For centuries, pagan tribes in Europe's Baltic region used sacrificial horses in funeral rituals.
For centuries, pagan tribes in Europe's Baltic region used sacrificial horses in funeral rituals. Researchers have long believed that the horses killed and buried during these rites were all of local breeds. Now, however, a new study suggests some pagan cultures actually imported sacrificial horses from Christianized Scandinavia.
Researchers analyzed 74 horses' teeth from pagan burials across Russia and Lithuania and found that many of the animals originated from modern-day Sweden and Finland. This suggests not only that the animals traveled nearly 1,000 miles across the Baltic Sea before being sacrificed, but that Christian cultures actually supplied these horses before the Baltic tribes were Christianized in the 14th century C.E.

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