The Vikings are coming...British Museum to launch Vikings: Life and Legend in March 2014

Silver-inlaid axehead in the Mammen style, AD 900s. Bjerringhøj, Mammen, Jutland, Denmark. Iron, silver, brass. L 17.5 cm. © The National Museum of Denmark.

LONDON.- In March 2014 the British Museum will open the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery with a major exhibition on the Vikings, supported by BP. The exhibition has been developed with the National Museum of Denmark and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (National Museums in Berlin) and focuses on the core period of the Viking Age from the late 8th century to the early 11th century. The extraordinary Viking expansion from the Scandinavian homelands during this era created a cultural network with contacts from the Caspian Sea to the North Atlantic, and from the Arctic Circle to the Mediterranean. The Vikings will be viewed in a global context that will highlight the multi-faceted influences arising from extensive cultural contacts. The exhibition will capitalise on new research and thousands of recent discoveries by both archaeologists and metal-detectorists, to set the developments of the Viking Age in context. These new finds have changed our understanding of the nature of Viking identity, trade, magic and belief and the role of the warrior in Viking society. Above all, it was the maritime character of Viking society and their extraordinary shipbuilding skills that were key to their achievements. At the centre of the exhibition will be the surviving timbers of a 37-metre-long Viking warship, the longest ever found and never seen before in the UK. Due to its scale and fragility it would not have been possible to display this ship at the British Museum without the new facilities of the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery. 

The ship, known as Roskilde 6, was excavated from the banks of Roskilde fjord in Denmark during the course of work undertaken to develop the Roskilde Viking Ship Museum in 1997. Since the excavation, the timbers have been painstakingly conserved and analysed by the National Museum of Denmark. The surviving timbers – approximately 20% of the original ship - have now been re-assembled for display in a specially made stainless steel frame that reconstructs the full size and shape of the original ship. The construction of the ship has been dated to around AD 1025, the high point of the Viking Age when England, Denmark, Norway and possibly parts of Sweden were united under the rule of Cnut the Great. The size of the ship and the amount of resources required to build it suggest that it was almost certainly a royal warship, possibly connected with the wars fought by Cnut to assert his authority over this short-lived North Sea Empire. 

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British Museum to show Viking treasures from North Yorkshire

The Vale of York viking hoard, which is going on show at the British Museum

A MAJOR new exhibition featuring Viking finds from North Yorkshire will take place at the British Museum next year.

Vikings: Life And Legend is the first major exhibition on Vikings to be held at the London museum for more than 30 years, and will include artefacts from the Vale of York alongside items from around the UK and Ireland, and the museum’s own collection.

The Vale of York Hoard, which was found by metal detectorists near Harrogate in 2007, will be shown in its entirety for the first time since it was found and jointly acquired by the British Museum and York Museums Trust.

The hoard includes 617 coins, six arm rings and a quantity of bullion and hack-silver, and is considered the largest and most important Viking hoard to be found since 1840’s Cuerdale Hoard, part of which will also will also be included in the exhibition.

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Viking ship to arrive at British Museum in 'flat pack'

The 37-metre warship was built in southern Norway around 1025, and deliberately sunk in Denmark in the mid-11th century

The longest Viking ship ever found will arrive at the British Museum in a "flat pack" from Denmark early next year, curators have revealed.

The 37-metre ship is the centrepiece of the museum's Vikings: Life and Legend exhibition which opens in March 2014.

"It's essentially an enormous Meccano set which can be put together," curator Gareth Williams told the BBC.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

As you might expect of a Scandinavian-designed ship, it comes flat packed”

Gareth WilliamsCurator

It is the British Museum's first major exhibition on Vikings for more than 30 years.

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Odd tale of headless Norse men: Slaves buried with the rich

This Viking man, in his 20s, was buried with a headless woman, who was in her 20s or 30s.

(Photo: Elise Naumann)

About 1,000 to 1,200 years ago, a Viking man still in his 20s was laid to rest on a craggy island in the Norwegian Sea. A new analysis of his skeleton and others buried nearby — several without their heads — suggests a haunting possibility: Some of the dead may have been slaves killed to lie in the grave with their masters.

