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Post by Admin on Oct 24, 2016 20:51:53 GMT
It is common to say that the Viking Age began with the attack on Lindisfarne monastery in 793 AD and lasted until the battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 when king Haraldr Hardráði (Hard-Ruler) fell. In Britain, even small groups of Vikings operating with three to six ships could wreak havoc, and such raids crushed existing power structures and paved the way for the establishment of the kingdoms of England and Scotland. In Ireland, the Vikings established the first great cities. In the continent they influenced the divisions of the Carolingian Empire and established the realm of Normandy which had an enormous influence on the history of France, England and Italy. Also Norway became a kingdom of its own as a direct result of the Viking Age. But Viking raids had been going on in Scandinavia a long time before the early 9th century. The various sagas suggest centuries of Viking fleets in the Baltic and Finnish oceans and along the Scandinavian and North European coasts, and Viking chieftains had settled in Aldeigjuborg, Russia, at least by 752 AD. But the raids were given a whole new character from the end of the 8th century AD onwards. It is now often believed that the Viking raids from Scandinavia from the start were attempts to ward off the Frankish expansion. Even in the early 8th century AD the threat from the south could be felt in Scandinavia. The Danes in particular could not but see the danger of invasion from the south and began building large defensive fleets and other ocean-based defensive systems. This was intensified when the Frankish leader Karl Martell (714-741) pillaged Friesland in 734 AD and killed their military leader. This Frankish victory so close to Denmark was the main reason why the Danes built such a strong naval military fleet, yet even as early as the 720s they had built their first canal defensive system, the Kanhave Canal. Another system of defense was to place poles in the ocean close to the entrance to important ports and power centers. The first Danish maritime military base in Schlei is dated to 734 AD and the first constructions of the great wall known as Danevirke began in 737 AD. The Danevirke was a sort of northern European “Chinese Wall” – the palisade was 4-5 meters high, and from the top the Danes could view well the flat landscape to the south. The Danevirke was North-Europe´s largest defense construction in its time and lasted until the 11th century AD. Scandinavian people had never before encountered such a dominant threat against their cultural, political and religious traditions. The way in which Charlemagne ruled was completely at odds with all their traditions. They had seen how he went forth in Sachsen, and saw that he also made attempts to gain influence in England and managed to make an alliance with the English people in 793 AD. It was easy for Scandinavians to see that the alliance between England and Frankland was dangerous and could be a way of strengthening the forces against Denmark. Norway lay right next in their path. Norwegians allied themselves with the Danes in their common interest against further Frankish expansion. In 787, the Franks had established a missionary station in Bremen very close to the Danish border at the time, and represented a possible military challenge against the Danes. They had seen for themselves that Christening under Charlemagne´s “protection” was strongly associated with military and political submission. With their intelligence-network in the form of traders, the Danes and the Norwegians gathered the information (confirmed in writing) that they were on the Anglo-Saxon missionary agenda. They had also seen and understood the consequences of Frankish missionary activity. Around 791 Charlemagne had gained so much power that he could go against Denmark. The Scandinavians and the Danes understood that they could not stand up against a Frankish land-army. However, they were the masters of naval warfare. They wanted to scare the Franks away. Some historians believe this was the reason for the rapid development of the famous Viking Ship constructions that began in this age. They used some years to build up a new fleet, and before the end of the 8th century this particular kind of war ship was tried out and deemed forever after successful. The first Viking attacks were most certainly meant to frighten the Franks out of their wits and a majority of them were consciously directed against Christian holy places and monasteries. As Bjørn Myhre writes about the Vikings: “They were not ignorant barbarians. They knew exactly the kind of military and ideological pressure they were up against.”
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Post by Admin on Nov 11, 2016 20:44:35 GMT
Dr Mark Collard, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen and currently the Canada Research Chair at the Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, along with colleague Ben Raffield and Neil Price, Professor of Archaeology at Uppsala University , believes that changes in society had led to a desperate shortage of marriage partners. The growth of polygamy and social inequality in the late Iron Age meant that richer men took many wives, or concubines, causing an inbalance in the male-female sex ratio. Suddenly young poor men had little chance of securing a wife unless they became rich and well-known quickly, says Prof Collard. And raiding was a shortcut to heroism and treasure, he believes. “What is clear is that the sex ratio would have been substantially biased and increasing through time, and even small amounts of bias can have a big effect,” he said. “In a population where just a few powerful older men are able to have multiple concubines you end up with a large number of young single men quite rapidly. Some men would have two to three wives, but the Norse sagas say that some princes had limitless numbers. “So raiding was away to build up wealth and power. Men could gain a place in society, and the chance for wives if they took part in raids and proved their masculinity and came back wealthy. “Because polygynous marriage increases male-male competition by creating a pool of unmarried men, it increases risky status-elevating behaviour.” Recent studies found that aggression rises when there is a shift in the male-female sex ratio and where the percentage of unmarried men is greater, the rates of rape, murder, assault, theft and fraud also rise. New research has also shown that Yanomamo tribes in South America resort to inter-village raiding for polygamous marriages. Norse sagas such as The Saga of the People of Laxardal and the Saga of Harald suggest that by the time of the raids polygamous behaviour was normal in Scandinavia while the Saga of the People of Vatnsdal speaks of concubines.
