The Gettlinge burial ground, sited as it is on the Landborgen of Öland, is among the most magnificient anywhere in the island. This Landborgen location is typical of the many great Iron Age cemetries of Öland. The upper part of Landborgen is a raised beach from one of the earlier stages in the evolution of the Baltic. The dry ridge became an excellent roadway, but was also good for settlement and burials.
This burial ground extends for nearly two kilometres along Landborgen and is divided in two by the village of Gettlinge. Altogether it contains over 200 graves of different kinds. Most conspicuous among them are the great ship-settings in the northern part. Which also includes two very large limestone monoliths which are rather like an entrance to the burial ground.
Many of the graves were investigated at the end of the 19th century. Iron Age Weapons - swords, lance points and spearheads and fragments of shields and knives - where found in several of them, reflecting the importance of weapons during the Roman Iron Age.
This burial ground was probably in use for at least a thousand years, from the earliest Roman Iron Age, round the birth of Christ, and some way into the Viking era.