Vikings in the Gulf!
Wide and far
they fared
Needing sustenance
Over ice and wastelands
To Vinland they came
Wealth weighs little
For those who die early
--- Rune stone from Hønen, Norway.
Hurstwic Norse Exploration in North America
L'Anse aux Meadows
A Viking Age settlement with evidence of Norse artifacts has been uncovered
on the northernmost peninsula of Newfoundland at L'Anse aux Meadows located at
about 52 degrees north latitude. (See Map)
Facing Epaves Bay on Black Duck Brook, Dr. Helge Ingstad and his archaeologist
wife Anne discovered a small group of stone and turf buildings similar in style
to those used in Iceland and Greenland. This location fits the "Promontorium
Winlandiae" of some medieval maps.
In the first season, six house sites were identified, the largest appeared to be about 60 feet long and contained several rooms. Ember pits similar to those in Greenland were found in some of the houses. Radiocarbon analysis of samples from the site dated 1080 +/- 70 AD. A ring-headed bronze pin, commonly used as a cloths fastener by Norse men, was found in one of the houses. Native American stone implements and other artifacts were not found on this site. In general, very few artifacts were found, but the loose, acid soil made for poor preservation conditions.
In the 1962 season, a fragment of bone needle of the type used by Norsemen was found along with a piece of copper that turned out to have been formed by a primitive smelting process unknown to Native Americans at the time. Carbon 14 dating of charcoal from the hearth were these pieces were found indicated a date of 900 +/- 70 AD. Since charcoal would likely have been made from drift wood, a date well before the settlement period is not inconsistent.
Several lumps of iron slag were found in one of the houses that was excavated in the first seasons. This indicated to the Ingstads that the people who occupied this site were extracting bog iron. This is an intricate process which had been developed in Europe as far back as 2000 BC and was known in Norway by 400 BC. It was widely used during the Viking age and in the later middle ages in Norway. It required very close temperature control during smelting as well as knowlege of tempering to obtain useable tools. A source of bog iron nodules was discovered close to the brook, near the house site and the smithy was found across the brook from the houses. Carbon 14 dates from the hearth in the smithy ranged between 890 +/- 70 AD to 1090 +/- 90 AD.
The large house site was further excavated in 1963. This dwelling turned out to have been 70 feet long and 56 feet wide at its largest. It had five or six rooms. The biggest room was 26 feet long and about 14 feet wide. Two smaller rooms at each end make this structure look like a typical long-house. Lumps of slag, rusty nails, a needle whetstone and a stone lamp were found inside this house. A test trench in the large house in the 1964 season revealed a small stone ring which proved to be a Norse spindle-whorl.
After seven excavation seasons, Helge Ingstad concluded:
" An evaluation of the archaeological material can hardly lead to any other conclusion than that the site at L'Anse aux Meadows must be Norse and pre-Columbian. "
--Bakken
Graham-Campbell, James, ed. Cultural Atlas of the Viking World , New York: Facts on File, 1994.
Ingstad, Helge. Westward to Vinland. Erik J. Friis, Trans. New York: St Martin's Press, 1969.
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wonder upon those that they met, and went up upon the land. These people were black, and ill favoured, and had coarse hair on the head; they had large eyes and broad cheeks. They remained there for a time, and gazed upon those that they met, and rowed, afterwards, away to the southward, round the ness.
V I K I N G S : T H E N O R T H A T L A N T I C S A G A
People told me
when I came
Hither, all would be so fine;
The good Vinland, known to fame,
Rich in fruits, and choicest wine;
Now the water pail they send;
To the fountain I must bend,
Nor from out this land divine
Have I quaffed one drop of wine.
Vikings The North Atlantic Saga American Museum of Natural History
NORTH
ATLANTIC RIM, BARRIER
OR BRIDGE?
Suzanne O. Carlson
Just as Christians used a cross as a symbol, in the last of the Viking period pagans used the hammer of their popular god Thor as an ornament and amulet
Thor's Hammer is a powerful Norse symbol of masculine force. Named "Mjolnir" or "Mullicrusher", lightening is said to be caused by sparks from this God's hammer's blows. The "thunder-hammer of Thor the Destroyer" when hurled never missed its mark and always returned to the hand of the God. Tiny hammers were used as protective amulets and tools of magic. Thor's Hammer is said to revive the dead and represents Masculinity, Vengeance, and Justice.
Gold shone on the prows, silver also flashed on the variously shaped ships.
