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Pharaoh
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Pharaoah)
Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Pharaoh (disambiguation).
This article's lead section may not adequately summarize key points of its contents. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article. (January 2015)
After Djoser of the third dynasty, pharaohs were usually depicted wearing the nemes headdress, a false beard, and an ornate kilt.
O1
O29
pr-aa
"Great house"
in hieroglyphs
sw
t L2
t
A43 A45
S1
t S3
t
S2 S4
S5
nesu-bit
"King of Upper
and Lower Egypt"
in hieroglyphs
Pharaoh (/ˈfeɪ.roʊ/, /fɛr.oʊ/[1][2] or /fær.oʊ/[2]) is the common title of the kings of Ancient Egypt until the Macedonian conquest.[3]
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
2 Regalia 2.1 Scepters and staves
2.2 The Uraeus
3 Crowns and headdresses 3.1 Khat and nemes headdresses
3.2 Physical evidence
4 Titles 4.1 Nesw Bity name
4.2 Horus name
4.3 Nebty name
4.4 Golden Horus
4.5 Nomen and prenomen
5 See also
6 References
7 Bibliography
8 External links
Etymology[edit]
The term pharaoh ultimately was derived from a compound word represented as pr-ꜥ3, written with the two biliteral hieroglyphs pr "house" and ꜥꜣ "column". It was used only in larger phrases such as smr pr-aa 'Courtier of the High House', with specific reference to the buildings of the court or palace.[4] From the twelfth dynasty onward, the word appears in a wish formula 'Great House, may it live, prosper, and be in health', but again only with reference to the royal palace and not the person.
During the reign of Thutmose III (circa 1479–1425 BC) in the New Kingdom, after the foreign rule of the Hyksos during the Second Intermediate Period, pharaoh became the form of address for a person who was king.[5]
The earliest instance where pr-aa is used specifically to address the ruler is in a letter to Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten), who reigned circa 1353–1336 BC, which is addressed to 'Pharaoh, all life, prosperity, and health!.[6] During the eighteenth dynasty (16th to 14th centuries BC) the title pharaoh was employed as a reverential designation of the ruler. About the late twenty-first dynasty (10th century BC), however, instead of being used alone as before, it began to be added to the other titles before the ruler's name, and from the twenty-fifth dynasty (eighth to seventh centuries BC) it was, at least in ordinary usage, the only epithet prefixed to the royal appellative.[7]
From the nineteenth dynasty onward pr-ꜥꜣ on its own was used as regularly as hm.f, 'Majesty'. The term, therefore, evolved from a word specifically referring to a building to a respectful designation for the ruler, particularly by the twenty-second dynasty and twenty-third dynasty.[citation needed]
For instance, the first dated appearance of the title pharaoh being attached to a ruler's name occurs in Year 17 of Siamun on a fragment from the Karnak Priestly Annals. Here, an induction of an individual to the Amun priesthood is dated specifically to the reign of Pharaoh Siamun.[8] This new practice was continued under his successor Psusennes II and the twenty-second dynasty kings. For instance, the Large Dakhla stela is specifically dated to Year 5 of king 'Pharaoh Shoshenk, beloved of Amun' whom all Egyptologists concur was Shoshenq I--the founder of the Twenty-second dynasty--including Alan Gardiner in his original 1933 publication of this stela.[9] Shoshenq I was the second successor of Siamun. Meanwhile, the old custom of referring to the sovereign simply as pr-aa continued in traditional Egyptian narratives.[citation needed]
By this time, the Late Egyptian word is reconstructed to have been pronounced *par-ʕoʔ whence comes Ancient Greek φαραώ pharaō and then Late Latin pharaō. From the latter, English obtained the word "Pharaoh". In the Bible, the title also occurs as פרעה [par‘ōh]. Over time, *par-ʕoʔ evolved into Sahidic Coptic prro ⲡⲣ̅ⲣⲟ and then rro (by mistaking p- as the definite article prefix "the" from Ancient Egyptian pꜣ).[10]
Regalia[edit]
Scepters and staves[edit]
Scepters and staves were a general sign of authority in Ancient Egypt. One of the earliest royal scepters was discovered in the tomb of Khasekhemwy in Abydos. Kings were also known to carry a staff, and Pharaoh Anedjib is shown on stone vessels carrying a so-called mks-staff. The scepter with the longest history seems to be the heqa-scepter, sometimes described as the shepherd's crook. The earliest examples of this piece of regalia dates to pre-dynastic times. A scepter was found in a tomb at Abydos that dates to the late Naqada period.
Another scepter associated with the king is the was-scepter. This is a long staff mounted with an animal head. The earliest known depictions of the was-scepter date to the first dynasty. The was-scepter is shown in the hands of both kings and deities.
The flail later was closely related to the heqa-scepter (the crook and flail), but in early representations the king was also depicted solely with the flail, as shown in a late pre-dynastic knife handle which is now in the Metropolitan museum, and on the Narmer Macehead.[11]
The Uraeus[edit]
The earliest evidence we have of the use of the Uraeus—a rearing cobra—is from the reign of Den from the first dynasty. The cobra supposedly protected the pharaoh by spitting fire at its enemies.[11]
Crowns and headdresses[edit]
Narmer Palette
NarmerPalette-CloseUpOfNarmer-ROM.png NarmerPalette-CloseUpOfProcession-ROM.png
Narmer wearing the white crown Narmer wearing the red crown
The red crown of Lower Egypt – the Deshret crown – dates back to pre-dynastic times. A red crown has been found on a pottery shard from Naqada, and later, king Narmer is shown wearing the red crown on both the Narmer macehead and the Narmer palette.
The white crown of Upper Egypt – the Hedjet crown – is shown on the Qustul incense burner which dates to the pre-dynastic period. Later, King Scorpion was depicted wearing the white crown, as was Narmer.
The combination of red and white crown into the double crown – or Pschent crown – is first documented in the middle of the first dynasty. The earliest depiction may date to the reign of Djet, and is otherwise surely attested during the reign of Den.[11]
Khat and nemes headdresses[edit]
Den
The khat headdress consists of a kind of "kerchief" whose end is tied similarly to a ponytail. The earliest depictions of the khat headdress comes from the reign of Den, but is not found again until the reign of Djoser.
The Nemes headdress dates from the time of Djoser. The statue from his Serdab in Saqqara shows the king wearing the nemes headdress.[11]
Physical evidence[edit]
Egyptologist Bob Brier has noted that despite its widespread depiction in royal portraits, no ancient Egyptian crown ever has been discovered. Tutankhamun's tomb, discovered largely intact, did contain such regalia as his crook and flail, but no crown was found, however, among the funerary equipment. Diadems have been discovered.[12]
It is presumed that crowns would have been believed to have magical properties. Brier's speculation is that crowns were religious or state items, so a dead pharaoh likely could not retain a crown as a personal possession. The crowns may have been passed along to the successor.[citation needed]
Titles[edit]
Main article: Ancient Egyptian royal titulary
During the early dynastic period kings had as many as three titles. The Horus name is the oldest and dates to the late pre-dynastic period. The Nesw Bity name was added during the first dynasty. The Nebty name was first introduced toward the end of the first dynasty.[11] The Golden falcon (bik-nbw) name is not well understood. The prenomen and nomen were introduced later and are traditionally enclosed in a cartouche.[13] By the Middle Kingdom, the official titulary of the ruler consisted of five names; Horus, nebty, golden Horus, nomen, and prenomen[14] for some rulers, only one or two of them may be known.
Nesw Bity name[edit]
The Nesw Bity name, also known as Prenomen, was one of the new developments from the reign of Den. The name would follow the glyphs for the "Sedge and the Bee". The title is usually translated as king of Upper and Lower Egypt. The nsw bity name may have been the birth name of the king. It was often the name by which kings were recorded in the later annals and king lists.[11]
Horus name[edit]
The Horus name was adopted by the king, when taking the throne. The name was written within a square frame representing the palace, named a serekh. The earliest known example of a serekh dates to the reign of king Ka, before the first dynasty.[15] The Horus name of several early kings expresses a relationship with Horus. Aha refers to "Horus the fighter", Djer refers to "Horus the strong", etc. Later kings express ideals of kingship in their Horus names. Khasekhemwy refers to "Horus: the two powers are at peace", while Nebra refers to "Horus, Lord of the Sun".[11]
Nebty name[edit]
The earliest example of a nebty name comes from the reign of king Aha from the first dynasty. The title links the king with the goddesses of Upper and Lower Egypt Nekhbet and Wadjet.[11][13] The title is preceded by the vulture (Nekhbet) and the cobra (Wadjet) standing on a basket (the neb sign).[11]
Golden Horus[edit]
The Golden Horus or Golden Falcon name was preceded by a falcon on a gold or nbw sign. The title may have represented the divine status of the king. The Horus associated with gold may be referring to the idea that the bodies of the deities were made of gold and the pyramids and obelisks are representations of (golden) sun-rays. The gold sign may also be a reference to Nubt, the city of Set. This would suggest that the iconography represents Horus conquering Set.[11]
Nomen and prenomen[edit]
The prenomen and nomen were contained in a cartouche. The prenomen often followed the King of Upper and Lower Egypt (nsw bity) or Lord of the Two Lands (nebtawy) title. The prenomen often incorporated the name of Re. The nomen often followed the title Son of Re (sa-ra) or the title Lord of Appearances (neb-kha).[13]
Nomen and prenomen of Ramesses III
See also[edit]
Portal icon Ancient Egypt portal
Portal icon Monarchy portal
List of pharaohs
Coronation of the pharaoh
Great Royal Wife, the chief wife of a male pharaoh
Egyptian chronology
Pharaohs in the Bible
Pharaoh, a historical novel written by Bolesław Prus
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. Merriam-Webster, 2007. p. 928
2.^ Jump up to: a b Dictionary Reference: pharaoh
3.Jump up ^ Beck, Roger B.; Linda Black, Larry S. Krieger, Phillip C. Naylor, Dahia Ibo Shabaka, (1999). World History: Patterns of Interaction. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell. ISBN 0-395-87274-X.
4.Jump up ^ Ancient Egyptian Grammar (3rd ed.), A. Gardiner (1957) 71–76
5.Jump up ^ Redmount, Carol A. "Bitter Lives: Israel in and out of Egypt." p. 89–90. The Oxford History of the Biblical World. Michael D. Coogan, ed. Oxford University Press. 1998.
6.Jump up ^ Hieratic Papyrus from Kahun and Gurob, F. LL. Griffith, 38, 17. Although see also Temples of Armant, R. Mond and O. Myers (1940), pl.93, 5 for an instance possibly dating from the reign of Thutmose III.
7.Jump up ^ "pharaoh." in Encyclopædia Britannica. Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2008.
8.Jump up ^ J-M. Kruchten, Les annales des pretres de Karnak (OLA 32), 1989, pp.47-48
9.Jump up ^ Alan Gardiner, The Dakhleh Stela, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology Vol. 19, No. 1/2 (May, 1933) pp.19-30
10.Jump up ^ Walter C. Till: "Koptische Grammatik." VEB Verläg Enzyklopädie, Leipzig, 1961. p. 62
11.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j Wilkinson, Toby A.H. Early Dynastic Egypt. Routledge, 2001 ISBN 978-0-415-26011-4
12.Jump up ^ Shaw, Garry J. The Pharaoh, Life at Court and on Campaign. Thames and Hudson, 2012, pp. 21, 77.
