Archaeologist believes he found legendary Viking ruler's lost grave in remote spot: 'This is rare'

The mound, he believes, may hold the lost grave of Ivar the Boneless, the Viking leader who died around 873 A.D.

Dickinson calls the structure the King's Mound - a translation of its Latin name Cuningishou - and its exact location has been kept confidential as his studies continue.

Speaking to Fox News Digital, Dickinson said the Viking Icelandic saga literature indicates that Ivar was buried "in England, in a mound on a boundary."

He and his team pinpointed the mound's location from medieval documents and identified 39 smaller mounds around it.

All appear to be consistent with a Viking ship burial.

While such ship burials have been found in Scandinavia, none in Britain have been definitively linked to a named Viking ruler, Dickinson said.

"This is rare, and, should my theory prove to be correct, it is the first such Viking ship burial to be found in Britain," the researcher observed.

All pieces of evidence "give the strongest connections with him and his grave," he said.

Historians are still divided over how Ivar earned the nickname "the Boneless," Dickinson said.

"Ivar also has some other nicknames, though: 'The Legless' and 'The Dragon.'"

"This description fits the part of Cumbria where I located the King's Mound."

Future fieldwork is planned for this summer, with opportunities for volunteers to take part.

"We do not, at present, plan to excavate it. The sheer logistics and financing of this, and reasons of conservation and privacy, all lead to this."