Encomium Emmae Reginae
TROTH: Chapter VI The Viking Age 782-1066 CE
Northvegr - The Norse Discovery of America
The Vikings (500 to 1100)
The Vikings (meaning "northmen") were the last of the barbarian tribes called Germans by the Romans to terrorize Europe. Spreading out from their homelands in Scandinavia, they struck suddenly across the seas from their dragon boats (called such because of the dragon heads carved on the bow and stern). They began by raiding, pillaging, and withdrawing before any serious armed resistance could be mounted, but they gradually grew more bold. Eventually they occupied and settled significant parts of Europe.
Being pagan, they did not hesitate to kill churchmen and loot church holdings, and they were feared for their ruthlessness and ferocity. At the same time, they were remarkable craftsmen, sailors, explorers, and traders.
The Viking homelands were Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. They and their descendants controlled, at least temporarily, most of the Baltic Coast, much of inland Russia, Normandy in France, England, Sicily, southern Italy, and parts of Palestine. They discovered Iceland in 825 (Irish monks were there already) and settled there in 875. They colonized Greenland in 985. Some people think that the Vikings reached Newfoundland and explored part of North America 500 years before the voyage of Columbus.
Vikings began raiding and then settling along the eastern Baltic Sea in the sixth and seventh centuries. At the end of the eighth century, they were making long raids down the rivers of modern Russia and setting up forts along the way for defense. In the ninth century, they were ruling Kiev and in 907 a force of 2000 ships and 80,000 men attacked Constantinople. They were bought off by the emperor of Byzantium with very favorable terms of trade.
Vikings struck first in the West in the late eighth century. Danes attacked and looted the famous island monastery at Lindisfarne on the northeast coast of England, beginning a trend. The size and frequency of raids against England, France, and Germany increased to the point of becoming invasions. Settlements were established as bases for further raids. Viking settlements in northwestern France came to be known as Normandy ("from the northmen"), and the residents were called Normans.
In 865 a large Danish army invaded England, and they went on to hold much of England for the next two centuries. One of the last kings of all England before 1066 was Canute, who ruled Denmark and Norway simultaneously. In 871 another large fleet sailed up the Seine River to attack Paris. They besieged the city for two years before being bought off with a large cash payment and permission to loot part of western France unimpeded.
In 911 the French king made the Viking chief of Normandy a duke in return for converting to Christianity and ceasing to raid. From the Duchy of Normandy came a remarkable series of warriors, including William I, who conquered England in 1066, Robert Guiscard and his family, who took Sicily from the Arabs between 1060 and 1091, and Baldwin I, king of the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem.
Viking raids stopped at the end of the tenth century. Denmark, Sweden, and Norway had become kingdoms, and much of their king's energy was devoted to running their lands. The spread of Christianity weakened the old pagan warrior values, which died out. The Norse were also absorbed by the cultures into which they had intruded. The occupiers and conquerors of England became English, the Normans became French, and the Rus became Russians.
The inhabitants of Scandinavia had made their living by herding, farming, and fishing for centuries. In the sixth and seventh centuries, they began trading along the Baltic Sea and deep into Russia along its great rivers. For reasons unknown, they began aggressively raiding the coasts of Europe suddenly in the late eighth century. Perhaps they were amazed at the relative riches they had encountered as traders, or they perceived a weakness among the civilizations to the south, or new sailing and boat technologies gave them the power to travel farther and more quickly. In 793 the pagan Vikings struck the great monastery at Lindisfarne, established by the Irish off the northeast coast of England.
Fast, low-draft longboats allowed the Vikings to strike quickly from the sea and up rivers. Because roads were so poor in the ninth century, the Vikings could concentrate against a rich village or monastery, land quickly, drive off any resistance, and carry off slaves and plunder before any organized response could be mounted. People living along the coasts and rivers of Germany, France, and Britain lived in fear of the raiders. The central authorities of these lands fell into disfavor because they could do little to defend against these hit-and-run attacks. The people turned to local nobles who built castles for defense. This shift of power strengthened the local nobles and weakened the kings.
The Vikings became bolder as the ninth century progressed. Larger Viking groups combined to make actual invasions, not just raids. They sacked major cities including Hamburg, Utrecht, and Rouen. They settled on islands off Britain, in parts of Ireland (founding Dublin), Iceland, and Greenland. The Danes captured and ruled the eastern half of England for a century. Another force sailed up the Seine River and besieged Paris for two years before being bought off with money and plunder. Another group ruled part of Russia from Kiev and assaulted Constantinople from the Black Sea. They raided the Muslim Iberian Peninsula and deep into the Mediterranean.
In the tenth century, the king of France bought peace with the Vikings by ceding them part of his country (Normandy, "from the northmen," or Normans) and making their ruler a French duke. As part of this agreement, the Normans converted to Christianity. The Normans became one of the most remarkable groups in the Middle Ages. Later they conquered England, establishing the first great European kingdom. Other Normans conquered Sicily, half of Italy, and established Crusader kingdoms in Palestine.