13.^ Jump up to: a b c Dodson, Aidan and Hilton, Dyan. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. 2004. ISBN 0-500-05128-3
14.Jump up ^ Ian Shaw, The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press 2000, p. 477
15.Jump up ^ Toby A. H. Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt, Routledge 1999, pp. 57f.
Bibliography[edit]
Shaw, Garry J. The Pharaoh, Life at Court and on Campaign, Thames and Hudson, 2012.
Sir Alan Gardiner Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs, Third Edition, Revised. London: Oxford University Press, 1964. Excursus A, pp. 71–76.
Jan Assmann, "Der Mythos des Gottkönigs im Alten Ägypten," in Christine Schmitz und Anja Bettenworth (hg.), Menschen - Heros - Gott: Weltentwürfe und Lebensmodelle im Mythos der Vormoderne (Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2009), pp. 11–26.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaoh
Pharaoh
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Pharaoah)
Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Pharaoh (disambiguation).
This article's lead section may not adequately summarize key points of its contents. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article. (January 2015)
After Djoser of the third dynasty, pharaohs were usually depicted wearing the nemes headdress, a false beard, and an ornate kilt.
O1
O29
pr-aa
"Great house"
in hieroglyphs
sw
t L2
t
A43 A45
S1
t S3
t
S2 S4
S5
nesu-bit
"King of Upper
and Lower Egypt"
in hieroglyphs
Pharaoh (/ˈfeɪ.roʊ/, /fɛr.oʊ/[1][2] or /fær.oʊ/[2]) is the common title of the kings of Ancient Egypt until the Macedonian conquest.[3]
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
2 Regalia 2.1 Scepters and staves
2.2 The Uraeus
3 Crowns and headdresses 3.1 Khat and nemes headdresses
3.2 Physical evidence
4 Titles 4.1 Nesw Bity name
4.2 Horus name
4.3 Nebty name
4.4 Golden Horus
4.5 Nomen and prenomen
5 See also
6 References
7 Bibliography
8 External links
Etymology[edit]
The term pharaoh ultimately was derived from a compound word represented as pr-ꜥ3, written with the two biliteral hieroglyphs pr "house" and ꜥꜣ "column". It was used only in larger phrases such as smr pr-aa 'Courtier of the High House', with specific reference to the buildings of the court or palace.[4] From the twelfth dynasty onward, the word appears in a wish formula 'Great House, may it live, prosper, and be in health', but again only with reference to the royal palace and not the person.
During the reign of Thutmose III (circa 1479–1425 BC) in the New Kingdom, after the foreign rule of the Hyksos during the Second Intermediate Period, pharaoh became the form of address for a person who was king.[5]
The earliest instance where pr-aa is used specifically to address the ruler is in a letter to Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten), who reigned circa 1353–1336 BC, which is addressed to 'Pharaoh, all life, prosperity, and health!.[6] During the eighteenth dynasty (16th to 14th centuries BC) the title pharaoh was employed as a reverential designation of the ruler. About the late twenty-first dynasty (10th century BC), however, instead of being used alone as before, it began to be added to the other titles before the ruler's name, and from the twenty-fifth dynasty (eighth to seventh centuries BC) it was, at least in ordinary usage, the only epithet prefixed to the royal appellative.[7]
From the nineteenth dynasty onward pr-ꜥꜣ on its own was used as regularly as hm.f, 'Majesty'. The term, therefore, evolved from a word specifically referring to a building to a respectful designation for the ruler, particularly by the twenty-second dynasty and twenty-third dynasty.[citation needed]
For instance, the first dated appearance of the title pharaoh being attached to a ruler's name occurs in Year 17 of Siamun on a fragment from the Karnak Priestly Annals. Here, an induction of an individual to the Amun priesthood is dated specifically to the reign of Pharaoh Siamun.[8] This new practice was continued under his successor Psusennes II and the twenty-second dynasty kings. For instance, the Large Dakhla stela is specifically dated to Year 5 of king 'Pharaoh Shoshenk, beloved of Amun' whom all Egyptologists concur was Shoshenq I--the founder of the Twenty-second dynasty--including Alan Gardiner in his original 1933 publication of this stela.[9] Shoshenq I was the second successor of Siamun. Meanwhile, the old custom of referring to the sovereign simply as pr-aa continued in traditional Egyptian narratives.[citation needed]
By this time, the Late Egyptian word is reconstructed to have been pronounced *par-ʕoʔ whence comes Ancient Greek φαραώ pharaō and then Late Latin pharaō. From the latter, English obtained the word "Pharaoh". In the Bible, the title also occurs as פרעה [par‘ōh]. Over time, *par-ʕoʔ evolved into Sahidic Coptic prro ⲡⲣ̅ⲣⲟ and then rro (by mistaking p- as the definite article prefix "the" from Ancient Egyptian pꜣ).[10]
Regalia[edit]
Scepters and staves[edit]
Scepters and staves were a general sign of authority in Ancient Egypt. One of the earliest royal scepters was discovered in the tomb of Khasekhemwy in Abydos. Kings were also known to carry a staff, and Pharaoh Anedjib is shown on stone vessels carrying a so-called mks-staff. The scepter with the longest history seems to be the heqa-scepter, sometimes described as the shepherd's crook. The earliest examples of this piece of regalia dates to pre-dynastic times. A scepter was found in a tomb at Abydos that dates to the late Naqada period.
Another scepter associated with the king is the was-scepter. This is a long staff mounted with an animal head. The earliest known depictions of the was-scepter date to the first dynasty. The was-scepter is shown in the hands of both kings and deities.
The flail later was closely related to the heqa-scepter (the crook and flail), but in early representations the king was also depicted solely with the flail, as shown in a late pre-dynastic knife handle which is now in the Metropolitan museum, and on the Narmer Macehead.[11]
The Uraeus[edit]
The earliest evidence we have of the use of the Uraeus—a rearing cobra—is from the reign of Den from the first dynasty. The cobra supposedly protected the pharaoh by spitting fire at its enemies.[11]
Crowns and headdresses[edit]
Narmer Palette
NarmerPalette-CloseUpOfNarmer-ROM.png NarmerPalette-CloseUpOfProcession-ROM.png
Narmer wearing the white crown Narmer wearing the red crown
The red crown of Lower Egypt – the Deshret crown – dates back to pre-dynastic times. A red crown has been found on a pottery shard from Naqada, and later, king Narmer is shown wearing the red crown on both the Narmer macehead and the Narmer palette.
The white crown of Upper Egypt – the Hedjet crown – is shown on the Qustul incense burner which dates to the pre-dynastic period. Later, King Scorpion was depicted wearing the white crown, as was Narmer.
The combination of red and white crown into the double crown – or Pschent crown – is first documented in the middle of the first dynasty. The earliest depiction may date to the reign of Djet, and is otherwise surely attested during the reign of Den.[11]
Khat and nemes headdresses[edit]
Den
The khat headdress consists of a kind of "kerchief" whose end is tied similarly to a ponytail. The earliest depictions of the khat headdress comes from the reign of Den, but is not found again until the reign of Djoser.
The Nemes headdress dates from the time of Djoser. The statue from his Serdab in Saqqara shows the king wearing the nemes headdress.[11]
Physical evidence[edit]
Egyptologist Bob Brier has noted that despite its widespread depiction in royal portraits, no ancient Egyptian crown ever has been discovered. Tutankhamun's tomb, discovered largely intact, did contain such regalia as his crook and flail, but no crown was found, however, among the funerary equipment. Diadems have been discovered.[12]
It is presumed that crowns would have been believed to have magical properties. Brier's speculation is that crowns were religious or state items, so a dead pharaoh likely could not retain a crown as a personal possession. The crowns may have been passed along to the successor.[citation needed]
Titles[edit]
Main article: Ancient Egyptian royal titulary
During the early dynastic period kings had as many as three titles. The Horus name is the oldest and dates to the late pre-dynastic period. The Nesw Bity name was added during the first dynasty. The Nebty name was first introduced toward the end of the first dynasty.[11] The Golden falcon (bik-nbw) name is not well understood. The prenomen and nomen were introduced later and are traditionally enclosed in a cartouche.[13] By the Middle Kingdom, the official titulary of the ruler consisted of five names; Horus, nebty, golden Horus, nomen, and prenomen[14] for some rulers, only one or two of them may be known.
Nesw Bity name[edit]
The Nesw Bity name, also known as Prenomen, was one of the new developments from the reign of Den. The name would follow the glyphs for the "Sedge and the Bee". The title is usually translated as king of Upper and Lower Egypt. The nsw bity name may have been the birth name of the king. It was often the name by which kings were recorded in the later annals and king lists.[11]
Horus name[edit]
The Horus name was adopted by the king, when taking the throne. The name was written within a square frame representing the palace, named a serekh. The earliest known example of a serekh dates to the reign of king Ka, before the first dynasty.[15] The Horus name of several early kings expresses a relationship with Horus. Aha refers to "Horus the fighter", Djer refers to "Horus the strong", etc. Later kings express ideals of kingship in their Horus names. Khasekhemwy refers to "Horus: the two powers are at peace", while Nebra refers to "Horus, Lord of the Sun".[11]
Nebty name[edit]
The earliest example of a nebty name comes from the reign of king Aha from the first dynasty. The title links the king with the goddesses of Upper and Lower Egypt Nekhbet and Wadjet.[11][13] The title is preceded by the vulture (Nekhbet) and the cobra (Wadjet) standing on a basket (the neb sign).[11]
Golden Horus[edit]
The Golden Horus or Golden Falcon name was preceded by a falcon on a gold or nbw sign. The title may have represented the divine status of the king. The Horus associated with gold may be referring to the idea that the bodies of the deities were made of gold and the pyramids and obelisks are representations of (golden) sun-rays. The gold sign may also be a reference to Nubt, the city of Set. This would suggest that the iconography represents Horus conquering Set.[11]
Nomen and prenomen[edit]
The prenomen and nomen were contained in a cartouche. The prenomen often followed the King of Upper and Lower Egypt (nsw bity) or Lord of the Two Lands (nebtawy) title. The prenomen often incorporated the name of Re. The nomen often followed the title Son of Re (sa-ra) or the title Lord of Appearances (neb-kha).[13]
Nomen and prenomen of Ramesses III
See also[edit]
Portal icon Ancient Egypt portal
Portal icon Monarchy portal
List of pharaohs
Coronation of the pharaoh
Great Royal Wife, the chief wife of a male pharaoh
Egyptian chronology
Pharaohs in the Bible
Pharaoh, a historical novel written by Bolesław Prus
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. Merriam-Webster, 2007. p. 928
2.^ Jump up to: a b Dictionary Reference: pharaoh
3.Jump up ^ Beck, Roger B.; Linda Black, Larry S. Krieger, Phillip C. Naylor, Dahia Ibo Shabaka, (1999). World History: Patterns of Interaction. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell. ISBN 0-395-87274-X.