Slavery was widespread in the Viking world, and scientists have found other Viking graves that include the remains of slaves sacrificed as "grave goods" and buried with their masters, a custom also practiced in ancient China and elsewhere. But the newly analyzed site is one of a very few Viking burials to include more than one slave, says the University of Oslo's Elise Naumann, a Ph.D. student in archaeology who led the research.

"These are people who had values very different from our own," says Naumann, whose study was published online in the Journal of Archaeological Science last week. "There were probably a very few people who were the most privileged, and many people who suffered."

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New evidence of Dingwall's Viking past to be revealed

New evidence confirming Dingwall's origins as a Viking power base are to be revealed at a public meeting in the Highland town later this month.

Dingwall's Cromartie car park is believed to be the site of a "thing", the meeting place of a medieval Norse parliament.

Archaeologists excavated part of the car park last year.

A report on the dig, including the results of radiocarbon dating, will be presented at the meeting.

Highland Council said some "exciting answers" to questions about the town's Viking past will be revealed.

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Ploughed field find was silver Viking ring

A man who found a dirty piece of metal in a field has discovered he is actually the lucky owner of a silver Viking ring.

The ring was found close to the remains of a medieval church [Credit: BBC]

David Taylor, from County Down, Northern Ireland, discovered a bracelet-shaped object while helping lift stones from a field. His wife thought it was a bull ring and told him to throw it out. A coroner's court has now found the ring to be treasure trove.

Almost 18 months ago, Mr Taylor noticed the strangely-shaped object lying on a stone in his brother-in-law's freshly ploughed field near Kircubbin on the Ards peninsula.

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'Bull ring' was silver Viking ring treasure

A man who found a dirty piece of metal in a field has discovered he is actually the lucky owner of a silver Viking ring.

David Taylor, from County Down, Northern Ireland, discovered a bracelet-shaped object while helping lift stones from a field.

His wife thought it was a bull ring and told him to throw it out.

A coroner's court has now found the ring to be treasure trove.

Almost 18 months ago, Mr Taylor noticed the strangely-shaped object lying on a stone in his brother-in-law's freshly ploughed field near Kircubbin on the Ards peninsula.

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Man finds Viking ring in Northern Ireland field

A man in Northern Ireland says an object his wife mistook for an old bull ring turned out to be a silver Viking ring from between the 10th and 12th centuries.

David Taylor of County Down said he found the object while lifting stones in a field near Kircubbin and his wife told him it was an old bull ring and he should throw it out, the BBC reported Monday.

"I just knew by the shape of it, it was something," Taylor said.

Taylor said experts identified the object as a silver Viking ring from between the 10th and 12th centuries.

University College Cork archaeologist John Sheehan said the ring was found near the ruins of a medieval church and may have been stolen from Viking settlers.

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Oxford Experience 2014

The programme for the Oxford Experience Summer School is now online.  Registration will not begin until late September, but now is the time to start planning your courses for next summer.

You can find the programme here...

Vikings ‘ransacked Church gold for jewellery’

Pagan Vikings, who ransacked early Irish churches, melted and transformed sacred objects into jewellery.

Research by a University College Cork scholar has made new discoveries about the “Viking loot” from Ireland. 

He traced how sacred objects were turned into jewellery by Vikings in Norway, Sweden and other Scandinavian countries. 

There are no plans, however, to seek to have returned to Ireland the crosiers that were turned into brooches and chalices that became jewellery boxes, ransacked over two centuries from the “soft targets” of the churches. 

However Dr Griffin Murray of the Department of Archaeology at UCC will tell an international Viking Conference in Shetland this week that he would like to see Irish treasures “taken by the armful” returned in the form of a temporary exhibition. 

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Viking Jewelry Unearthed in Denmark

A copper alloy piece of jewelry found at a Viking-age site in Denmark shows an animal figure with a beadlike chain around its neck.

Several pieces of Viking jewelry, some of which contain gold, have been uncovered at a farm site in Denmark that dates as far back as 1,300 years.

Although the Vikings have a popular reputation as being raiders, they were also farmers, traders and explorers, and the craftsmanship seen in this jewelry demonstrates their artistic skills.

