![]() ![]() Although enjoyable and I’ve mentioned a few of my personal highlights, there is a dryness to the exhibition that I find hard to explain. My enthusiasm is somewhat limited for the exhibition as the scale of the ship isn’t quite matched by the size of the exhibition overall. Excavation of their settlements and cemeteries, yielding weights, scales, tools, coins, soapstone vessels, combs, mirrors and jewellery show that many were not only farmers, fishers and hunters but also skilled craftsmen and merchants. The show consisted of many finds which illustrated that raiding was only one aspect of the Viking age. It really brought alive the idea of Viking ships with dragon heads and wind vanes on their prows, their golden vanes glinting in sunlight and the carvings on the ships picked out in gaudy colours just waiting for a trip up stream for a raid.Īs well as the ship, the prominent items in the show are the Vale of York Hoard of C10 th silver, silver-gilt and gold and the mass gave from Weymouth where the bodies were decapitated and heads piled separately at the edge of the “graveâ€: a sticky end probably for the crew of a Viking ship on an unsuccessful raid. Yes, from a later period but obviously having parallels in the Viking age, it is something I hadn’t seen before. Absolutely wonderful and so immediate and detailed. These ships may have sported weather vanes in their masts like the rather wonderful one from Heggen Church, Buskerund, Norway. Made of gilt, copper and brass it would have had ribbons streaming from the punched holes. A small sketch on wood displayed next to it (Bergen C13th) shows a fleet of ships decked with their beribboned vanes. â€This along with the filed teeth, which might also have had coloured infills, would have been absolutely terrifying. In the following centuries their sailing ships built for rapid attack, along the lines of Roskilde 6, helped them to continue this activity attacking undefended coastal and river ports, towns and monasteries of western Europe and beyond in the search for slaves and wealth. And what of their bodies? Viking Rus warriors on the Volga decorated their bodies “ from the tips of his toes to his neck each man is tattooed in dark green with designs. You can’t help but wonder if some of these Vikings might have had filed teeth like the amazing ones in the exhibition from Kopingsvik, Gotland. The Viking period in Britain is generally marked as starting in AD 793 by the raid on the monastery of Lindisfarne by men intent on looting, we could call them pirates, from Scandinavia. Their trade routes linked northern Europe with Byzantium and the Islamic world. York and Dublin became important Viking towns, while in Scandinavia market and manufacturing settlements such as Ribe, Hedeby, Birka and Kaupang became centres of international trade The Vikings expanded eastwards into Russia as well as west to Britain and the North Atlantic. They lived in a number of small kingdoms, but as their rulers sought to increase their wealth and power, the smaller kingdoms were absorbed by more powerful neighbours, creating the modern kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. €œVikingâ€, if we can summarise, is a general term possibly from the Old Norse for inlet applied to the Scandinavian peoples from the late eighth century until around AD 1100. When did they first come to Britain, from where and why? However for me it was an exciting prospect having a big Viking ship from the C11th in an enclosed space in London!īut who ARE these Vikings we have come to find out about? We are told that they didn’t have horned helmets and some were intent on trading and farming peacefully rather than looting and killing. The ship represented a means of transport for these Norse people, for trade and exploration and war as well as being symbols of status and power, belief and magic. This is the longest Viking ship ever found and is probably the highlight for most people of this show serving as a great image of endeavour and exploration and at the same time symbolising the Viking age. Excavated in the mid 1990s Roskilde 6 is a huge Viking warship measuring 37 metres in length. Only about a fifth of the original hull has survived and nothing remains of the mast, rigging or sail however its remaining timbers have been painstakingly conserved and prepared for display by the National Museum of Denmark. The last major exhibition on Vikings at the BM was in the 1980s and since then there has been a wealth of exciting new discoveries in Britain as well as Scandinavia so this is a welcome treat. One such recent discovery is stealing the show here. VIKINGS –Life and Legend is currently headlining at the British Museum until 22 nd June 2014. We in London don’t have to journey too boldly at the moment to get a glimpse into the world of the Vikings. ![]()
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