4.Jump up ^ Ancient Egyptian Grammar (3rd ed.), A. Gardiner (1957) 71–76
5.Jump up ^ Redmount, Carol A. "Bitter Lives: Israel in and out of Egypt." p. 89–90. The Oxford History of the Biblical World. Michael D. Coogan, ed. Oxford University Press. 1998.
6.Jump up ^ Hieratic Papyrus from Kahun and Gurob, F. LL. Griffith, 38, 17. Although see also Temples of Armant, R. Mond and O. Myers (1940), pl.93, 5 for an instance possibly dating from the reign of Thutmose III.
7.Jump up ^ "pharaoh." in Encyclopædia Britannica. Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2008.
8.Jump up ^ J-M. Kruchten, Les annales des pretres de Karnak (OLA 32), 1989, pp.47-48
9.Jump up ^ Alan Gardiner, The Dakhleh Stela, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology Vol. 19, No. 1/2 (May, 1933) pp.19-30
10.Jump up ^ Walter C. Till: "Koptische Grammatik." VEB Verläg Enzyklopädie, Leipzig, 1961. p. 62
11.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j Wilkinson, Toby A.H. Early Dynastic Egypt. Routledge, 2001 ISBN 978-0-415-26011-4
12.Jump up ^ Shaw, Garry J. The Pharaoh, Life at Court and on Campaign. Thames and Hudson, 2012, pp. 21, 77.
13.^ Jump up to: a b c Dodson, Aidan and Hilton, Dyan. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. 2004. ISBN 0-500-05128-3
14.Jump up ^ Ian Shaw, The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press 2000, p. 477
15.Jump up ^ Toby A. H. Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt, Routledge 1999, pp. 57f.
Bibliography[edit]
Shaw, Garry J. The Pharaoh, Life at Court and on Campaign, Thames and Hudson, 2012.
Sir Alan Gardiner Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs, Third Edition, Revised. London: Oxford University Press, 1964. Excursus A, pp. 71–76.
Jan Assmann, "Der Mythos des Gottkönigs im Alten Ägypten," in Christine Schmitz und Anja Bettenworth (hg.), Menschen - Heros - Gott: Weltentwürfe und Lebensmodelle im Mythos der Vormoderne (Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2009), pp. 11–26.
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Vikings
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For other uses, see Viking (disambiguation).
Sea-faring Danes depicted invading England. Illuminated illustration from the 12th century Miscellany on the Life of St. Edmund. Pierpont Morgan Library.
Snow cover across Scandinavia, as imaged by MODIS on board NASA's Terra satellite in 2002
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Vikings (Norwegian and Danish: Vikinger; Swedish and Nynorsk: Vikingar; Icelandic: Víkingar), from Old Norse víkingr, were Germanic Norse seafarers, speaking the Old Norse language, who raided and traded from their Scandinavian homelands across wide areas of northern and central Europe, as well as European Russia, during the late 8th to late 11th centuries.[1][2] The term is also commonly extended in modern English and other vernaculars to the inhabitants of Viking home communities during what has become known as the Viking Age. This period of Norse military, mercantile and demographic expansion constitutes an important element in the early medieval history of Scandinavia, the British Isles, France, Kievan Rus' and Sicily.[3]
Facilitated by advanced seafaring skills, and characterised by the longship, Viking activities at times also extended into the Mediterranean littoral, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. Following extended phases of (primarily sea- or river-borne) exploration, expansion and settlement, Viking (Norse) communities and polities were established in diverse areas of north-western Europe, European Russia, the North Atlantic islands and as far as the north-eastern coast of North America. This period of expansion witnessed the wider dissemination of Norse culture, while simultaneously introducing strong foreign cultural influences into Scandinavia itself, with profound developmental implications in both directions.
Popular, modern conceptions of the Vikings—the term frequently applied casually to their modern descendants and the inhabitants of modern Scandinavia—often strongly differ from the complex picture that emerges from archaeology and historical sources. A romanticized picture of Vikings as noble savages began to emerge in the 18th century; this developed and became widely propagated during the 19th-century Viking revival.[4][5] Perceived views of the Vikings as alternatively violent, piratical heathens or as intrepid adventurers owe much to conflicting varieties of the modern Viking myth that had taken shape by the early 20th century. Current popular representations of the Vikings are typically based on cultural clichés and stereotypes, complicating modern appreciation of the Viking legacy.
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology 1.1 Other names
2 History 2.1 Viking Age
2.2 Viking expansion 2.2.1 Motives
2.3 End of the Viking Age
3 Culture 3.1 Literature and language 3.1.1 Runestones
3.2 Burial sites
3.3 Ships
3.4 Everyday life 3.4.1 Social structure
3.4.2 Appearances
3.4.3 Farming and cuisine
3.4.4 Sports
3.4.5 Games and entertainment
3.4.6 Experimental archaeology
4 Weapons and warfare
5 Trade 5.1 Goods
6 Legacy 6.1 Medieval perceptions of the Vikings
6.2 Post-medieval perceptions 6.2.1 In 20th-century politics
6.2.2 In modern popular culture
6.3 Common misconceptions 6.3.1 Horned helmets
6.3.2 Barbarity
7 Genetic legacy
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
11 Further reading
12 External links
Etymology
A reconstructed Viking house in Iceland.
A reconstructed Viking Age long house, at Fyrkat, Denmark
One etymology derives víking from the feminine vík, meaning "creek, inlet, small bay".[6] Various theories have been offered that the word viking may be derived from the name of the historical Norwegian district of Viken (or Víkin in Old Norse), meaning "a person from Viken". According to this theory, the word simply described persons from this area, and it is only in the last few centuries that it has taken on the broader sense of early medieval Scandinavians in general. However, there are a few major problems with this theory. People from the Viken area were not called 'Viking' in Old Norse manuscripts, but are referred to as víkverir (Modern Norwegian: vikvær), 'Vík dwellers'. In addition, that explanation could only explain the masculine (Old Scandinavian víkingr) and ignore the feminine (Old Norse víking), which is a serious problem because the masculine is easily derived from the feminine but hardly vice versa. [7][8][9] The form also occurs as a personal name on some Swedish rune stones. There is little indication of any negative connotation in the term before the end of the Viking Age.
Another etymology derives viking from the same root as ON vika, f. ‘sea mile’, originally ‘the distance between two shifts of rowers’, from the root *weik or *wîk, as in the Proto-Germanic verb *wîkan, ‘to recede’. This is found in the Proto-Nordic verb *wikan, ‘to turn’, similar to Old Icelandic víkja (ýkva, víkva) ‘to move, to turn’, with well-attested nautical usages.[10] Linguistically, this theory is better attested,[10] and the term most likely predates the use of the sail by the Germanic peoples of North-Western Europe, because the Old Frisian spelling shows that the word was pronounced with a palatal k and thus in all probability existed in North-Western Germanic before that palatalization happened, that is, in the 5th century or before (in the western branch).[11] In that case, the idea behind it seems to be that the tired rower moves aside for the rested rower on the thwart when he relieves him. The Old Norse feminine víking (as in the phrase fara í víking) may originally have been a sea journey characterized by the shifting of rowers, i.e. a long-distance sea journey, because in the pre-sail era, the shifting of rowers would distinguish long-distance sea journeys. A víkingr (the masculine) would then originally have been a participant on a sea journey characterized by the shifting of rowers. In that case, the word Viking was not originally connected to Scandinavian seafarers but assumed this meaning when the Scandinavians begun to dominate the seas.[12]
In Old English, the word wicing appears first in the Anglo-Saxon poem, Widsith, which probably dates from the 9th century. In Old English, and in the history of the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen written by Adam of Bremen in about 1070, the term generally referred to Scandinavian pirates or raiders. As in the Old Norse usages, the term is not employed as a name for any people or culture in general. The word does not occur in any preserved Middle English texts. The word Viking was introduced into Modern English during the 18th-century Viking revival, at which point it acquired romanticised heroic overtones of "barbarian warrior" or noble savage. During the 20th century, the meaning of the term was expanded to refer not only to seaborne raiders from Scandinavia and other places settled by them (like Iceland and the Faroe Islands), but secondarily to any member of the culture that produced said raiders during the period from the late 8th to the mid-11th centuries, or more loosely from about 700 to as late as about 1100. As an adjective, the word is used to refer to ideas, phenomena, or artefacts connected with those people and their cultural life, producing expressions like Viking age, Viking culture, Viking art, Viking religion, Viking ship, and so on.[13]
Other names
The Vikings were known as Ascomanni "ashmen" by the Germans for the ash wood of their boats,[14] Lochlannach by the Gaels,[15] and Dene by the Anglo-Saxons.[16]
The Slavs, the Arabs and the Byzantines knew them as the Rus' or Rhōs,[17] probably derived from various uses of rōþs-, "related to rowing", or derived from the area of Roslagen in east-central Sweden, where most of the Vikings who visited the Slavic lands came from. Some archaeologists and historians of today believe that these Scandinavian settlements in the Slavic lands played a significant role in the formation of the Kievan Rus' federation, and hence the names and early states of Russia and Belarus.[18][19][20] The modern day name for Sweden in several neighbouring countries is possibly derived from rōþs-, Ruotsi in Finnish and Rootsi in Estonian.
The Slavs and the Byzantines also called them Varangians (Russian: варяги, from Old Norse Væringjar, meaning "sworn men", from vàr- "confidence, vow of fealty," related to Old English wær "agreement, treaty, promise," Old High German wara "faithfulness"[17]). Scandinavian bodyguards of the Byzantine emperors were known as the Varangian Guard.
History
Viking Age
Main article: Viking Age
Frankish empire, kingdoms, and tribes of Europe and near east, early 9th century, historical scholarship as of 1905, from "The Public Schools Historical Atlas" by Ch. Colbeck
The period from the earliest recorded raids in the 790s until the Norman conquest of England in 1066 is commonly known as the Viking Age of Scandinavian history.[21] Vikings used the Norwegian Sea and Baltic Sea for sea routes to the south. The Normans were descended from Vikings who were given feudal overlordship of areas in northern France—the Duchy of Normandy—in the 10th century. In that respect, descendants of the Vikings continued to have an influence in northern Europe. Likewise, King Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, had Danish ancestors. Two Vikings even ascended to the throne of England, with Sweyn Forkbeard claiming the English throne from 1013 - 1014 and his son Cnut the Great becoming king of England from 1016 - 1035.[22][23][24][25][26]
Geographically, a Viking Age may be assigned not only to Scandinavian lands (modern Denmark, Norway and Sweden), but also to territories under North Germanic dominance, mainly the Danelaw, including Scandinavian York, the administrative centre of the remains of the Kingdom of Northumbria,[27] parts of Mercia, and East Anglia.[28] Viking navigators opened the road to new lands to the north, west and east, resulting in the foundation of independent settlements in the Shetland, Orkney, and Faroe Islands; Iceland; Greenland;[29] and L'Anse aux Meadows, a short-lived settlement in Newfoundland, circa 1000.[30] They may have been deliberately sought out, perhaps on the basis of the accounts of sailors who had seen land in the distance. The Greenland settlement eventually died out, possibly due to climate change.[31] Viking dynasty also took control of territories in Slavic and Finno-Ugric-dominated areas of Eastern Europe, annexed Kiev in 882 to serve as the capital of the Kievan Rus'.[32]
As early as 839, when Swedish emissaries are first known to have visited Byzantium, Scandinavians served as mercenaries in the service of the Byzantine Empire.[33] In the late 10th century, a new unit of the imperial bodyguard formed. Traditionally containing large numbers of Scandinavians, it was known as the Varangian Guard. The word Varangian may have originated in Old Norse, but in Slavic and Greek it could refer either to Scandinavians or Franks. The most eminent Scandinavian to serve in the Varangian Guard was Harald Hardrada, who subsequently established himself as king of Norway (1047–66).