Archaeologists working with volunteers used metal detectors to find the jewelry in different spots throughout a farmstead on Zealand, the largest island in Denmark. The remains of the site, which is now called Vestervang, date from the late seventh to the early 11th centuries.

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Viking legends to retell stories of old at Jorvik Centre

The gathering of legendary Viking heroes at the Jorvik Centre, clockwise from top, Eric Bloodaxe, warrior woman Lathgertha, Aud the Deep Minded, King Cnut the Great, King Harald Bluetooth and King Orry of Man

NINE heroes and a skeleton will take up residence at the Jorvik Viking Centre to give visitors an insight into the great deeds and battles of the past.

Legendary warrior and campaigner Eric Bloodaxe, warrior woman Lathgerda, warrior man Sweyn Forkbeard, adventurer Harald Hardrada, explorer Leif the Lucky and King Harald Bluetooth of Denmark are among nine big names from Viking and pre-Norman English history who will be among the star attractions of the centre’s Heroes exhibition.

They will answer questions from visitors and talk to them in between taking over its Twitter feed.

The exhibition will also include items to illustrate the lifestyle of a Viking hero, including a skeleton unearthed at Fishergate which may belong to a warrior killed at the Battle of Fulford in 1066 and several tenth century stones that may have covered a grave of a fallen hero or rich patron.

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A tantalizing hint of an ancient trading town

When archaeologists Geir Grønnesby and Ellen Grav Ellingsen found these and other artefacts during a dig in mid-Norway, they realized they had intriguing evidence of a Viking-age trading area mentioned in the Norse Sagas.

The finds came from two separate boat graves in an area in Nord-Trøndelag County called Lø, a farm in part of Steinkjer. The archaeologists, who both work at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's University Museum, were there to conduct a routine investigation required because of an upgrade to Norway's main national highway, the E6.

But instead of a simple highway dig, the researchers found themselves with a potential answer to an unsolved puzzle about a mysterious Viking trading place that is named in ancient sagas, but that has never before been located.

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Vikings held political summits across Europe

Fancy clothes, gifts and weapons acted as important status symbols in political negotiations in the Viking Age. (Photo: Asbjørn Mølgaard Sørensen)

What do Angela Merkel and Harald Bluetooth, the Viking King of the Danes, have in common? Merkel is probably guilty of less pillaging than old Harald, but she participates in numerous political meetings throughout Europe – and so did Harald and the other Viking kings.

The kings were politicians who knew about political spin and who built up internal networks, explains Anne Pedersen, an archaeologist and curator at the National Museum of Denmark, which currently hosts a major exhibition about Vikings.

One of the main themes of the exhibition is power and international alliances:

”When the Vikings formed alliances, they did it much like we do today,” says Pedersen. “They made themselves visible on the political scene and they met with their peers at what we could call political summits where they formed networks and alliances.”

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CLUES FROM AN ANCIENT VIKING TRADING CENTRE

It was a routine archaeological dig necessitated by the expansion of Norway’s main north-south highway the E6 just north of Trondheim, the country’s third largest city. But the finds surprised archaeologists from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s University Museum, who now believe they have solved a centuries-old puzzle posed in Norse sagas.

When archaeologists Geir Grønnesby and Ellen Grav Ellingsen found a silver button and a set of balance scales along with other artefacts during a dig in mid-Norway they realized they had intriguing evidence of a Viking-age trading area mentioned in the Norse Sagas.

Boat graves

The finds came from two separate boat graves in an area in Nord-Trøndelag County called Lø, a farm in part of Steinkjer.

“These finds got us thinking about the descriptions in the Sagas that describe Steinkjer as a trading place,” the researchers wrote of their findings in Vitark, an academic journal published by the University Museum. “The Sagas say that Steinkjer, under the rule of Eirik Jarl, was briefly even more important than Nidaros, before Olav Haraldsson re-established Nidaros as the king’s residence and trading city.”

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Gold Viking ingot discovered by amateur treasure hunter

A rare piece of Viking gold dating back more than a thousand years was discovered by an amateur with a metal detector in Northern Ireland, it was revealed.

