On August 6th 1903, a farmer named Oskar Rom dug into a mound on his property at the Lille Oseberg farm in Slagen, in the county of Vestfold, Norway and discovered what appeared to be pieces of a ship, and thus contacted Professor Gabriel Gustafson in Oslo, who visited the farm two days later. Based on his initial investigation, Gustafson determined that the mound contained a ship burial from the Viking era, but decided to wait until the following summer to excavate. Ultimately, the dig revealed the remains of two women buried in a ship no later than autumn of 834 AD, interred with a ceremonial wagon, four ornate sleds, an array of household goods, and a number of domestic animals. Remarkably, the burial was furnished with a lavish array of textiles, constituting a key feature of the Oseberg find.
            The grave chamber contained the largest collection of textiles and textile tools ever been found in a single grave. The collection consists of a number of narrow tapestries thought to have lined the chamber, as well as bedlinens, woven woolen blankets, tablet bands and a large collection of cloth fragments from clothing, sails, tents, rugs and curtains, in addition to remains of silk fabrics and silk thread embroideries imported from Central Asia. The textiles themselves vary greatly in quality, weaving techniques and materials.  Researcher Anne Stine Ingstad has divided them into 19 different groups according to quality and purpose. Coarse wool fabrics woven with geometric patterns, predominantly diamonds and crosses, were found in abundance throughout the grave, perhaps representing the remains of draperies used in the furnishing. The ornamental tapestries are woven from wool with a weft made of plant material, possibly flax, which has since disintegrated. They portray a variety of people in procession and at war, some clearly in costume, along with animals, wagons, and buildings, possibly representing ritual scenes, suggesting the older woman was of great importance. Altogether fifteen different silk materials are represented, mostly cut into narrow ribbons, which may have been used as adornments. Multi-colored silk embroideries in patterns of tendrils, spirals, animals and geometric designs may also have trimmed the women’s garments. The textile tools include: 5 different weaving looms, 1 tablet weaving loom, 1 manual spindle and distaff,  1 weaving reed, 5 balls of wool, 1 device for winding wool, 2 yarn reels, 2 linen smoothers, 1 smoothing iron, 3 wooden needles, 1 pair of iron scissors, and various small implements for spinning and textile work.  

The Oseberg tapestry shows a religious wagon procession and a scene of apparent human sacrifice, in which human bodies hang from a tree. The tapestry provides archaeological support for Adam of Bremen's account of the Uppsala Temple in the 11th century, where nine men are said to have been hung in a sacred grove along with various types of animals as a sacrifice outside of the temple. A fragment of the actual tapestry is pictured below, along with artistic representations of the same scene.

Adam of Bremen writes: "It is customary also to solemnize in Uppsala, at nine-year intervals, a general feast of all the provinces of Sweden. From attendance at this festival no one is exempted Kings and people all and singly send their gifts to Uppsala and, what is more distressing than any kind of punishment, those who have already adopted Christianity redeem themselves through these ceremonies. The sacrifice is of this nature: of every living thing that is male, they offer nine heads with the blood of which it is customary to placate gods of this sort. The bodies they hang in the sacred grove that adjoins the temple. Now this grove is so sacred in the eyes of the heathen that each and every tree in it is believed divine because of the death or putrefaction of the victims. Even dogs and horses hang there with men. A Christian told me that he had seen 72 bodies suspended promiscuously. Furthermore, the incantations customarily chanted in the ritual of a sacrifice of this kind are manifold and unseemly; therefore, it is better to keep silent about them. "

"The images contained in the Oseberg tapestry are often extremely unclear and enigmatic, but nonetheless clear enough to suggest that what is being portrayed in the pictures should be viewed in a ritual context. This is evident not only in the wagon procession, but also in the row of dancing female figures, and the line of celebrants who have a stance similar to that often depicted on the Bronze Age petroglyphs. ...Bearing this ritual background in mind, a more detailed examination can now be made of the costumed figures which occur both on those tapestry fragments depicting the procession itself, and on other fragments of less certain context. One of the latter fragments, for example, contains the image of an armed male figure, clad in what appears to be a complete animal skin (except for a hole for the nose and mouth), approaching a larger figure who is wearing what seems to be a bull-horned helmet and carrying a pair of crossed spears (or perhaps twigs) in his left hand. The horned figure reappears, more clearly, in one of the procession fragments, again holding a pair of crossed spears in one hand, but now grasping a sword by the blade or sheath with the other. Another fragment, which might have originally been attached to the section containing the skin-clad man, depicts a group of women bearing shields. Some, however, seem to be wearing boar-like animal masks and skins, causing Hougen to class them as 'shield-maidens' (valkyrur), with boar-heads. On yet another fragment, another female clad as a bird of prey with wings and a bird head appears standing  in front of what has been interpreted as a temple building."

—Terry Gunnell, The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia (1995) pp. 60-61.