Storhaug and Grønhaug, Karmøy

On the island of Karmøy, where the sheltered Karmsund strait funnelled almost all coastal traffic along Norway's western seaboard, two great burial mounds preserve some of the earliest ship graves known in Scandinavia. Storhaug, raised on the Gunnarshaug farm at Torvastad, was disturbed by farmers in the 19th century and formally excavated in 1887 by Anders Lorange of the Bergen Museum. Beneath it lay an oak vessel around 20 metres long, together with a smaller boat, weapons of Frankish and Merovingian type, a quiver of arrows, gaming pieces of amber and blue glass, and a rare gold arm-ring. Tree-ring dating later fixed the burial to the summer of 779, over a decade before the conventional start of the Viking Age. About two kilometres south, Grønhaug still rises grass-covered beside the modern road. Haakon Shetelig excavated it in 1902 and found a roughly 15-metre boat holding a man's grave, wooden vessels, textiles and a shard of English glass, though robbers had rifled the chamber not long after the funeral. Long dated to around 790, its ship timbers have recently been re-read as later, perhaps around 864, close to the time Avaldsnes became a royal seat. Whatever the precise years, the mounds mark a Merovingian- and Viking-age centre of power beside the shipping lane the Norse called the Nordvegen, the "north way" that helped give the country its name. Storhaug is now put forward for UNESCO World Heritage listing among a group of Norwegian ship burials.

Grønhaug is the mound you can still walk up to: a broad grassy dome roughly 30 metres across and about four metres high, set on a low rise a short step from Torvastadvegen, with the strait glinting beyond. There is no chamber to enter, so what you see is the restored mound and the commanding view over Karmsund that made the spot worth choosing. Storhaug, a couple of kilometres north near Torvastad, was largely levelled by centuries of farming and by excavation, and only a reduced remnant survives in the fields, reading more as landscape than as monument. Neither mound displays its treasures on site: the Storhaug finds, including the gold arm-ring and the amber-and-glass gaming set, are held by the University Museum of Bergen.

Karmøy lies just south of Haugesund in Rogaland, a short drive from Haugesund Airport, which sits on the same island. Grønhaug sits beside Torvastadvegen in the island's north, reached by a short footpath; there is no dedicated car park or visitor centre at the mound itself. The natural base for a visit is Avaldsnes, a few kilometres south, where the Nordvegen History Centre and the reconstructed Viking farm on Bukkøy interpret the wider royal landscape these graves belong to. Opening times, admission and guided tours vary by season, so check the official Avaldsnes pages before travelling. The mounds are open ground and free to see, but they are protected monuments and should be treated with care.