Northmen: The Viking Saga AD 793-1241 (5 page)

The genesis of the longship

Conflict is the essence of what is possibly the single most important archaeological find of the early Iron Age: a near-complete ‘war canoe’ and a hoard of weapons that were buried together in a bog at Hjortspring on the Danish island of Als around the time of Pytheas’ travels. The boat itself is the oldest plank-built boat yet found in Scandinavia and has enormous significance as the earliest known ancestor of the Viking longship. What is immediately most striking about the Hjortspring boat is its distinctive double beaked prows, which closely resemble those of the boats depicted in the Bronze Age petroglyphs, so it is likely to represent a well-established tradition of boat building. The boat was 56 feet (17 m) long by 6 feet (1.8 m) broad and was built from just five lime wood planks: a broad bottom plank with two overlapping planks on each side. This method of building a hull from overlapped planks, known variously as clinker, lapstrake or Nordic construction, is what marks the Hjortspring boat out as the earliest known ancestor of the Viking longships, whose hulls were built in the same way. The ends of the Hjortspring boat were closed with two carved wooden blocks that served as stemposts. The function, if any, of the projecting beaks is unknown. They may have been intended to ride up over the gunwales of an enemy boat and capsize it, or they may simply be a hangover from an earlier stage in the development of the Nordic boat-building tradition that were retained for cosmetic reasons: they do give the boat a racy appearance. No metal was used in the boat’s construction: the planks were sewn together and fastened to internal strengthening ribs with ropes made of lime tree bast. The boat was paddled by a crew of twenty – a useful number for a raiding party – who sat on thwarts set at the level of the gunwale. There was a steering oar at both ends, so the boat could be sailed in either direction. This would have been a great advantage for raiding because the boat could run right up a beach and the crew would not have had to turn it around if they needed to make a quick getaway. The boat was skilfully built to be as light as possible and sea trials with a replica have shown that it was fast, stable and relatively seaworthy. The boat was sunk in the bog with enough weapons to equip a small army: 138 iron tipped spears, thirty-one bone- or antler-tipped spears, eleven iron swords, sixty to eighty shields, and around twenty coats of mail, all but one of which survived only as rust prints in the peat. Plates from a bronze cauldron and the bones of a horse, a dog and a puppy, a lamb and calf were also found. Both ship and weapons survived thanks to the acidic and anaerobic (oxygen deficient) conditions found in peat bogs, which preserve organic materials like wood, textiles and leather by pickling them, while the lack of oxygen retards the rusting of iron.

The Hjortspring find is one of the earliest examples of a practice of sacrificing the spoils of war that became widespread in Scandinavia and adjacent areas of north Germany during the early Iron Age. No other known sacrifice approaches the Hjortspring find in scale, however, and its deposition must commemorate a major battle. The most likely scenario is that the ship and weapons belonged to a large army that invaded Als only to be defeated by the local inhabitants, who offered their plunder to their gods as a thank-offering for victory. There are enough weapons to equip at least eighty warriors, so the invaders would have needed a fleet of at least four Hjortspring-type boats and, of course, we don’t known how many of them escaped. It is clear, at least, that raiding by sea was already a serious business in early Iron Age Scandinavia.

It was not only weapons and boats that were sacrificed in bogs, people were too. No bog bodies have been found in Norway or Sweden but over 200 have been found in Denmark and neighbouring areas of northern Germany. Though the acidic conditions in the bogs have often completely dissolved the victims’ bones, in many cases their hair, skin and internal organs are so well-preserved that post mortem examinations have revealed much about their health, diet and causes of death. One surprise is that seafood appears not to have been an important part of the Danish diet in early Iron Age times. Most bog bodies show signs of a violent death, like Tollund Man, killed
c.
400
BC
by hanging, and Grauballe Man, whose throat was cut from ear to ear around 100 years later. Some of the victims were found pinned down in the bogs by heavy branches. In
Germania
, a treatise on the Germanic peoples written in
AD
98, the Roman historian Tacitus says that this was one of the methods used by the German tribes to execute criminals.