Important trading ports during the period include Birka, Hedeby, Kaupang, Jorvik, Staraya Ladoga, Novgorod, and Kiev.
There is archaeological evidence that Vikings reached Baghdad, the centre of the Islamic Empire.[34] The Norse regularly plied the Volga with their trade goods: furs, tusks, seal fat for boat sealant, and slaves.
Generally speaking, the Norwegians expanded to the north and west to places such as Ireland, Scotland, Iceland, and Greenland; the Danes to England and France, settling in the Danelaw (northern/eastern England) and Normandy; and the Swedes to the east, founding the Kievan Rus, the original Russia. Among the Swedish runestones mentioning expeditions overseas, almost half tell of raids and travels to western Europe. According to the Icelandic sagas, many Norwegian Vikings also went to eastern Europe. In the Viking Age, the present day nations of Norway, Sweden and Denmark did not exist, but were largely homogeneous and similar in culture and language, although somewhat distinct geographically. The names of Scandinavian kings are reliably known only for the later part of the Viking Age. After the end of the Viking Age the separate kingdoms gradually acquired distinct identities as nations, which went hand-in-hand with their Christianization. Thus the end of the Viking Age for the Scandinavians, also marks the start of their relatively brief Middle Ages.
Viking expansion
Main article: Viking expansion
Travels of the Vikings
Scandinavian settlements of the 8th through 11th centuries[image reference needed]
The Vikings explored the northern islands and coasts of the North Atlantic, ventured south to North Africa and east to Russia, Constantinople, and the Middle East.[19][20][35] They raided and pillaged, but also engaged in trade, settled wide-ranging colonies, and acted as mercenaries.[36] Vikings under Leif Ericson, heir to Erik the Red, reached North America and set up short-lived settlements in present-day L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, and Labrador, Canada.
Viking expansion into continental Europe was limited. Their realm was bordered by powerful cultures to the south. Early on it was the Saxons, who occupied Old Saxony, located in what is now Northern Germany. The Saxons were a fierce and powerful people and were often in conflict with the Vikings. To counter the Saxon aggression and solidify their own presence, the Danes constructed the huge defence fortification of Danevirke in and around Hedeby.[37] The Vikings soon witnessed the violent subduing of the Saxons by Charlemagne, in the thirty-year Saxon Wars in 772-804. The Saxon defeat resulted in their forced christening and absorption of Old Saxony in the Carolingian Empire. Fearing the Franks, this led the Vikings to further expand Danevirke and the defence constructions were in use throughout the Viking Age and even up until 1864.[38] The south coast of the Baltic Sea was ruled by the Obotrites, a federation of Slavic tribes loyal to the Carolingians and later the Frankish empire. The Vikings – led by King Gudfred – destroyed the Obotrite city of Reric on the southern Baltic coast in 808 AD and transferred the merchants and traders to Hedeby. This secured their supremacy in the Baltic Sea, which remained throughout the Viking Age.
Motives
The motives driving the Viking expansion are a topic of much debate in Nordic history. One common theory posits that Charlemagne "used force and terror to Christianise all pagans", leading to baptism, conversion or death, and as a result Vikings and other pagans wanted revenge.[39][40][41][42][43] Professor Rudolf Simek states that "it is not a coincidence if the early Viking activity occurred during the reign of Charlemagne".[39][44] The penetration of Christianity into Scandinavia led to serious conflict dividing Norway for almost a century.[45]
Another explanation is that the Vikings exploited a moment of weakness in the surrounding regions. England suffered from internal divisions and was relatively easy prey given the proximity of many towns to the sea or to navigable rivers. Lack of organised naval opposition throughout Western Europe allowed Viking ships to travel freely, raiding or trading as opportunity permitted. The decline in the profitability of old trade routes could also have played a role. Trade between western Europe and the rest of Eurasia suffered a severe blow when the Roman Empire fell in the 5th century.[46] The expansion of Islam in the 7th century had also affected trade with western Europe.[47]
Raids in Europe including raids and settlements from Scandinavia, were not something new and also seen long before the Vikings came. The Jutes invaded the British Isles three centuries earlier, pouring out from Jutland during the Age of Migrations, before the Danes settled there. The Saxons and the Angles did the same, embarking from mainland Europe. The Viking raids were the first to be documented in writing by eyewitnesses, and they were much larger in scale and frequency than in previous times.[48]
End of the Viking Age
During the Viking Age, Scandinavian men and women travelled to many parts of Europe and beyond, in a cultural diaspora that left its traces from Newfoundland to Byzantium. This period of energetic activity also had a pronounced effect in the Scandinavian homelands, which were subject to a variety of new influences.[49] In the 300 years from the late 8th century, when contemporary chroniclers first commented on the appearance of Viking raiders, to the end of the 11th century, Scandinavia underwent profound cultural changes.
Blar a' Bhuailte, site of the Vikings' last stand in Skye
By the late 11th century, royal dynasties legitimised by the Catholic Church (which had had little influence in Scandinavia 300 years earlier) were asserting their power with increasing authority and ambition, and the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden had taken shape. Towns appeared that functioned as secular and ecclesiastical administrative centres and market sites, and monetary economies began to emerge based on English and German models.[50] By this time the influx of Islamic silver from the East had been absent for more than a century, and the flow of English silver had come to an end in the mid-11th century.[51] Christianity had taken root in Denmark and Norway with the establishment of dioceses during the 11th century, and the new religion was beginning to organise and assert itself more effectively in Sweden. Foreign churchmen and native elites were energetic in furthering the interests of Christianity, which was now no longer operating only on a missionary footing, and old ideologies and lifestyles were transforming. By 1103, the first archbishopric was founded in Scandinavia, at Lund, Scania, then part of Denmark.
The assimilation of the nascent Scandinavian kingdoms into the cultural mainstream of European Christendom altered the aspirations of Scandinavian rulers and of Scandinavians able to travel overseas, and changed their relations with their neighbours. One of the primary sources of profit for the Vikings had been slave-taking. The medieval Church held that Christians should not own fellow Christians as slaves, so chattel slavery diminished as a practice throughout northern Europe. This took much of the economic incentive out of raiding, though sporadic slaving activity continued into the 11th century. Scandinavian predation in Christian lands around the North and Irish Seas diminished markedly.
The kings of Norway continued to assert power in parts of northern Britain and Ireland, and raids continued into the 12th century, but the military ambitions of Scandinavian rulers were now directed toward new paths. In 1107, Sigurd I of Norway sailed for the eastern Mediterranean with Norwegian crusaders to fight for the newly established Kingdom of Jerusalem, and Danes and Swedes participated energetically in the Baltic Crusades of the 12th and 13th centuries.[52]
Culture
A variety of sources illuminate the culture, activities, and beliefs of the Vikings. Although they were generally a non-literate culture that produced no literary legacy, they had an alphabet and described themselves and their world on runestones. Most contemporary literary and written sources on the Vikings come from other cultures that were in contact with them.[53] Since the mid-20th century, archaeological findings have built a more complete and balanced picture of the lives of the Vikings.[54][55] The archaeological record is particularly rich and varied, providing knowledge of their rural and urban settlement, crafts and production, ships and military equipment, trading networks, as well as their pagan and Christian religious artefacts and practices.
Literature and language
See also: Old Norse and The Norse Sagas
One of the few surviving manuscript leaves from the Heimskringla Sagas, written by Snorri Sturluson c. 1260. The leaf tells of King Ólafur.
The most important primary sources on the Vikings are contemporary texts from Scandinavia and regions where the Vikings were active.[56] Writing in Latin letters was introduced to Scandinavia with Christianity, so there are few native documentary sources from Scandinavia before the late 11th and early 12th centuries.[57] The Scandinavians did write inscriptions in runes, but these are usually very short and formulaic. Most contemporary documentary sources consist of texts written in Christian and Islamic communities outside Scandinavia, often by authors who had been negatively affected by Viking activity.
Later writings on the Vikings and the Viking Age can also be important for understanding them and their culture, although they need to be treated cautiously. After the consolidation of the church and the assimilation of Scandinavia and its colonies into the mainstream of medieval Christian culture in the 11th and 12th centuries, native written sources begin to appear, in Latin and Old Norse. In the Viking colony of Iceland, an extraordinary vernacular literature blossomed in the 12th through 14th centuries, and many traditions connected with the Viking Age were written down for the first time in the Icelandic sagas. A literal interpretation of these medieval prose narratives about the Vikings and the Scandinavian past is of course doubtful, but many specific elements remain worthy of consideration, such as the great quantity of skaldic poetry attributed to court poets of the 10th and 11th centuries, the exposed family trees, the self images, the ethical values, all included in these literary writings.
Indirectly the Vikings have also left a window open to their language, culture and activities, through many Old Norse place names and words, found in their former sphere of influence. Some of these place names and words are still in direct use today, almost unchanged, and sheds light on where they settled and what specific places meant to them, as seen in place names like Egilsay (from Eigils Ø meaning Eigil's Island), Ormskirk (from Ormr kirkja meaning Orms Church or Church of the Worm), Meols (from merl meaning Sand Dunes), Snaefell (Snow Fell), Ravenscar (Ravens Rock), Vinland (Land of Wine or Land of Winberry), Kaupanger (Market Harbour) and Tórshavn (Thor's Harbour) or the religious centre of Odense, meaning a place where Odin was worshipped. It is also evident in concepts like the present day Tynwald on the Isle of Man. Common words in everyday English language, like some of the weekdays (Thursday means Thor's day), axle, crook, raft, knife, plough, leather, bylaw, thorp, skerry, ombudsman, husband, heathen, Hell, Norman and ransack stem from the Old Norse of the Vikings, and give us an opportunity to understand their interactions with the people and cultures of the British Isles.[58] In the Northern Isles of Shetland and Orkney, Old Norse completely replaced the local languages and over time evolved into the now extinct Norn language. Some modern words and names only emerge and contribute to our understanding after a more intense research of linguistic sources from medieval or later records, such as York (Horse Bay), Swansea (Sveinn's Isle) or some of the place names in Northern France like Tocqueville (Toki's farm).[59] Linguistic and etymological studies continue to provide a vital source of information on the Viking culture, their social structure and history and how they interacted with the people and cultures they met, traded, attacked or lived with in overseas settlements.[60][61] It has been speculated that several place names on the west coast of southern France might also stem from Viking activities.[62] Place names like Taillebourg (Trelleborg, meaning City of Thralls or Castle of Thralls) exist as far south as the Charente River.[63] Gascony and vicinity[64] is an active area of Viking archaeology at present.[65] A lot of Old Norse connections are evident in the modern-day languages of Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Faroese and Icelandic.[66] Old Norse did not exert any great influence on the Slavic languages in the Viking settlements of Eastern Europe. It has been speculated that the reason was the great differences between the two languages, combined with the Rus' Vikings more peaceful businesses in these areas and the fact that they were outnumbered. The Norse named some of the rapids on the Dnieper, but this can hardly be seen from the modern names.[67][68]
A consequence of the available written sources, which may have coloured how we perceive the Viking Age as a historical period, is that we know a lot more of the Vikings' activities in western Europe than in the East. One reason for this is that the peoples living in north-eastern Europe at the time were non-literate, and did not produce a legacy of literature. Another is that the vast majority of Scandinavian written sources come from Iceland, a nation originally settled by Norwegian colonists. As a result, there is much more material from the Viking Age concerning Norway than Sweden, which apart from many runic inscriptions, has almost no written sources from the early Middle Ages.
