The Cellar Mound is situated near the path down to Nordvegen History Centre. Today there are only remnants left of this burial mound, but written sources say that it originally was as big as Flagmound, ie 5m high.
Much of the mound is destroyed, but examinations in 2000 showed that parts of the chamber inside is undisturbed. The Cellar Mound was originally raised in the Bronze Age, but it has also served as basis for Iron Age burials.
The Cellar Mound is also called the Cow’s Mound. The saga claims that Odin came to Avaldsnes and told that king Augvald who gave his name to Avaldsnes, had a holy cow that he would make sacrifices to. This cow is said to be buried here. If we are to believe the saga, king Olav Tryggvason himself found bones after this cow when he dug into burial mounds at Avaldsnes.
Local tradition has it that a man built a potato cellar into the mound in the 1800's. He then found “The collar of Augvald’s Sacred cow”.
About the same time, perhaps during the same digging, a gilt bronze ring and two bronze masks were unearthed at Avaldsnes. These were sent to “the Antiquarian Commission in Copenhagen” but are now lost. Nevertheless, we still know much about the finds because accurate drawings were made of them and they are described in written sources. It is uncertain whether these finds are from the Celtic Iron Age or the Viking Age.
