Skalunda
Coordinates: 58°33′N 12°59′E / 58.550°N 12.983°E
Skalunda is a village in Västergötland, Sweden and the site of Skalunda Barrow (Swedish: Skalunda hög), a historic burial mound. Hög, from the Old Norse word , means mound or barrow. The modern English cognate, still in use, is "howe", "how", or "hoo", as in Sutton Hoo.
At the church, there are two runestones and to the west of the church there is the Barrow of Skalunda which is the largest one in Västergötland. Skalunda Barrow is one of the larger barrows in Scandinavia. It measures 65 metres across and it is 7 metres high. Next to the barrow there is a stone circle. This suggests that Skalunda was an important location dating to the Iron Age.
Skalunda was one of the eight royal estates of early medieval Västergötland (cf. Uppsala öd). Moreoever, the names of two homesteads, Lagmansgården and Lagmanstorp, in the neighbourhood show that the Geatish lawspeakers used to reside at Skalunda.
Birger Nerman, a Swedish archaeology professor and director of the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities, considered the Barrow of Skalunda to be the most likely burial site of the hero Beowulf, a legendary Geatish king. Skalunda is not far from a place called Årnäs, which is the same name as Earnaness where the hero died in the epic Beowulf, and it is located on a major promontory and near a minor one. The barrow has not yet been excavated.
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