Runestones
Main article: Runestone
The Lingsberg Runestone, Sweden
The Viking peoples could read and write and used a non-standardized alphabet, called runor, built upon sound values. While there are few remains of runic writing on paper from the Viking era, thousands of stones with runic inscriptions have been found where Vikings lived. They are usually in memory of the dead, though not necessarily placed at graves. The use of runor survived into the 15th century, used in parallel with the Latin alphabet.
The majority of runic inscriptions from the Viking period are found in Sweden and date from the 11th century. The oldest stone with runic inscriptions was found in Norway and dates to the 4th century, suggesting that runic inscriptions pre-date the Viking period. Many runestones in Scandinavia record the names of participants in Viking expeditions, such as the Kjula runestone that tells of extensive warfare in Western Europe and the Turinge Runestone, which tells of a war band in Eastern Europe. Other runestones mention men who died on Viking expeditions. Among them are around 25 Ingvar runestones in the Mälardalen district of Sweden, erected to commemorate members of a disastrous expedition into present-day Russia in the early 11th century. Runestones are important sources in the study of Norse society and early medieval Scandinavia, not only of the Viking segment of the population.[69]
Runic inscriptions on the larger of the Jelling Stones
The Jelling stones date from between 960 and 985. The older, smaller stone was raised by King Gorm the Old, the last pagan king of Denmark, as a memorial honouring Queen Thyre.[70] The larger stone was raised by his son, Harald Bluetooth, to celebrate the conquest of Denmark and Norway and the conversion of the Danes to Christianity. It has three sides: one with an animal image, one with an image of the crucified Jesus Christ, and a third bearing the following inscription:
King Haraldr ordered this monument made in memory of Gormr, his father, and in memory of Thyrvé, his mother; that Haraldr who won for himself all of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian.[71]
Runestones attest to voyages to locations such as Bath,[72] Greece,[73] Khwaresm,[74] Jerusalem,[75] Italy (as Langobardland),[76] Serkland (i.e. the Muslim world),[77] England[78] (including London[79]), and various places in Eastern Europe. Viking Age inscriptions have also been discovered on the Manx runestones on the Isle of Man.
Burial sites
See also: Norse funeral and Ship burial
There are numerous burial sites associated with Vikings throughout Europe and their sphere of influence – in Scandinavia, the British Isles, Greenland, Iceland, Faeroe Islands, Germany, The Baltic, Russia, etc.. The burial practices of the Vikings were quite varied, from dug graves in the ground, to tumuli, sometimes including so-called ship burials.
Burial mounds at Gamle Uppsala
Burial mounds at Gamla Uppsala
Lindholm Høje
Some of the funerary stone settings at Lindholm Høje
Examples of Viking burial mounds and stone set graves, collectively known as tumuli.
Oseberg ship head post
Head post from the ship
The Oseberg ship prow
The ship prow
Details of the burial ship from Oseberg. On exhibit at Viking Ship Museum, Oslo.
According to written sources, most of the funerals took place at sea. The funerals involved either burial or cremation, depending on local customs. In the area that is now Sweden, cremations were predominant, in Denmark burial was more common, and in Norway both were common.[80] Viking barrows are one of the primary source of evidence for circumstances in the Viking Age.[81] The items buried with the dead give some indication as to what was considered important to possess in the afterlife.[82] We do not have any idea what mortuary services were given to dead children by the Vikings.[83] Some of the burial sites that are most important to our understanding of the Vikings include:
Norway: Oseberg; Gokstad; Borrehaugene.
Sweden: Gettlinge gravfält; the cemeteries of Birka, a World Heritage Site;[84] Valsgärde; Gamla Uppsala; Hulterstad gravfält, near Alby; Hulterstad, Öland.
Denmark: Jelling, a World Heritage Site; Lindholm Høje; Ladby ship; Mammen chamber tomb and hoard.
Scotland: Port an Eilean Mhòir ship burial; Scar boat burial, Orkney.
Faroe Islands: Hov.
Iceland: Mosfellsbær in Capital Region;[85][86] the boat burial in Vatnsdalur, Austur-Húnavatnssýsla.[80][87][88]
Greenland: Brattahlíð.[89]
Germany: Hedeby.
Latvia: Grobiņa.
Ukraine: the Black Grave.
Russia: Gnezdovo.
Ships
Main article: Viking ships
There have been several archaeological finds of Viking ships of all sizes, providing knowledge of the craftsmanship that went into building them. There were many types of Viking ships, built for various uses; the best-known type is probably the longship.[90] Longships were intended for warfare and exploration, designed for speed and agility, and were equipped with oars to complement the sail, making navigation possible independently of the wind. The longship had a long, narrow hull and shallow draught to facilitate landings and troop deployments in shallow water. Longships were used extensively by the Leidang, the Scandinavian defence fleets. The longship allowed the Norse to go Viking, which might explain why this type of ship has become almost synonymous with the concept of Vikings.[91][92]
Sea Stallion
The reconstructed longship Sea Stallion.
Knarr Haithabu
A model of the knarr ship type.
The longship facilitated far-reaching expeditions, but the Vikings also constructed several other types of ships.
The Vikings built many other types of watercraft, used for more peaceful tasks. The knarr was a dedicated merchant vessel designed to carry cargo in bulk. It had a broader hull, deeper draught, and a small number of oars (used primarily to manoeuvre in harbours and similar situations). One Viking innovation was the 'beitass', a spar mounted to the sail that allowed their ships to sail effectively against the wind.[93] It was common for seafaring Viking ships to tow or carry a smaller boat to transfer crews and cargo from the ship to shore.
Ships were an integral part of the Viking culture. They facilitated everyday transportation across seas and waterways, exploration of new lands, raids, conquests, and trade with neighbouring cultures. They also held a major religious importance. People with high status were sometimes buried in a ship along with animal sacrifices, weapons, provisions and other items, as evidenced by the buried vessels at Gokstad and Oseberg in Norway[94] and the excavated ship burial at Ladby in Denmark. Ship burials were also practised by Vikings abroad, as evidenced by the excavations of the Salme ships on the Estonian island of Saaremaa.[95]
Well-preserved remains of five Viking ships were excavated from Roskilde Fjord in the late 1960s, representing both the longship and the knarr. The ships were scuttled there in the 11th century, to block a navigation channel and thus protect Roskilde, then the Danish capital, from seaborne assault. The remains of these ships are on display at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde.
Everyday life
Social structure
The Viking society was divided into the three socio-economic classes of Thralls, Karls and Jarls. This is described vividly in the Eddic poem of Rigsthula, which also explains that it was the God Ríg - father of mankind also known as Heimdallr - who created the three classes. Archaeology has confirmed this social structure.[96]
Thralls were the lowest ranking class and were slaves. Slavery was of vital importance to Viking society, for everyday chores and large scale construction and also to trade and economy. Thralls were used as servants and workers in the farms and larger households of the Karls and Jarls and they were used for constructing fortresses, fortifications, ramps, canals, mounds, roads and similar hard work projects. According to the Rigsthula, Thralls were despised and looked down upon. New thralls were supplied by either the sons and daughters of thralls or they were captured abroad. The Vikings often deliberately captured many people on their raids in Europe, enslaved and made them into thralls. The new thralls were then brought back home to Scandinavia by boat, used on location or in newer settlements to build needed structures or sold, often to the Arabs in exchange for silver. Other names for thrall were 'træl' and 'ty'.
Karls were free peasants. They owned farms, land and cattle and engaged in daily chores like ploughing the fields, milking the cattle, building houses and wagons, but employed thralls to make ends meet. Other names for Karls were 'bonde' or simply free men.
The Jarls were the aristocracy of the Viking society. They were wealthy and owned large estates with huge longhouses, horses and many thralls. The thralls or servants took care of most of the daily chores, while the Jarls engaged in administration, politics, hunting, sports, paid visits to other Jarls or were abroad on expeditions. When a Jarl died and was buried, his household thralls were sometimes sacrificially killed and buried next to him, as many excavations have revealed.[97]
In daily life, there were many intermediate positions in the overall social structure and it is believed that there must have been some social mobility. These details are unclear, but titles and positions like hauldr, thegn, landmand, show mobility between the Karls and the Jarls.
Other social structures included the communities of félag in both the civil and the military spheres, to which its members (called félagi) were obliged. A félag could be centred around certain trades, a common ownership of a sea vessel or a military obligation under a specific leader. Members of the latter were referred to as drenge; one of the words for warrior. There were also official communities within towns and villages, the overall defence, religion, the legal system and the Things.
Women had a relatively free status in the Nordic countries of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, illustrated in the Icelandic Grágás and the Norwegian Frostating laws and Gulating laws.[98] The paternal aunt, paternal niece and paternal granddaughter, referred to as odalkvinna, all had the right to inherit property from a deceased man.[99] In the absence of male relatives, an unmarried woman with no son could, inherit not only property but also the position as head of the family from a deceased father or brother. Such a woman was referred to as Baugrygr, and she exercised all the rights afforded to the head of a family clan, such as the right to demand and receive fines for the slaughter of a family member, until she married, by which her rights were transferred to her husband.[100] After the age of 20, an unmarried woman, referred to as maer and mey, reached legal majority and had the right to decide of her place of residence and was regarded as her own person before the law.[101] An exception to her independence was the right to choose a marriage partner, as marriages was normally arranged by the clan.[102] Widows enjoyed the same independent status as unmarried women. A married woman could divorce her husband and remarry.[103] It was also socially acceptable for a free woman to cohabit with a man and have children with him without marrying him, even if that man was married: a woman in such a position was called frilla.[104] There was no distinction made between children born inside or outside of marriage: both had the right to inherit property after their parents, and there was no "legitimate" or "illegitimate" children.[105] Women had religious authority and were active as priestesses (gydja) and oracles (sejdkvinna);[106] they were active within art as poets (skalder)[107] and rune masters, and as merchants and medicine women.[108] These liberties gradually disappeared after the introductions of Christianity, and from the late 13th-century, they are no longer mentioned.[109]
Appearances
Typical jewellery worn by women of the Karls and Jarls. Ornamented silver brooches, coloured glass-beads and amulets.