The warlike character of Scandinavian society intensified in the course of the Roman Iron Age. Many Roman weapons have been found in votive hoards, especially in Denmark, suggesting that Scandinavians frequently fought with their German neighbours to the south, who had direct access to Roman weaponry. The increasing importance of war in society is indicated by the appearance of warrior graves furnished with weapons, evidence that a warrior elite now dominated Scandinavian society. A small number of these graves are furnished with imported luxury goods, such as Roman silverware, jewellery and glass, indicating the rise within this elite of a class of chieftains or petty kings. Everyday Roman goods, like pottery and coins have also been found in some quantity in Scandinavia, show that trade with the Roman Empire was not confined to luxuries. There may have been direct trade with the empire by sea, but it is perhaps more likely that Roman goods reached Scandinavia through intermediaries in Germany. Not surprisingly, Roman artefacts are most common in Denmark, but they are not evenly distributed over the country. One remarkable concentration of Roman goods is found in the Stevns area of the island of Sjælland, suggesting that this was the centre of a powerful chiefdom or small kingdom, which could control trade over a wide area. Another striking site from the later part of the period is Gudme on the island of Fyn, where evidence for a 154-foot (47 m) long hall has been found: the largest known in Scandinavia from this period, it has been called ‘the King’s Hall’ and, certainly, a hall of such size implies the existence of a strong central authority. Over 1,000 Roman coins, including twenty gold denarii, have also been found at the site. Gudme means ‘god’s home’, so the place may have been a cult centre. Closely associated with Gudme is a seasonal port and trading place at Lundeborg, where Roman coins and other imports have been found, along with evidence of shipbuilding. This close association between religion and trade is also seen at the Iron Age trading place at Uppåkra near Lund in southern Sweden, where the remains of a wooden temple have been found. It is likely that trade fairs were held during religious festivals when plenty of visitors could be expected.

Sacrifices in Nydam Moss

No single place has provided more spectacular evidence of the warlike character of Scandinavia in the Roman Iron Age than Nydam Moss in southern Jutland. Now just north of the Danish-German border, in the Iron Age Nydam was probably in the territory of the Angles, the Germanic tribe from whom the English get their name. The moss is now a rather soggy meadow but in Roman times it was a reed-fringed lake. In the 1830s, local farmers digging peat from the by then silted up lake began to find old iron weapons and shields. These discoveries eventually caught the attention of antiquarians and between 1859 and 1863 the moss was excavated by the Danish archaeologist Conrad Engelhardt, who discovered large quantities of weapons, two intact clinker-built ships, one built of oak and one of pine, and another oak ship which had been deliberately broken up before its deposition. The excavations were brought to an end by the outbreak of war between Denmark and Prussia in 1864, after which the area remained under German rule until 1920. During the war the pine ship was chopped up for firewood by German soldiers and burned. Systematic re-excavation of the site in 1984–97 produced thousands more artefacts.

The modern science of dendrochronology, the analysis of the pattern of tree rings preserved in ancient timbers, has dated the oak ship’s construction very precisely to 310–320. The ship was not new when it was sacrificed, so it was probably sunk in the bog around 350. The larger of the two ships, the oak ship, was around 70 feet (921.3 m)long by 12 feet (3.65 m) broad and was propelled by a crew of thirty oarsmen. The ship was double-ended, with long raking prows and was steered by a side rudder, which was only loosely attached to the hull. Like the Hjortspring boat, which was found only a few miles away, the oak ship was built of overlapping planks, but instead of being sewn together they are fastened using iron clench nails. Internal strengthening frames were lashed to the hull planks using lime-bast rope as on the Hjortspring boat. No fittings for a mast were found so the oak ship did not have a sail. Drawings made of the pine boat before its destruction show that it was about 61 feet (18.6 m) long by 10 feet (3 m) broad, had a crew of about twenty two oarsmen and was built in a generally similar way to the oak ship. There was no evidence that the ship had a mast. The modern re-excavation of the site discovered many fragments of the pine ship, the most important of which was a side rudder, which had been attached firmly to the side of the ship on a wooden boss. This type of side rudder continued to be used on longships until after the end of the Viking Age. Rudders were always fitted to the right-hand side of the ship, hence ‘starboard’ (from Old Norse
styri
/steer and
borð/
side of the ship). A shield found in the ship was made of timber felled in 296, so the ship was probably sacrificed in the early fourth century. Most of the third ship is thought still to be in the bog, but it was certainly rowed rather than paddled and its planks were fastened with iron clench nails. This ship was built of wood felled in
AD
190, so it was probably sacrificed in the early third century.