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Post by Admin on Dec 3, 2016 20:47:49 GMT
A Viking toolbox found in Denmark has been opened for the first time in 1,000 years, revealing an extraordinary set of iron hand tools that may have been used to make Viking ships and houses, according to archaeologists. The tools were found this summer at a mysterious, ring-shaped fortress at Borgring, on the island of Zealand. The famed 10th-century Danish king Harald Bluetooth is thought to have ordered the construction of the fortress. The archaeologists are still studying the heavily rusted objects, but they've already identified several sophisticated hand tools and other metal items, including a set of "spoon drills" that were used to make holes in timber; what looks like a pair of tweezers or small pliers; a "clink nail" used to fasten wooden planks together; four carefully crafted chain links attached to an iron ring; and a drawplate to make metal wires that may have been used in jewelry. Archaeologist Nanna Holm, a curator at the Danish Castle Center in Vordingborg who is leading the excavations of the ringed-shaped fort at Borgring, said this is the first time an entire set of tools has been discovered in a Viking workplace. Iron was valuable in Viking-age Denmark, and the researchers think the tools once belonged to a craftsman who occupied a workroom in the gatehouse until it collapsed in the late 10th century. The archaeologists are still studying the heavily rusted objects, but they've already identified several sophisticated hand tools and other metal items, including a set of "spoon drills" that were used to make holes in timber; what looks like a pair of tweezers or small pliers; a "clink nail" used to fasten wooden planks together; four carefully crafted chain links attached to an iron ring; and a drawplate to make metal wires that may have been used in jewelry. The cache of iron tools was first located by amateur archaeologists using a metal detector near the eastern gate of the buried fortress at Borgring. That discovery inspired Holm's archaeological team in August to excavate the eastern gatehouse, where they removed the deposit of earth containing all the tools in one piece — a delicate process that took two days.
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Post by Admin on Dec 7, 2016 20:33:58 GMT
When Vikings returns, the History drama will begin a whole new era, expanding beyond just the saga of Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel) to encompass the journeys of his five sons as well. "We know that the historical Ragnar's greatest fear was that his sons might become more famous than he was. In fact, at least historically speaking, at least two of the sons did," creator Michael Hirst tells TVGuide.com. That's why the remaining 10 episodes of Vikings' supersized fourth season will not only chronicle Ragnar's attempt to reestablish his legacy, but also follow each of his sons as they attempt to build their own.
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Post by Admin on Apr 15, 2017 20:06:47 GMT
Bjarne Henning Nielsen, an archaeologist based in northern Jutland, believes that he may have found the tomb of the famous Viking chief Ulv Galiciefarer, the great-grandfather of Valdemar the Great, who was king of Denmark from 1157-1182. “It’s just a theory, an idea, but somebody has to say it first,” Nielsen told Videnskab. Galiciefarer, who became famous raiding, looting and pillaging in Galicia in northern Spain in the early 11th century, has been referred to in written literature as an “earl of Denmark”. That citation leads Nielsen to believe the tomb he has been exploring since 2009 could be that of the ‘Wolf’. A royal funeral An earl was an important official who, in the king’s absence, controlled a region or even an entire country. Such a person would probably have earned a princely funeral. Nielsen, who is curator at Vesthimmerlands Museum, has examined the graves of a number of other Danes of noble birth over the years and found similarities in the burial methods that lead him to believe that the tomb he is working on now is one of an important person. Plenty of clues The large tomb is surrounded by a dark ‘square’ in the ground – possibly the remains of a building that covered the burial site, which is consistent with other noble tombs from in and around the time period and the area it was found. A sword found with the knight buried in the tomb revealed that he lived and died during the first half of the 1000s. The area in and around Næsby in Jutland where the tomb is located is thought to have been part of Valdemar the Great’s ancestral heritage that was handed down to him from antiquity. “It is private property he inherited from his father’s side, and Galiciefarer is part of the lineage,” said Nielsen. “There is of course not a note in the grave saying ‘Here lies Ulv’, but the time and place fit and the burial is consistent with that of someone the king would want to honour.” No way to know for sure Nielsen conceded that his theory may be nothing more than a hopeful guess. “All we can do today is speculate, but someone wanted to honour the great hero who lies there, whose name we unfortunately may never know,” he said.
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