Sorø Klosters kirkegård for lægfolk: Arkæologisk undersøgelse af grave ved nordre korsarm i 2006

hikuin 39, 2012, p. 131-46. Sorø Monastery's Cemetery for Laymen. The 2006 Archaeological Excavation of tombs outside the north Transept. Prior to the construction of a new extension on the north side of the church the National Museum excavated 24 square meters. 25 graves were discovered and 15 of them excavated. 9 skeletons were examined at the University of Copenhagen; they turned out to be five men, two women and two children. There were 6 stone coffin-graves made of bricks and roofed with tiles. In one of these brick graves a woman was buried. Dating of the graves was difficult. But at least 8 of the graves are medieval, as brick coffins are commonly dated from late 12th to 14th century and two other graves are older. According to the Cistercian rule monks were buried without coffins and from what we know about the location of the monasteries cemeteries, it was usually the cemetery of the laymen which was located on the north side of the church. One grave without a coffin and older than brick graves was located in a different orientation that all the rest of the graves. Perhaps this is an indication of the location and orientation of the church's predecessor from the abbey's Benedictine times. It is far from the first time stone coffin-graves have been discovered and excavated in the site of Sorø Monastery. The first record in Antikvarisk-Topografisk Arkiv is from 1826. The stone coffins are made of bricks travertine or fieldstones. The grave of archbishop and founder of the Cistercian convent in Sorø, Absalon (1201) has been opened and examined three times in 1536, 1827 and 1947.