The three classes were easily recognisable by their appearances. Men and women of the Jarls were well groomed with neat hairstyles and expressed their wealth and status by wearing expensive clothes (often silk) and well crafted jewellery like brooches, belt buckles, necklaces and arm rings. Almost all of the jewellery was crafted in specific designs unique to the Norse (see Viking art). Finger rings were seldom used and earrings were not used at all, as they were seen as a Slavic phenomenon. Most Karls expressed similar tastes and hygiene, but in a more relaxed and inexpensive way.[96][110]
Farming and cuisine
The Sagas tell us about the diet and cuisine of the Vikings,[111] but first hand evidence, like cesspits, kitchen middens and garbage dumps have proved to be of great value and importance. Undigested remains of plants from cesspits at Coppergate in York have provided a lot of information in this respect. Overall, archaeo-botanical investigations have been undertaken increasingly in recent decades, as a collaboration between archaeologists and palaeoethno-botanists. This new approach sheds new light on the agricultural and horticultural practices of the Vikings and therefore also on their cuisine.[112]
When the information from various sources are put together, a picture of a diverse cuisine, with lots of different ingredients emerges. Meat products of all kinds, such as cured, smoked and whey-preserved meat,[113] sausages and boiled or fried fresh meat cuts, were prepared and consumed.[114] There were plenty of seafood, bread, porridges, dairy products, vegetables, fruits, berries and nuts. Alcoholic drinks like beer, mead, bjórr (a strong fruit wine) and, for the rich, imported wine were served.[115][116]
Certain livestock were typical and unique to the Vikings, including the Icelandic horse, Icelandic cattle, a plethora of sheep breeds,[117] the Danish hen and the Danish goose.[118][119] The Vikings in York mostly ate beef, mutton, and pork with small amounts of horse meat. Most of the beef and horse leg bones were found split lengthways, to get out the marrow. The mutton and swine were cut into leg and shoulder joints and chops. The frequent remains of pig skull and foot bones found on house floors indicate that brawn and trotters were also popular. Hens were kept for both their meat and eggs, and the bones of game birds such as the black grouse, golden plover, wild ducks, and geese have also been found.[120]
Seafood was an important part of the diet, in some places even more so than meat. Whales and walrus were hunted for food in Norway and the north-western parts of the North Atlantic region, and seals were hunted nearly everywhere. Oysters, mussels and shrimps were eaten in large quantities and cod and salmon were popular fish. In the southern regions, herring was also important.[121][122][123]
Milk and buttermilk were popular, both as cooking ingredients and drinks, but were not always available, even at farms.[124] The milk came from cows, goats and sheep, with priorities varying from location to location,[125] and fermented milk products like skyr or surmjölk were produced as well as butter and cheese.[126]
Food was often salted and enhanced with spices, some of which were imported like black pepper. Home grown spices that were used included caraway, mustard and horseradish as evidenced from the Oseberg ship burial[115] or dill, coriander, and wild celery, as found during the archaeological examinations of cesspits at Coppergate in York. Thyme, juniper berry, sweet gale, yarrow, rue and peppercress were also used and cultivated in herb gardens.[112][127]
Vikings collected and ate fruits, berries and nuts. Apple (wild crab apples) plums and cherries were part of the diet,[128] as were rose hips and raspberry, wild strawberry, blackberry, elderberry, rowan, hawthorn and various wild berries, specific to the locations.[127] Hazelnuts were an important part of the diet in general and large amounts of walnut shells have been found in cities like Hedeby. The shells were used for dyeing and it is assumed the nuts were enjoyed as well.[112][124]
The invention and introduction of the mouldboard plough revolutionized agriculture in Scandinavia in the early Viking Age and made it possible to farm even the poor soils. In Ribe, grains of rye, barley, oat and wheat dated to the 8th century have been found and examined, and these are believed to have been cultivated locally.[129] Grains and flour were used for making porridges, some cooked with milk, some cooked with fruit and sweetened with honey, and also various forms of bread. Remains of bread from primarily Birka in Sweden were made of barley and wheat. It is unclear if the Norse leavened their breads, but their ovens and baking utensils suggest that they did.[130] Flax was a very important crop for the Vikings. For oil extraction, food consumption and most importantly the production of linen. More than 40% of all known textile recoveries from the Viking Age can be traced as linen. This suggests a much higher actual percentage, as linen is poorly preserved compared to wool for example.[131]
The quality of food for common people was not always particularly high. The research at Coppergate shows that the Vikings in York made bread from whole meal flour — probably both wheat and rye - but with the seeds of cornfield weeds included. Corncockle (Agrostemma), would have made the bread dark-coloured, but the seeds are poisonous, and people who ate the bread might have become ill. Seeds of carrots, parsnip, and brassicas were also discovered, but they were poor specimens and tend to come from white carrots and bitter tasting cabbages.[128] The rotary querns often used in the Viking Age inevitably left tiny stone fragments (often from basalt rock) in the flour and when eaten later on, these small stones wore down the teeth. The effects of this can be seen on skeletal remains of that period.[130]
Sports
Sports were widely practised and encouraged by the Vikings.[132][133] Sports that involved weapons training and developing combat skills were popular. This included spear and stone throwing, building and testing physical strength through wrestling, fist fighting, and stone lifting. In areas with mountains, mountain climbing was practised as a sport. Agility and balance were built and tested by running and jumping for sport, and there is mention of a sport that involved jumping from oar to oar on the outside of a ship's railing as it was being rowed. Swimming was a popular sport and Snorri Sturluson describes three types: diving, long-distance swimming and a contest in which two swimmers try to duck one another. Children often participated in some of the sport disciplines and women have also been mentioned as swimmers, although it is unclear if they took part in competition. King Olaf Tryggvason was hailed as a master of both mountain climbing and oar-jumping, and was said to have excelled in the art of knife juggling as well.
Skiing and ice skating were the primary winter sports of the Vikings, although skiing was also used as everyday means of transport in winter time and in the colder regions of the north.
Horse fighting was practised for sport, although the rules are unclear. It appears to have involved two stallions pitted against each other, within smell and sight of fenced-off mares. Whatever the rules were, the fights often resulted in the death of one of the stallions.
Icelandic sources refer to the sport of knattleik. A ball game akin to hockey, knattleik involved a bat and a small hard ball and was usually played on a smooth field of ice. The rules are unclear, but it was popular with both adults and children, even though it often led to injuries. Knattleik appears to have been played only in Iceland, where it attracted many spectators, as did horse fighting.
Hunting, as a sport, was limited to Denmark, where it was not regarded as an important occupation. Birds, deer, hares and foxes were hunted with bow and spear, and later with crossbows. The techniques were stalking, snare and traps and par force hunting with dog packs.
Games and entertainment
Rook, Lewis chessmen, at the British Museum in London
Both archaeological finds and written sources testify to the fact that the Vikings set aside time for social and festive gatherings.[132][133][134]
Board games and dice games were played as a popular pastime, at all levels of society. Preserved gaming pieces and boards show game boards made of easily available materials like wood, with game pieces manufactured from stone, wood or bone, while other finds include elaborately carved boards and game pieces of glass, amber, antler or walrus tusk, together with materials of foreign origin, such as ivory. The Vikings played several types of tafl games; hnefatafl, nitavl (Nine Men's Morris) and the less common kvatrutafl. Chess also appeared at the end of the Viking Age. Hnefatafl is a war game, in which the object is to capture the king piece – a large hostile army threatens and the king's men have to protect the king. It was played on a board with squares using black and white pieces, with moves made according to dice rolls. The Ockelbo Runestone shows two men engaged in Hnefatafl, and the sagas suggest that money or valuables could have been involved in some dice games.[132][134]
On festive occasions storytelling, skaldic poetry, music and alcoholic drinks, like beer and mead, contributed to the atmosphere.[134] Music was considered an art form and music proficiency as fitting for a cultivated man. The Vikings are known to have played instruments including harps, fiddles, lyres and lutes.[132]
Experimental archaeology
Experimental archaeology of the Viking Age is a flourishing branch and several places have been dedicated to this technique, such as Jorvik Viking Centre in United Kingdom, Sagnlandet Lejre and Ribe Viking Center in Denmark, Foteviken Museum[135] in Sweden or Lofotr Viking Museum in Norway. Viking-age reenactors have undertaken experimental activities such as iron smelting and forging using Norse techniques at Norstead in Newfoundland for example.[136]
On 1 July 2007, the reconstructed Viking ship Skuldelev 2, renamed Sea Stallion,[137] began a journey from Roskilde to Dublin. The remains of that ship and four others were discovered during a 1962 excavation in the Roskilde Fjord. Tree-ring analysis has shown the ship was built of oak in the vicinity of Dublin in about 1042. Seventy multi-national crew members sailed the ship back to its home, and Sea Stallion arrived outside Dublin's Custom House on 14 August 2007. The purpose of the voyage was to test and document the seaworthiness, speed, and manoeuvrability of the ship on the rough open sea and in coastal waters with treacherous currents. The crew tested how the long, narrow, flexible hull withstood the tough ocean waves. The expedition also provided valuable new information on Viking longships and society. The ship was built using Viking tools, materials, and much the same methods as the original ship.
Other vessels, often replicas of the Gokstad ship (full- or half-scale) or Skuldelev I have been built and tested as well. The Snorri (a Skuldelev I Knarr), was sailed from Greenland to Newfoundland in 1998.[138]
Weapons and warfare
Main article: Viking Age arms and armour
Viking swords
Our knowledge about the arms and armour of the Viking age is based on archaeological finds, pictorial representation, and to some extent on the accounts in the Norse sagas and Norse laws recorded in the 13th century. According to custom, all free Norse men were required to own weapons and were permitted to carry them all the time. These arms were indicative of a Viking's social status: a wealthy Viking had a complete ensemble of a helmet, shield, mail shirt, and sword. A typical bóndi (freeman) was more likely to fight with a spear and shield, and most also carried a seax as a utility knife and side-arm. Bows were used in the opening stages of land battles and at sea, but they tended to be considered less "honourable" than a melee weapon. Vikings were relatively unusual for the time in their use of axes as a main battle weapon. The Húscarls, the elite guard of King Cnut (and later of King Harold II) were armed with two-handed axes that could split shields or metal helmets with ease.
The warfare and violence of the Vikings were often motivated and fuelled by their beliefs in Norse religion, focusing on Thor and Odin, the gods of war and death.[139][140] In combat it is believed, that the Vikings sometimes engaged in a disordered style of frenetic, furious fighting known as berserkergang, leading them to be termed berserkers. Such tactics may have been deployed intentionally by shock troops and the berserk-state may have been induced through ingestion of materials with psychoactive properties, such as the hallucinogenic mushrooms, Amanita muscaria,[141] or large amounts of alcohol.[142]
Trade
See also: Trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks and Volga trade route
The scales and weights of a Viking trader. Used for measuring silver and sometimes gold. From the Sigtuna box.
