Viking Heritage Number 4 • 1998 Newsletter
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
VIKING HERITAGE NUMBER 4 • 1998 NEWSLETTER IN THIS ISSUE Embla – a Viking ship has been reconstructed........1 Editorial ............................2 Embla... continued ............3 Viking presence in France ............................5 The Giant’s graves ............8 The picture shows a test of a plank’s strength. Photograph: Gunilla Larsson. Alabu................................10 Embla - a Viking ship has been reconstructed! Fröjel Gotlandic Viking Re-enactment society..13 The origins of the project The Embla project was initiated by the folk museum in Old Uppsala, as a collaboration project between the Department of Archaeology at Uppsala Skidbladner ....................14 University, the county labour board in Uppsala and the folk museum, aimed at reconstructing a Viking Age ship, using contemporary methods and materials. The Department of Archaeology provided the project with Viking invasion in knowledge and teachers, the county labour board was the main financier Stockholm ....................14 and also provided participants and the folk museum answered for inspira- tion, assistance and contacts. Gunilla Larsson, doctoral candidate with boat- building techniques during the younger Iron Age as a part of her disserta- BTC..................................15 tion, from the Department of Archaeology, was leader of the project. The boat building was carried out as a course in Viking Age boat-building tech- niques, in which 10 unemployed persons consisting of 5 building workers New book ........................15 and 5 archaeologists have been taught. The composition of the group has in itself provided the grounds for a fulfilling exchange of knowledge and ex- perience among the participants. The project has received important financial help from sponsors. Skalk on the internet ....15 The boat-building has been carried out in Ensta only a stone's throw from the famous gravefield at Valsgärde, on the Fyris River, on land gener- ously contributed by Per Olof Bolin To be continued on page 3. VIKING HERITAGE Newsletter 4 • 1998 E D I TO R I A L Here we are, with a new issue of From the first of July this year, In connection with changing the Viking Heritage Newsletter. Viking Heritage has been trans- membership in the Viking We are finally nearing our goal, ferred to the Gotland University Heritage association to a sub- of 4 issues of the Newsletter per College, and as a part of our new scription of the Viking Heritage year. The next issue is planned to strategy, we will from now on Newsletter, we have made some come before the end of this year. change the membership in the changes of the running of the We are still very dependent on Viking Heritage into a subscrip- organisation. From now on, Mr. your help in gathering material tion to the Viking Heritage Olle Hoffman ([email protected]) will for the Newsletter, and we wel- Newsletter. So, next time when be the person responsible for the come articles as well as news it is time to pay the membership Viking Heritage Server and about events, new museums, of 150 SEK (about $22), it will Database, as well as for the research projects etc, dealing be as a subscription of the publication of the Newsletter. with Viking history in broad Viking Heritage Newsletter and I hope you find the variety of terms. I do hope you will continue to articles interesting, and I wel- There has been a demand for be a part of the Viking Heritage come you to a new issue of the the possibility of subscribing to by the subscribing to the Viking Heritage Newsletter. the Newsletter, and in the Newsletter. You will of course Board, we have decided to still have access to the Viking Dan Carlsson change strategy for the Viking Heritage Server and Database, President Heritage, and the Newsletter. since we are not planning any Viking Heritage From now on we will put all our changes of strategy for the data- [email protected] efforts into developing the base. Viking Heritage Server and Data- We have also decided that in base (http://ottes.got.kth.se) the long run, we will increasingly with the aim of becoming the put the Newsletter on Internet, best site in the world for infor- since the cost of printing and mation about Vikings and shipping the Newsletter is Viking History, and at the same becoming rather expensive. time further developing the Viking Heritage Newsletter. 