The ingot is one of only a few nuggets known from Ireland, experts said Photo: PA

Tom Crawford was pursuing his hobby in farmland in Co Down last year when he found the small but precious ingot, which may have been used as currency during the 9th and 10th centuries. It is one of only a few nuggets known from Ireland, experts said.

Mr Crawford also uncovered a tiny silver ring brooch with unusual floral imprints, probably used for decoration by a man or woman during the Medieval period, a short distance away.

"It is all part of the big jigsaw of the history of this country," he told a Belfast inquest convened to establish if the find was treasure.

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Viking gold unearthed by treasure hunter in County Down

Tom Crawford found the ingot in Brickland last year

A treasure hunter armed with a metal detector has unearthed a rare piece of Viking gold that is more than 1,000 years old.

Tom Crawford was sweeping farmland in County Down last year when he found the small ingot which may have been used as currency during the 9th and 10th centuries.

Experts said only a few such nuggets had been found in Ireland.

Close by, he found a tiny silver ring brooch dating from medieval times.

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Isle of Man Viking silver declared 'treasure trove'

Four Viking silver objects have now been dug up in the same Isle of Man field

Three pieces of Viking silver dating back 1,000 years, discovered using a metal detector in the Isle of Man, have been declared treasure trove.

An inquest heard the three items, found by Seth Crowe in a field in Andreas in April, date back to between 930 and 1080 AD.

Archaeologists believe the two silver ingots and brooch fragment contain more than 60% silver.

Coroner of Inquests John Needham made the ruling at Douglas Courthouse.

Mr Crowe, 39, made the discovery having sought the permission of the landowner Leslie Faragher, some years ago.

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The Sutton Hoo Online Exhibition

In 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, an archaeologist named Basil Brown excavated the largest of 18 burial mounds in the grounds of a country house at Sutton Hoo in the east of England. What he discovered turned out to be a spectacular undisturbed burial. 

Placed inside a vast ship, were the extraordinarily rich belongings of a high-ranking Anglo-Saxon man, possibly even a king...

View the online exhibition...

Biggest Viking exhibition in 20 years opens – and this time they're angry

Recent peaceful Viking rebrands are smashed in a vast and bloodthirsty show that will soon set sail for London

A violent animated backdrop to a reconstructed Viking warship

All around the hull of the longest Viking warship ever found there are swords and battle axes, many bearing the scars of long and bloody use, in an exhibition opening in Copenhagen that will smash decades of good public relations for the Vikings as mild-mannered traders and farmers.

"Some of my colleagues thought surely one sword is enough," archaeologist and co-curator Anne Pedersen said, "but I said no, one can never have too many swords."

The exhibition, simply called Viking, which will be opened at the National Museum by Queen Margrethe of Denmark on Thursday, and to the public on Saturday, will sail on to to London next year to launch the British Museum's new exhibition space.

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Large Iron Age houses discovered

The Lofotr Viking Museum in Borg [Credit: MVFram]

Archaeologists from the science museum in Trondheim have located the foundations of two large houses from the Iron Age, close to one of the biggest burial grounds in Hallem, near Stiklestad in Trøndelag.

"This rarely happens in Norway, and it is completely unexpected" says archaeologist Marte Mokkelbost. The archaeologists have discovered two so-called "long houses" that confirm that Stiklestad was an area inhabited by people who were both wealthy and in power during the iron age.

The burial grounds at Stiklestad is one of the largest collection of cemeteries in Norway. The houses were found very close by, and one of the houses is more than 50 meters long and eight meters wide. 

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Replica Viking ship takes to the water

A group of history enthusiasts from across the north west have successfully rowed the biggest replica Viking ship in the world.

Replica Viking ship [Credit: ITV]

Despite many of them being novices, the group managed to get the 70-ton Dragon Harald Fairhair up to a respectable 3 knots on the fjords near Karmoy island in Western Norway.It's hoped the ship, which is named after the king who united the country more than 1,000 years ago, will retrace the route of the Vikings and visit Merseyside and the Isle of Man next year.