The change since the early Iron Age from paddling to rowing is significant. For raiding, paddling has the advantage that all the crew can see where they are going, can keep a look-out for the enemy, and can disembark and re-embark more quickly than a crew of oarsmen. On the other hand, rowing is much more energy efficient than paddling so its adoption made it possible to raid further afield. The pine ship is evidence for this as it was probably built in Sweden. Pines large enough for shipbuilding did not grow in southern Scandinavia at this time and the ship’s timbers were decorated with patterns that are also found on contemporary inscribed stones in Sweden. The timing of the transition is uncertain but the earliest evidence for the use of oars is a rowlock found in a bog in Hordaland in Norway, which dates to
c.
30
BC
–
AD
250. The question of the timing of the adoption of the sail in Scandinavia is a controversial one because the evidence is inconclusive. The Celtic peoples of Gaul, Britain and Ireland certainly used sailing ships in pre-Roman times and in his
Histories,
Tacitus describes the German tribes of the North Sea coast using sailing ships in their wars with Rome in the first century
AD
. However, in
Germania
, he also says that the
Suiones
(the Swedes) used neither sails nor oars on their ships. The two Nydam ships, of course, also used oars but not sails. At the time the ships were sacrificed, the Angles’ southern neighbours, the Saxons, were using sailing ships for pirate raids on Roman Britain and earning notoriety for their practice of sacrificing Roman prisoners to obtain a fair wind home. The Scandinavians cannot, therefore, have been ignorant of the sail in the fourth century. Many Scandinavian mercenaries and merchants must also have been familiar with Roman sailing ships. Despite this, the earliest clear evidence for the use of sails in the region is a seventh-century inscribed stone from Karlby on Jutland’s east coast showing a Nydam-type ship under sail.

The sail and Scandinavia

The slow adoption of the sail in Scandinavia is hard to explain, especially as the technology itself is not complex: a woollen blanket or leather cloak, two wooden poles and some rope are all that would have been needed to make a rudimentary sail. The most commonly advanced theory, that the keels of ships like the Nydam ships were too weak to support the stresses of sailing, has never been tested experimentally and seems unconvincing given that, globally, sails have been fitted to all manner of watercraft, a great many of which have been technologically far less sophisticated than either of the Nydam ships. The argument usually advanced is that if the sail was not adopted it was because there was no perceived need for it. Warships needed large crews anyway and a sail would simply make a raiding ship more conspicuous (Vikings sometimes lowered their sails when approaching a hostile coast to increase their chances of landing unobserved), so it may not have seemed so advantageous for short range raiding in sheltered fjords and coastal waters. Chiefs and kings may also have seen commanding a crew of oarsmen as an expression of their own power. However, rowing long distances is hard work even for those accustomed to it, so these arguments are not really convincing. Perhaps it was only when Scandinavians began setting out on raiding and trading voyages beyond Scandinavian waters in the fifth century that the benefits of the sail become obvious to these technologically conservative seafarers?

The ships were only part of the Nydam find. Excavations have uncovered thousands of weapons, or parts of weapons, including swords, spears, lances, axes, and bows and arrows, elaborately decorated wooden scabbards, silver fittings from scabbards and belts, silver bars, and other personal items like combs and wooden storage boxes. The largest number of weapons were found in and around the ships but there were also many other weapon sacrifices in the bog. Most consisted of only a few spear or lance heads but one, which was surrounded by a fence of thirty-six swords thrust down into the bog, contained over 1,000 objects. Deposited
c.
450 – 475, this was the last known weapon sacrifice at Nydam and one of the last in Scandinavia. Beliefs were changing again, bogs lost their significance as sacred places and the custom of bog sacrifices died out.