IN A discovery that has excited archaeologists, a mysterious bronze buckle found in a 1,000-year-old Viking grave in Denmark is believed to have come from Scotland.

Archaeologists found the buckle while excavating the grave of a Viking woman, thought to be Norwegian, who was buried in the 10th century in Jutland, West Denmark, though the buckle itself has been dated to the 800s.

Some experts have theorised that it confirms the accounts of Vikings terrorising the British Isles and returning home with plunder.

The buckle was originally a decorative fitting on a wooden box, and may have been stolen from a religious establishment by Viking raiders. “It’s from a monastery or a church, and not necessarily Christian,” said project manager and archaeologist Ernst Stidsing, from the Museum East Jutland, Denmark.

“But it’s very likely stolen goods – such objects were not traded. The Vikings didn’t come to own this sort of thing by honest means.”

Speaking to the ScienceNordic publication, Mr Stidsing explained that he had sent images of the buckle to various experts who agreed that it was a unique find. “They could say, fairly reliably, that it was a fitting from a shrine of insular origin – that is, from the British Isles. One thought that the ornamentation looked Irish, another said that it was from the south of Scotland,” he said.

The find is described in a collection of articles called Dead And Buried In The Viking Age, published by the Saxo Institute at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

The remains of the woman are to be further examined to see if she was of Norwegian origin, which would explain the Viking nature of her grave.

Jens Ulriksen, an archaeologist and curator at the Museum Southeast Denmark, told ScienceNordic that this is a unique find in Denmark.

“Such buckles are very rare in Denmark. I’ve never seen this kind of ornamentation before in a Danish context, and to find it in a tomb is very unusual,” said Mr Ulriksen.

Mr Stidsing speculated that the buckle could have passed through Norway on its way to Denmark.

He explained: “It’s not really common in Norway – but there are some examples. It could have been [brought by] a Norwegian woman who came to Denmark with her jewellery, and lived and died there.”

He now hopes that strontium isotope analysis of the woman’s teeth could clear up where she came from.

“I’m pretty excited about the outcome of the analysis,” said Mr Stidsing. “It’s exciting that a woman may have come from Norway and have lived part of her life in Jutland. It will confirm the picture we were in a globalised world back then.”