After his death more than 1,000 years ago in what is now Poland, a European king has found himself in the middle of a heated archaeological debate. His nickname inspired Bluetooth wireless technology.
Historical texts from the Middle Ages state that King Harald Gormsson of Denmark earned the nickname “Bluetooth” due to a dead tooth that was a dark blue color. Aside from his dead blue tooth, the Viking king was also well-known for uniting Denmark and Norway in 958.
One document from the time said that he was buried in the late 10th century in Roskilde, Denmark. But now, experts have claimed that his burial site is most likely in the village of Wiejkowo, an area of northwestern Poland with connections to the Vikings during Harald’s time.
According to a Polish researcher named Marek Kryda, a pagan mound was located beneath Wiejkowo’s 19th-century Roman Catholic church and likely contains the king’s remains.
But Swedish archaeologist Sven Rosborn thinks that Kryda is wrong because Harald converted from paganism to Christianity and established churches in the area, so he must have been buried in the churchyard.
Harald died in 985 in Jomsburg, which is thought to be the modern Polish town of Wolin. He was one of the last Viking kings to rule over the region we now know as Denmark, northern Germany, and parts of Norway and Sweden. He spread Christianity throughout his kingdom.
Ericsson, a Swedish telecommunications company, named Bluetooth wireless technology after the king, highlighting the extent of his influence on Scandinavia during his lifetime. The technology’s logo is even designed from Scandinavian runic letters to spell out the king’s initials of HB.
Rosborn’s quest to find Harald’s burial place was kickstarted in 2014 when an 11-year-old girl consulted with him about a small, dirty coin-like object with ancient text that had been passed down in her family for generations.
The family acquired the disk, along with Wiejkowo parish archives that included medieval parchment chronicles written in Latin, in 1945 when the formerly German area was becoming part of Poland as a result of World War II. The chronicles mentioned Harald, another connection between him and the Wiejkowo church.
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The cast gold disk dates back to the 10th century and is now known as the “Curmsun disk.” It contained a Latin inscription that read, “Harald Gormsson king of Danes, Scania, Jomsborg, town Aldinburg.” The disk came from a trove that was found in 1841 in a tomb underneath the Wiejkowo church.
The Curmsun disk gives reason to examine Wiejkowo as Harald’s burial place, but as of right now, there are no plans to excavate.
The town of Wolin has a runic stone in honor of King Harald “Bluetooth” and holds festivals every year for Slavs and Vikings.