The Vikings established and engaged in extensive trading networks throughout the known world and had a profound influence on the economic development of Europe and Scandinavia not the least.[143][144]
Except for the major trading centres of Ribe, Hedeby and the like, the Viking world was unfamiliar with the use of coinage and was based on so called bullion economy. Silver was the most common metal in the economy by large, although gold was also used to some extent. Silver circulated in the form of bars, or ingots, as well as in the form of jewellery and ornaments. Traders carried small scales, enabling them to measure weight very accurately, so it was possible to have a very precise system of trade and exchange, even without a regular coinage.[143]
Goods
The organized trade covered everything from ordinary items in bulk to exotic luxury products. The Viking ship designs, like that of the knarr, were an important factor in their success as merchants.[145] Imported goods from other cultures included:[146]
Spices were obtained from Chinese and Persian traders, who met with the Viking traders in Russia. Vikings used homegrown spices and herbs like caraway, thyme, horseradish and mustard,[147] but imported cinnamon.
Glass was much prized by the Norse. The imported glass was often made into beads for decoration and these have been found in their thousands. Åhus in Scania and the old market town of Ribe had major production of glass beads.[148][149][150]
Silk was a very important commodity obtained from Byzantium (modern day Istanbul) and China. It was valued by many European cultures of the time, and the Vikings used it to illustrate status such as wealth and nobility. Many of the archaeological finds in Scandinavia include silk.[151][152][153]
Wine was imported from France and Germany as a drink of the wealthy, to vary the regular mead and beer.
To counter these valuable imports, the Vikings exported a large variety of goods. These goods included:[146]
Amber - the fossilized resin of the pine tree - was frequently found on the North Sea and Baltic coastline. It was worked into beads and ornamental objects, before being traded. (See also the Amber Road).
Fur was also exported as it provided warmth. This included the furs of pine martens, foxes, bears, otters and beavers.
Cloth and wool. The Vikings were skilled spinners and weavers and exported woollen cloth of a high quality.
Down were collected and exported. The Norwegian west coast supplied eiderdowns and sometimes feathers were bought from the Samis. Down was used for bedding and quilted clothing. Fowling on the steep slopes and cliffs was dangerous work and was often lethal.[154]
Slaves, known as thralls in Old Norse. On their raids, the Vikings captured many people, among them monks and clergymen. They were sometimes sold as slaves to Arab merchants in exchange for silver.
Other exports included weapons, walrus ivory, wax, salt and cod. As one of the more exotic exports, hunting birds were sometimes provided from Norway to the European aristocracy, from the 10th century.[154]
Many of these goods were also traded within the Viking world itself, as well as goods such as soapstone and whetstone. Soapstone was traded with the Norse on Iceland and in Jutland, who used it for pottery. Whetstones were traded and used for sharpening weapons, tools and knives.[146] There are indications from Ribe and surrounding areas, that the extensive medieval trade with oxen and cattle from Jutland (see Ox Road), reach as far back as c. 720 AD. This trade satisfied the Vikings' need for leather and meat to some extent, and perhaps hides for parchment production on the European mainland. Wool was also very important as a domestic product for the Vikings, to produce warm clothing for the cold Scandinavian and Nordic climate, and for sails. Sails for Viking ships required large amounts of wool, as evidenced by experimental archaeology. There are archaeological signs of organized textile productions in Scandinavia, reaching as far back as the early Iron Ages. Artisans and craftsmen in the larger towns were supplied with antlers from organized hunting with large-scale reindeer traps in the far north. They were used as raw material for making everyday utensils like combs.[154]
Legacy
Medieval perceptions of the Vikings
In England the Viking Age began dramatically on 8 June 793 when Norsemen destroyed the abbey on the island of Lindisfarne. The devastation of Northumbria's Holy Island shocked and alerted the royal courts of Europe to the Viking presence. "Never before has such an atrocity been seen," declared the Northumbrian scholar Alcuin of York.[155] Medieval Christians in Europe were totally unprepared for the Viking incursions and could find no explanation for their arrival and the accompanying suffering they experienced at their hands save the "Wrath of God".[156] More than any other single event, the attack on Lindisfarne demonised perception of the Vikings for the next twelve centuries. Not until the 1890s did scholars outside Scandinavia begin to seriously reassess the achievements of the Vikings, recognizing their artistry, technological skills, and seamanship.[157]
Norse Mythology, sagas, and literature tell of Scandinavian culture and religion through tales of heroic and mythological heroes. Early transmission of this information was primarily oral, and later texts were reliant upon the writings and transcriptions of Christian scholars, including the Icelanders Snorri Sturluson and Sæmundur fróði. Many of these sagas were written in Iceland, and most of them, even if they had no Icelandic provenance, were preserved there after the Middle Ages due to the continued interest of Icelanders in Norse literature and law codes.
The 200-year Viking influence on European history is filled with tales of plunder and colonization, and the majority of these chronicles came from western witnesses and their descendants. Less common, though equally relevant, are the Viking chronicles that originated in the east, including the Nestor chronicles, Novgorod chronicles, Ibn Fadlan chronicles, Ibn Rusta chronicles, and brief mentions by Photius, patriarch of Constantinople, regarding their first attack on the Byzantine Empire. Other chroniclers of Viking history include Adam of Bremen, who wrote, in the fourth volume of his Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum, "[t]here is much gold here (in Zealand), accumulated by piracy. These pirates, which are called wichingi by their own people, and Ascomanni by our own people, pay tribute to the Danish king." In 991, the Battle of Maldon between Viking raiders and the inhabitants of Maldon in Essex was commemorated with a poem of the same name.
Post-medieval perceptions
A modern reenactment of a Viking battle
Early modern publications, dealing with what we now call Viking culture, appeared in the 16th century, e.g. Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (Olaus Magnus, 1555), and the first edition of the 13th-century Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus in 1514. The pace of publication increased during the 17th century with Latin translations of the Edda (notably Peder Resen's Edda Islandorum of 1665).
In Scandinavia, the 17th-century Danish scholars Thomas Bartholin and Ole Worm and the Swede Olaus Rudbeck used runic inscriptions and Icelandic sagas as historical sources. An important early British contributor to the study of the Vikings was George Hicke, who published his Linguarum vett. septentrionalium thesaurus in 1703–05. During the 18th century, British interest and enthusiasm for Iceland and early Scandinavian culture grew dramatically, expressed in English translations of Old Norse texts and in original poems that extolled the supposed Viking virtues.
The word "viking" was first popularised at the beginning of the 19th century by Erik Gustaf Geijer in his poem, The Viking. Geijer's poem did much to propagate the new romanticised ideal of the Viking, which had little basis in historical fact. The renewed interest of Romanticism in the Old North had contemporary political implications. The Geatish Society, of which Geijer was a member, popularised this myth to a great extent. Another Swedish author who had great influence on the perception of the Vikings was Esaias Tegnér, member of the Geatish Society, who wrote a modern version of Friðþjófs saga hins frœkna, which became widely popular in the Nordic countries, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
Everyday life in the Viking Age
Fascination with the Vikings reached a peak during the so-called Viking revival in the late 18th and 19th centuries. In Britain this was called Septentrionalism, in Germany "Wagnerian" pathos or Esotericism in Germany and Austria, and in the Scandinavian countries Romantic nationalism or Scandinavism. Pioneering 19th-century scholarly editions of the Viking Age began to reach a small readership in Britain, archaeologists began to dig up Britain's Viking past, and linguistic enthusiasts started to identify the Viking-Age origins of rural idioms and proverbs. The new dictionaries of the Old Norse language enabled the Victorians to grapple with the primary Icelandic sagas.[158]
Until recently, the history of the Viking Age was largely based on Icelandic sagas, the history of the Danes written by Saxo Grammaticus, the Russian Primary Chronicle, and Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib. Few scholars still accept these texts as reliable sources, as historians now rely more on archaeology and numismatics, disciplines that have made valuable contributions toward understanding the period.[159]
In 20th-century politics
The romanticised idea of the Vikings constructed in scholarly and popular circles in northwestern Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries was a potent one, and the figure of the Viking became a familiar and malleable symbol in different contexts in the politics and political ideologies of 20th-century Europe.[160] In Normandy, which had been settled by Vikings, the Viking ship became an uncontroversial regional symbol. In Germany, awareness of Viking history in the 19th century had been stimulated by the border dispute with Denmark over Schleswig-Holstein and the use of Scandinavian mythology by Richard Wagner. The idealised view of the Vikings appealed to Germanic supremacists who transformed the figure of the Viking in accordance with the ideology of the Germanic master race.[161] Building on the linguistic and cultural connections between Norse-speaking Scandinavians and other Germanic groups in the distant past, Scandinavian Vikings were portrayed in Nazi Germany as a pure Germanic type. The cultural phenomenon of Viking expansion was re-interpreted for use as propaganda to support the extreme militant nationalism of the Third Reich, and ideologically informed interpretations of Viking paganism and the Scandinavian use of runes were employed in the construction of Nazi mysticism. Other political organizations of the same ilk, such as the former Norwegian fascist party Nasjonal Samling, similarly appropriated elements of the modern Viking cultural myth in their symbolism and propaganda. In communist Russia, the ideology of Slavic racial purity led to the complete denial that Scandinavians had played a part in the emergence of the principalities of the Rus', which were supposed to have been founded by Slavs. Evidence to the contrary was suppressed until the 1990s. Novgorod now enthusiastically acknowledges its Viking history and has included a Viking ship in its logo.[162]
In modern popular culture
File:Jomvikings Winkinger Kampftraining.webm
Play media
Viking reenactment training (Jomsvikings group)
Led by the operas of German composer Richard Wagner, such as Der Ring des Nibelungen, Vikings and the Romanticist Viking Revival have inspired many creative works. These have included novels directly based on historical events, such as Frans Gunnar Bengtsson's The Long Ships (which was also released as a 1963 film), and historical fantasies such as the film The Vikings, Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead (movie version called The 13th Warrior), and the comedy film Erik the Viking. The vampire Eric Northman, in the HBO TV series True Blood, was a Viking prince before being turned into a vampire. Vikings appear in several books by the Danish American writer Poul Anderson, while British explorer, historian, and writer Tim Severin authored a trilogy of novels in 2005 about a young Viking adventurer Thorgils Leifsson, who travels around the world.
In 1962, American comic book writer Stan Lee and his brother Larry Lieber, together with Jack Kirby, created the Marvel Comics superhero Thor, which they based on the Norse god of the same name. The character is featured in the 2011 Marvel Studios film Thor and its sequel Thor: The Dark World and also appears in the 2012 film The Avengers and its associated animated series.
Since the 1960s, there has been rising enthusiasm for historical reenactment. While the earliest groups had little claim for historical accuracy, the seriousness and accuracy of reenactors has increased. The largest such groups include The Vikings and Regia Anglorum, though many smaller groups exist in Europe, North America, New Zealand, and Australia. Many reenactor groups participate in live-steel combat, and a few have Viking-style ships or boats.
The Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League are so-named owing to the large Scandinavian population in the US state of Minnesota.
Modern reconstructions of Viking mythology have shown a persistent influence in late 20th- and early 21st-century popular culture in some countries, inspiring comics, role-playing games, computer games, and music, including Viking metal, a subgenre of heavy metal music.
Common misconceptions
Horned helmets
Main article: Horned helmet
Magnus Barelegs Viking Festival
Apart from two or three representations of (ritual) helmets – with protrusions that may be either stylised ravens, snakes, or horns – no depiction of the helmets of Viking warriors, and no preserved helmet, has horns. The formal, close-quarters style of Viking combat (either in shield walls or aboard "ship islands") would have made horned helmets cumbersome and hazardous to the warrior's own side.
