A strange boat-shaped 'satanic' rock has been discovered in an Icelandic cave and Vikings likely used it to ward off the apocalypse 1,100 years ago, study suggests.
The cave is near a volcano that erupted almost 1,100 years ago at a time when the Vikings had just colonized Iceland.
Inside the cave there was a boat-shaped structure made from stone and a series of trade items from the middle east.
Lead author Kevin Smith from Brown University said the eruption of the volcano would have been 'unsettling' and posing existential challenges to the new arrivals.
People believed the cave was somehow connected with the end of the world, according to the study authors, who said the historical record records it as "the place where Satan would emerge on Judgment Day.'
The researchers found that when the lava from the volcano began to cool, the Vikings entered the cave and constructed the boat-shaped structure.
When it was completed, they would have burned animal bones in sacrifice, including those from sheep, goat, cattle and pigs.
The Vikings may have done this to try to prevent another eruption, or what they may have perceived as signs of Ragnarök.
Archaeologists from Brown University found 63 beads inside the cave, including three from Iraq.
Smith, who is chief curator of the Haffenreffer Museum at Brown University lead the excavation.
During the the work Smith and colleagues found a mineral from Turkey called orpiment alongside the beads.
This mineral was used to decorate objects such as beads and other items, however very few examples of it have been found in Scandinavia.
In Norse mythology Ragnarok is the events that lead to the end days. It will include a battle that will kill the gods and engulf Earth in flames.
It has been the subject of many books, discourses, movies and poems over the course of history.
The event would be a cataclysmic destruction, taking out the universe and everything within it, according to mythology.
For Vikings it was a foretelling of what was to come at some point in the future, influencing how they saw the world.
The word comes from Old Norse meaning fate of the gods and under the mythology it would see the demise of gods like Odin, Thor and Loki.
