Salme ships

According to an early interpretation offered by Jüri Peets, the lead archaeologist at the site, the ships and the dead are of Scandinavian origin.

It is likely that the human remains in it belonged to people of noble birth, as evidenced by the large number of expensive bronze sword-hilts and the complete lack of weaponry associated with commoners.

The presence of dogs and hawks used for falconry indicates that the original purpose of the trip to Estonia may have been leisure or diplomacy.

[14] Peets suggests that the men may have come on a voyage from Sweden to forge an alliance or establish kinship ties when unknown parties set upon them.

[15] In the 13th century Ynglinga saga, written by Snorri Sturluson, it is said that the Swedish king Ingvar Harra, Östen’s son, was a great warrior who often spent time patrolling the shores of his kingdom fighting Danes and Estonians.

The Estonians (sýslu kind) assembled a large army in the interior and attacked King Ingvar in a great battle.

Ingvar was buried in a mound at a place called Stone or Hill fort (at Steini) on the shores of Aðalsýsla, that is what is now mainland Estonia.

After this Snorri cites a verse from the 9th-century poem Ynglingatal: Þat stǫkk upp, at Yngvari Sýslu kind of sóit hafði.

Further proof for this interpretation is found in the genealogy of the Norwegian kings in the early 13th century Historia Norwegiæ, which states that Ingvar died in expeditione occisus est in quadam insula Baltici maris, quæ ab indigenis Eysysla vocatur; "while campaigning on an island in the Baltic called Eysysla", Eysýsla being the Old Norse name for Saaremaa and the ancestor of modern Swedish Ösel, which is still to this day the name used for the island in Swedish.