder-fran-rom?start=auto)

Works fine for me, I just have to learn Swedish...

~~~
mkempe
Yes, they have a bug at SVT. When the web page says a video is geoblocked, one
can still download it via youtube-dl...

~~~
zeristor
This also works fine with the SVT app on Apple TV in the UK.

The Swedish subtitles help to glean some insight, also downloadable with
YouTube-dl

------
danieka
It’s a fascinating story and so far they have only excavated about 10% of the
site. The thing which stands out to me (not mentioned in the article) is that
so far the archaeologists have only found male remains. So far they do not
know what became of the women. Some speculate that they may have been taken,
but if that was the case there ought to be remains of old women since an
attacker would not kidnap those. The working theory right now is that the
women where rounded up before they were killed and that that site remains to
be found.

The head archaeologist speculates that this attack was part of a civil war on
Öland (the island where Sandby is located) and that the purpose of this attack
was to intimidate opponents. And since no one came to bury the dead it appears
to have worked.

~~~
ryanx435
Women were likely taken for slave labor. The fertile ones as sex slaves, the
older ones for physical labor.

"Old women" as we think of them today (65+) didn't really exist back then
because life spans weren't as long as they are today for a number of reasons.
Most "older" women taken would have been 50-60 years old and perfectly able to
work as laborers.

Human history is pretty brutal.

------
pugworthy
If you want to read the actual research findings, go to
[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/mo...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/moment-
frozen-in-time-evidence-of-a-late-fifthcentury-massacre-at-sandby-
borg/5C803B7E77A41439BC3B50D4BF96560E) It's free to read, no registration or
paywall.

------
lecastle
Strangeness. I watched a presentation by a guy called Fredrik earlier today.
He's worked with developing a VR experience that can be used as a tool in
order to create strong emotions connected to the gruesome events that took
place at Sandby borg. Read more here: [http://www.sandbyborg.se/en/sandby-
borg-in-virtual-reality/](http://www.sandbyborg.se/en/sandby-borg-in-virtual-
reality/)

------
kleiba
Resistance was futile.

~~~
yagyu
Today you learned: Borg means fortress in swedish.

~~~
kwoff
Me too. Apparently similar etymology to English "-borough" or "-burgh".
Contrast with Star Trek's borg, which comes from "cyborg", short for
"cybernetic organism".