2 VIKING HERITAGE Newsletter 4 • 1998 Embla - a Viking ship has been reconstructed! By Fil. Kand. Gunilla Larsson, The Department of Archaeology, Uppsala University. Continued from page 1. boat-grave 3 is 7,2 metres long and 1,5 likely seal oil and herring brine. The metres wide. The boat has been fitted soft, direct reduced iron is considered Embla´s Viking Age model: with T- shaped keel, rabbet staves, 4 to have had better corrosion resistance Embla has been built as a reconstruct- planks on each side joined together than commercial iron of today. A fur- ion of one of the boats in the boat- with iron rivets, fitted with rhombic nace for iron production was construct- graves which have been found at the and square washers on the inside. ed in Fjällnora outside Uppsala, where parsonage in Old Uppsala. During a There are traces of three frames indica- ”iron soil” (Swedish: rödjord) and bog- smaller excavation 1973 in conjunction ted by top rivets, there were probably iron ore were smelted into iron. To with installing cables, boat rivets were five frames originally. The thwarts were obtain suitable tar, a tar pile was built found. Following excavations in 1974, placed over the frames. up at the Finsta upper secondary school carried out by Else Nordahl, proved of Natural Resource Management in that the boat rivets originated from Roslagen. In order to get seal oil, which The purpose with the con- is thought to protect against ice and to pre-historic boats and that there were struction work of Embla at least 4 boat-graves from the early preserve the wood a seal was acquired Viking Age in this place. The boat- The very special thing about the recon- from which a quantity of seal oil was graves were found in the area between struction of Embla, is that it is the first obtained. This seal oil was supple- the parsonage and the East mound. time an Archaeology Department in mented with herring brine with good One of the boat-graves was chosen as a Sweden has devoted itself to experi- preservation qualities. In some cases model for the reconstruction which mental archaeology in the form of there was no information in the boat- was to be built. boat-building. The purpose was not grave about the technicalities of con- only to recreate the shape of a Viking structing the hull. This problem was Age hull, but also to produce this solved by making comparisons with Why boatgrave 3 in Old reconstruction with as contemporary better preserved boat finds from the Uppsala? methods, materials and tools as poss- Viking Age, above all the ”Vik” boat ible. In this way, the aim was to gain from Söderby-Karl (11th century) and The boat was in ”good condition” and knowledge about the conditions for the small boat from Årby in Rasbokil had been well documented, that is the boat-building at this time, possibilities, parish (9th century), which both have lines of rivets still lay in a quite undis- limitations, and problems but also to the main parts of their hulls preserved. turbed position and they had been study which traces the various Viking measured accurately one by one with Age tools leave on material in order to co-ordinates, height level and direction. The Viking Age boatbuilding be able to compare them with tool- The boat is a local find from the Old techniques, extent of preser- marks on archaeological finds. Another Uppsala parish, which is the activity vation and the properties of important purpose was to study how area of the local museum. long different operations take, and not wood The boat from the boat-grave was an least to study the characteristics of a Perhaps the most surprising feature in appropriate size for a reconstruction boat built using Viking Age methods, certain findings of boats from the and the width of the planks posed no comparing these with characteristics of Younger Iron Age and the Middle Ages insurmountable material problems. boats built with traditional boat-build- is that the wood is so well-preserved. The only remains from the boat were ing techniques. That oak lumber can remain well pre- the iron boat rivets. To obtain a picture During construction, it has been served during hundreds of years in of the boat, it had to be re-created on a necessary, in order to obtain as realistic saturated meadow lands is not remark- reconstruction sketch, according to conditions as possible, to use as a part able, but more so the fact that boat information about the position of the of the experiment some of the handi- remains can be preserved almost a hund- rivets. This was done in a 3D-program, crafts which have been prerequisite for red years in varied conditions without Microstation, with guidance from the ship building during the Viking Age. any other preservative than coating Department of Archaeology. The co- Some of those ancient techniques some parts with creosote and linseed ordinates and the height levels were fed include the production and the use of oil. Some boat parts have been exposed into the computer and finally a recon- rivets and nails from the same kind of to sunlight for several years in windows struction sketch emerged from the iron (bog-iron ore) which was used in facing south.