Trials are currently underway near the town of Haugesund where she was built. If they are successful, the vessel will embark on a major international voyage that could see her sail as far as New York.The ship was funded by a local businessman to learn more about ancient boat-building techniques and the Vikings themselves. It has been designed using a combination of archaeological evidence, details from folklore and local knowledge handed down over the generations.While it is mainly wind power that will get the Dragon between destinations, organisers need volunteers to row her in to and out of port.

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The First Vikings

Two remarkable ships may show that the Viking storm was brewing long before their assault on England and the continent

(Courtesy Liina Maldre, University of Tallinn)The carefully stacked remains of 33 men were buried in the ship that brought them from Scandinavia to an Estonian island more than a century before the Vikings are thought to have been able to sail across such distances.

According to historians, the Viking Age began on June 8, A.D. 793, at an island monastery off the coast of northern England. A contemporary chronicle recorded the moment with a brief entry: “The ravages of heathen men miserably destroyed God’s church on Lindisfarne, with plunder and slaughter.” The “heathen men” were Vikings, fierce warriors who sailed from Scandinavia and bore down on their prey in Europe and beyond in sleek, fast-sailing ships. In the centuries that followed, the Vikings’ vessels carried them deep into Russia and as far south as Constantinople, Sicily, and possibly even North Africa. They organized flotillas capable of carrying warriors across vast distances, and terrorized the English, Irish, and French coasts with lightning-fast raids. Exploratory voyages to the west took them all the way to North America.

The Vikings’ explosion across Europe and Asia and into the Americas was the result of the right combination of tools, technology, adventurousness, and ferocity. They came to be known as an unstoppable force capable of raiding and trading on four continents, yet our understanding of what led up to that June day on Lindisfarne is surprisingly shaky. A recent discovery on a remote Baltic island is beginning to change that. Two ships filled with slain warriors uncovered on the Estonian island of Saaremaa may help archaeologists and historians understand how the Vikings’ warships evolved from short-range, rowed craft to sailing ships; where the first warriors came from; and how their battle tactics developed. “We all agree these burials are Scandinavian in origin,” says Marge Konsa, an archaeologist at the University of Tartu. “This is our first taste of the Viking era.”

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Research sheds new light on Viking travels in N.L.

Vikings settled at the L'Anse aux Meadows site on the northern peninsula of Newfoundland. (CBC)

Norsemen may have encountered Newfoundland Beothuk, study suggests

An American researcher has found new information about the movement of the Vikings in Newfoundland and Labrador which suggests they may have moved further inland than previously thought, and may have even travelled to other parts of Atlantic Canada.

Kevin Smith, chief curator at Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology at Brown University in Rhode Island, says the Norsemen may have had contact with the Aboriginal Peoples a thousand years ago. He presented his findings in April at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

According to Smith, recent geochemical tests of a red stone-like flint used by the Vikings found at the L'Anse aux Meadows site on Newfoundland's Northern Peninsula show the flint came from a distinct volcanic formation in Notre Dame Bay on the island's northeast coast.

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New North America Viking Voyage Discovered

An image showing part of the Notre Dame Bay coastline. At the time the Norse journey took place this area was populated by the ancestors of the Beothuk people. The land is also heavily forested, a sharp contrast to the relatively more barren lands in the North Atlantic which the Norse had sailed to earlier. It was also rich in fish, birds and sea mammals and the temperature was warmer. 

CREDIT: Kevin Smith.

Some 1,000 years ago, the Vikings set off on a voyage to Notre Dame Bay in modern-day Newfoundland, Canada, new evidence suggests.

The journey would have taken the Vikings, also called the Norse, from L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of the same island to a densely populated part of Newfoundland and may have led to the first contact between Europeans and the indigenous people of the New World.

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New Evidence of a Viking Voyage Found at L’Anse aux Meadows

Chemical analysis of two jasper fire starters unearthed at the site of L’Anse aux Meadows, a Norse site in the New World, suggests that the raw material to make them came from the Notre Dame Bay area of Newfoundland. “This area of Notre Dame Bay [is] archaeologically the area of densest settlement on Newfoundland, at that time, of indigenous people, the ancestors of the Beothuk,” said Kevin Smith of Brown University. Smith thinks it’s possible that the Norse and the ancestral Beothuk may have made contact when the Norse traveled from L’Anse aux Meadows. Other trips may have taken them to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where they may have obtained butternut seeds, and the Canadian Arctic, where they may have traded with indigenous people. Norse sagas tell of hostile meetings with peoples of the New World. 

