The stone ship at Askeberga, also known as Rane stenar, is located in Vads socken near Tidan, approximately 25 kilometres north of Skövde in Västergötland. An unusual feature is that the ship lacks prow stones at the ends and instead resembles a longhouse. The ship setting stands on a platform of earth.
The construction measures 54 metres long and 18 metres wide at the middle, with a width of 9 metres at the short side. It consists of 24 stone blocks, with some reaching heights of up to 2 metres. These stones may come from a slight rise in the landscape a few hundred metres to the southeast, where many stone blocks still remain.
One block measures 2.0 metres above the ground surface and 2 x 2 metres in plan, but because it has a nearly triangular shape, its volume is approximately 5 m³ if it continues an average of 0.2 metres under the ground surface, giving it a weight of 13.5 tonnes. The dating of the site is unknown.
A similar, but slightly smaller, facility exists five miles east on a peninsula in Vättern in Nässja socken in Östergötland. This is called Nässja skeppssättning and is an oval stone circle measuring 44x18 metres, also consisting of 24 stones.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Nik Frost
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