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HaNoA - Häfen im Nordatlantik

Der Hafen von Búðasandur, Hvalfjörður, Island. Die Überreste eines Handelsplatzes befinden sich in der Bildmitte, das mittelalterliche Hafengebiet (rechts) ist heute versandet (Foto N. Mehler).

Fast alle bedeutenden mittelalterlichen Häfen des nordeuropäischen Festlandes waren Teil größerer Siedlungen, aus denen sich häufig Städte entwickelten. Viele dieser Häfen hatten spezielle Einrichtungen wie z. B. Kaianlangen, Landebrücken und Lagerhallen, die einen gut entwickelten und organisierten Schiffsbetrieb und Warenumschlag ermöglichten. Völlig anders ist die Situation im Nordatlantikraum zu dieser Zeit. Im marginalen Siedlungsgebiet von Island, Grönland, Shetland und den Färöer Inseln gab es in der Wikingerzeit und im Mittelalter keine Städte. 

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Danish teen makes rare Viking-era find with metal detector

Danish museum officials say that an archaeological dig last year has revealed 365 items from the Viking era, including 60 rare coins.

Danish National Museum spokesman Jens Christian Moesgaard says the coins have a distinctive cross motif attributed to Norse King Harald Bluetooth, who is believed to have brought Christianity to Norway and Denmark.

Sixteen-year-old Michael Stokbro Larsen found the coins and other items with a metal detector in a field in northern Denmark.

Stokbro Larsen, who often explores with his detector, said he is often laughed at because friends find him "a bit nerdy."

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'Missing' rune stone turns up near Stockholm

A Viking-era rune stone has been "rediscovered" near Vaxholm in the Stockholm archipelago after a group of university students stumbled across the historic rock that had been hiding in plain sight for nearly 300 years.

Researcher Magnus Källström examining the rune stone [Credit: The Local]

"It’s a very intriguing find, it shows that there is so much history yet to discover," researcher Magnus Källström from the Swedish National Heritage Board (Riksantikvarieämbetet) told The Local in reference to the 1,000-year-old stone.

The find took place last week while archaeologist Torun Zachrisson and a group of students from Stockholm University were on an excursion in hopes of finding a rune stone known as U 170.

According to Zachrisson the stone has "been missing" for 300 years, but was rumoured to be near Bogesund's brygga, a jetty just outside of the archipelago town that lies an hour east of the capital city.

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Dealing with the doldrums on a Viking voyage

The outline of a foot on the Gokstad Ship gives us an inkling of what it might have been like for Vikings to cross the ocean.

The floorboard from the Gokstad ship. (Photo: Hanne Jakobsen)

He’s crowded into a sleek sailing ship with 65 other men. Scarcely room to move. It’s been days since anybody has seen land − longer since anyone bathed. The old-timers’ repeated tales of bygone raids and voyages are beginning to wear thin. 

His place is behind an oar, but there is no need to row continuously on the North Sea. With wind in the sail, the boat surges towards England, where riches await.

But what is there to do while waiting to reach a foreign coast?

Maybe it was a teenager engaged in a Viking version of tagging a school desk. In any case, someone took out his knife, bent down and traced the outline of his foot on the deck of the Gokstad Ship.

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Online Courses in Archaeology

University of Oxford Online Courses in Archaeology

Cave paintings, castles and pyramids, Neanderthals, Romans and Vikings - archaeology is about the excitement of discovery, finding out about our ancestors, exploring landscape through time, piecing together puzzles of the past from material remains.

These courses enable you to experience all this through online archaeological resources based on primary evidence from excavations and artefacts and from complex scientific processes and current thinking. Together with guided reading, discussion and activities you can experience how archaeologists work today to increase our knowledge of people and societies from the past.

The following courses are available:

• Archaeology in Practice


• Archaeology of the Bible Lands


• Exploring Roman Britain


• Greek Mythology


• Origins of Human Behaviour


• Pompeii and the Cities of the Roman World


• Ritual and Religion in Prehistory


• Vikings: Raiders, Traders and Settlers

The Battle of Fulford: War breaks out over 'forgotten' Yorkshire battlefield

Local historians say it's the site of the curtain-raiser to Hastings in 1066. The council wants to build hundreds of houses on it

Combatants are squaring up to do battle over the fate of a Yorkshire field more than 1,000 years after they say an earlier battle was fought there that helped to change the course of British history. Rival groups have issued a call to arms over the future of what some historians claim is the true site of the "forgotten" Battle of Fulford in September 1066. Local historians are fighting a rearguard action over developers' plans to build 600 homes on a field near York which they say is the site of the historic battle.

The Battle of Fulford is where an invading Viking army defeated an Anglo-Saxon force led by the northern earls, Edwin and Morcar. Historians say the battle is important because the defeat forced the Anglo-Saxon king, Harold Godwinson, to march his army north to fight and defeat the invaders at the Battle of Stamford Bridge five days later. Although victorious, Harold's forces suffered losses at Stamford Bridge and were exhausted after the march, and the campaign in the north diverted the king's attention away from the south coast, where William of Normandy launched his invasion.

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Grabungen am Danewerk gehen weiter

The most complete view yet of a possible human ancestor uncovered in South Africa has revealed an intriguing mix of human and ape traits.

The two-million-year-old remains of several partial skeletons belonging to a previously unknown humanlike species were found in 2008 near Johannesburg.

The new analysis shows this species -Australopithecus sediba - had a human-like pelvis, hands and teeth, and a chimpanzee-like foot.

The findings appear in Science journal.

In six separate research reports, scientists probed further into the anatomy of a juvenile male skeleton, commonly referred to as MH1, a female skeleton, known as MH2, and an isolated adult tibia or shinbone, known as MH4.

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Unmarked grave dug up in hunt for England's King Alfred the Great

Archaeologists dug up an unmarked grave in a quiet English churchyard in search of remains of King Alfred the Great, a ninth century monarch credited with fending off the Vikings.

The exhumation was apparently triggered by fears that interest over the recent discovery of the skeleton of Richard III could lead grave robbers to dig the area for his bones.

Alfred the Great is known to generations of schoolchildren through a popular legend that tells of his scolding by a peasant woman for letting her cakes burn while he watched over them.

He was at the time preoccupied with the problem of how to repel the Danes, who had captured swaths of Anglo-Saxon England.

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The Vengeance of Ivarr the Boneless

A section from the Stora Hammars I stone, preserved at Gotland in Sweden. The carving seems to show a victim about to be cut open from the back; a bird of prey appears behind him. It has been suggested that this depicts the rite of the blood eagle. Image: Wikicommons.

Ninth-century Scandinavia has had good press in recent years. As late as the 1950s, when Kirk Douglas filmed his notorious clunker The Vikings—a movie that featured lashings of fire and pillage, not to mention Tony Curtis clad in an ahistorical and buttocks-skimming leather jerkin—most popular histories still cast the Denmark and Norway of the Dark Ages as nations overflowing with bloodthirsty warriors who were much given to horned helmets and drunken ax-throwing contests. If they weren’t worshiping the pagan gods of Asgard, these Vikings were sailing their longships up rivers to sack monasteries while ravishing virgins and working themselves into beserker rages.

Since the early 1960s, though—we can date the beginning of the change to the publication of Peter Sawyer’s influential The Age of the Vikings (1962)—rehabilitation has been almost complete. Today, the early Viking age has become the subject of a History Channel drama, and historians are likely to stress that the Vikings were traders and settlers, not rapists and killers. The Scandinavians’ achievements have been lauded—they sailed all the way to America and produced the Lewis Chessmen—and nowadays some scholars go so far as to portray them as agents of economic stimulus, occasional victims of their more numerous enemies, or even (as a recent campaign organized by the University of Cambridge suggested) men who “preferred male grooming to pillaging,” carrying around ear spoons to remove surplus wax. To quote the archaeologist Francis Pryor, they “integrated into community life” and “joined the property-owning classes” in the countries they invaded.

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