Historians therefore believe that Viking warriors did not wear horned helmets; whether such helmets were used in Scandinavian culture for other, ritual purposes, remains unproven. The general misconception that Viking warriors wore horned helmets was partly promulgated by the 19th-century enthusiasts of Götiska Förbundet, founded in 1811 in Stockholm.[163] They promoted the use of Norse mythology as the subject of high art and other ethnological and moral aims.
The Vikings were often depicted with winged helmets and in other clothing taken from Classical antiquity, especially in depictions of Norse gods. This was done to legitimize the Vikings and their mythology by associating it with the Classical world, which had long been idealized in European culture.
The latter-day mythos created by national romantic ideas blended the Viking Age with aspects of the Nordic Bronze Age some 2,000 years earlier. Horned helmets from the Bronze Age were shown in petroglyphs and appeared in archaeological finds (see Bohuslän and Vikso helmets). They were probably used for ceremonial purposes.[164]
Cartoons like Hägar the Horrible and Vicky the Viking, and sports kits such as those of the Minnesota Vikings and Canberra Raiders have perpetuated the myth of the horned helmet.[165]
Viking helmets were conical, made from hard leather with wood and metallic reinforcement for regular troops. The iron helmet with mask and mail was for the chieftains, based on the previous Vendel-age helmets from central Sweden. The only true Viking helmet found is from Gjermundbu in Norway. This helmet is made of iron and has been dated to the 10th century.[166]
Barbarity
The image of wild-haired, dirty savages sometimes associated with the Vikings in popular culture is a distorted picture of reality.[2] Non-Scandinavian Christians are responsible for most surviving accounts of the Vikings, and consequently, a strong possibility for bias exists. This attitude is likely attributed to Christian misunderstandings regarding paganism. Viking tendencies were often misreported, and the work of Adam of Bremen, among others, told largely disputable tales of Viking savagery and uncleanliness.[167]
Contrary to the wild, filthy image of Vikings, the early thirteenth-century chronicler John of Wallingford described a grave problem of Englishwomen seeking out Danish men as lovers because of their appealing "habit of combing their hair every day, of bathing every Saturday, and regularly changing their clothes," in contrast to local men.[168]
Genetic legacy
Studies of genetic diversity provide some indication of the origin and expansion of the Viking population. Haplogroup I-M253 (defined by specific genetic markers on the Y-chromosome) mutation occurs with the greatest frequency among Scandinavian males: 35 percent in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, and peaking at 40 percent within western Finland.[169] It is also common near the southern Baltic and North Sea coasts, and then successively decreasing further to the south geographically.
Genetic studies in the British Isles of the Y-DNA haplogroup R-M420, seen also across Scandinavia, have demonstrated that the Vikings settled in Britain and Ireland as well as raiding there. Both male and female descent studies show evidence of Norse descent in areas closest to Scandinavia, such as the Shetland and Orkney islands.[170] Inhabitants of lands farther away show most Norse descent in the male Y-chromosome lines.[171]
A specialised genetic and surname study in Liverpool demonstrated marked Norse heritage: up to 50 percent of males who belonged to original families, those who lived there before the years of industrialization and population expansion.[172] High percentages of Norse inheritance – tracked through R-M420 haplotype signatures – were also found among males in the Wirral and West Lancashire.[173] This was similar to the percentage of Norse inheritance found among males in the Orkney Islands.[174]
Recent research suggests that the Scottish warrior Somerled, who drove the Vikings out of Scotland and was the progenitor of Clan Donald, may have been of Viking descent, a member of haplogroup R-M420.[175]
See also
Faroese people
Geats
Gotlander
Gutasaga
Proto-Norse language
Scandinavian prehistory
Swedes (Germanic tribe)
Viking raid warfare and tactics
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Notes
1.Jump up ^ Viking (people), Encyclopædia Britannica.
2.^ Jump up to: a b Roesdahl, pp. 9–22.
3.Jump up ^ Brink 2008
4.Jump up ^ Wawn 2000
5.Jump up ^ Johnni Langer, "The origins of the imaginary viking", Viking Heritage Magazine, Gotland University/Centre for Baltic Studies. Visby (Sweden), n. 4, 2002.
6.Jump up ^ The Syntax of Old Norse by Jan Terje Faarlund; p 25 ISBN 0-19-927110-0; The Principles of English Etymology By Walter W. Skeat, published in 1892, defined Viking: better Wiking, Icel. Viking-r, O. Icel. *Viking-r, a creek-dweller; from Icel. vik, O. Icel. *wik, a creek, bay, with suffix -uig-r, belonging to Principles of English Etymology By Walter W. Skeat; Clarendon press; Page 479
7.Jump up ^ Eldar Heide (2005). "Víking - 'rower shifting'? An etymylogical contribution" (PDF). Arkiv för nordisk filologi 120: 41–54. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
8.Jump up ^ Walter W. Skeat: Principles of English Etymology Clarendon press, p. 479
9.Jump up ^ Kvilhaug, Maria. "The Tribe that Gave Vikings Their Name?". http://freya.theladyofthelabyrinth.com/. Freya. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
10.^ Jump up to: a b Hans C. Boas (13 May 2014). "Indo-European Lexicon - PIE Etymon and IE Reflexes". Linguistics Research Center. The University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
11.Jump up ^ Bernard Mees (2012). "Taking Turns: linguistic economy and the name of the Vikings". Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). Arkiv för nordisk filologi (academia.edu) 127: 5–12. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
12.Jump up ^ Eldar Heide (2008). "Viking, week, and Widsith. A reply to Harald Bjorvand". Centre of Medieval Studies (University of Bergen). Arkiv för nordisk filologi (ANF) (academia.edu) 123: 23–28. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
13.Jump up ^ Beard, David. "The Term "Viking"". http://www.archeurope.com. Archaeology in Europe. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
14.Jump up ^ Wolf 2004, p. 2.
15.Jump up ^ Educational Company of Ireland 2000, p. 472.
16.Jump up ^ Brookes 2004, p. 297.
17.^ Jump up to: a b D'Amato 2010, p. 3.
18.Jump up ^ Douglas Harper: Russia Online Etymology Dictionary. A private homepage project.
19.^ Jump up to: a b "Land of the Rus - Viking explorations to the east". National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
20.^ Jump up to: a b "Dangerous journeys to Eastern Europe and Russia". National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
21.Jump up ^ Peter Sawyer, The Viking Expansion, The Cambridge History of Scandinavia, Issue 1 (Knut Helle, ed., 2003), p.105.
22.Jump up ^ Lund, Niels (2001). "The Danish Empire and the End of the Viking Age", The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings. Ed. P. H. Sawyer. Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 167–181. ISBN 0-19-285434-8.
23.Jump up ^ The Royal Household, "Sweyn", The official Website of The British Monarchy, 15 March 2015, accessed 15 March 2015
24.Jump up ^ Lawson, M K (2004). "Cnut: England's Viking King 1016-35". The History Press Ltd, 2005, ISBN 978-0582059702.
25.Jump up ^ The Royal Household, "Canute The Great", The official Website of The British Monarchy, 15 March 2015, accessed 15 March 2015
26.Jump up ^ Badsey, S. Nicolle, D, Turnbull, S (1999). "The Timechart of Military History". Worth Press Ltd, 2000, ISBN 1-903025-00-1.
27.Jump up ^ "History of Northumbria: Viking era 866 AD–1066 AD" www.englandnortheast.co.uk.
28.Jump up ^ Toyne, Stanley Mease. The Scandinavians in history Pg.27. 1970.
29.Jump up ^ The Fate of Greenland's Vikings, by Dale Mackenzie Brown, Archaeological Institute of America, 28 February 2000
30.Jump up ^ "The Norse discovery of America". Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. 4 April 2012. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
31.Jump up ^ Ross, Valerie (31 May 2011). "Climate change froze Vikings out of Greenland". Discover (Kalmback Publishing). Retrieved 6 April 2013.
32.Jump up ^ Rurik Dynasty (medieval Russian rulers) Britannica Online Encyclopedia
33.Jump up ^ Hall, p. 98
34.Jump up ^ "Vikings' Barbaric Bad Rap Beginning to Fade". News.nationalgeographic.com. 28 October 2010. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
35.Jump up ^ "Los vikingos en Al-Andalus (abstract available in English)" (PDF). Jesús Riosalido. 1997. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
36.Jump up ^ John Haywood: Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings, Penguin (1996). Detailed maps of Viking settlements in Scotland, Ireland, England, Iceland and Normandy.
37.Jump up ^ Matthias Schulz (27 August 2010). "'Sensational' Discovery: Archeologists Find Gateway to the Viking Empire". Spiegel Online International. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
38.Jump up ^ Lotte Flugt Kold (3 November 2014). "Dannevirke". danmarkshistorien.dk (in Danish). Aarhus University. Retrieved 20 December 2014.
39.^ Jump up to: a b Rudolf Simek, "the emergence of the viking age: circumstances and conditions", "The vikings first Europeans VIII–XI century—the new discoveries of archaeology", other, 2005, pp. 24–25
40.Jump up ^ Bruno Dumézil, master of Conference at Paris X-Nanterre, Normalien, aggregated history, author of conversion and freedom in the barbarian kingdoms. 5th–8th centuries (Fayard, 2005)
41.Jump up ^ "Franques Royal Annals" cited in Peter Sawyer, "The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings", 2001, p. 20
42.Jump up ^ Dictionnaire d'histoire de France, Perrin, Alain Decaux and André Castelot, 1981, pages 184/185. ISBN 2-7242-3080-9.
43.Jump up ^ "the Vikings" R.Boyer history, myths, dictionary, Robert Laffont several 2008, p96 ISBN 978-2-221-10631-0
44.Jump up ^ François-Xavier Dillmann, "Viking civilisation and culture. A bibliography of French-language ", Caen, Centre for research on the countries of the North and Northwest, University of Caen, 1975, p.19, and "Les Vikings: the Scandinavian and European 800–1200", 22nd exhibition of art from the Council of Europe, 1992, p. 26
45.Jump up ^ "History of the Kings of Norway" by Snorri Sturlusson translated by Professor of History François-Xavier Dillmann, Gallimard ISBN 2-07-073211-8 pp. 15–16, 18, 24, 33–34, 38
46.Jump up ^ Macauley Richardson, Lloyd. "Books: Eurasian Exploration". Policy Review. Hoover Institution. Archived from the original on 2009-12-16.
47.Jump up ^ Crone, Patricia. Meccan trade and the rise of Islam First Georgias Press. 2004.
48.Jump up ^ "Viking expeditions and raids". National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
49.Jump up ^ Roesdahl, pp. 295–7
50.Jump up ^ Gareth Williams, 'Kingship, Christianity and coinage: monetary and political perspectives on silver economy in the Viking Age', in Silver Economy in the Viking Age, ed. James Graham-Campbell and Gareth Williams, pp. 177–214; ISBN 978-1-59874-222-0
51.Jump up ^ Roesdahl, pp. 296
52.Jump up ^ The Northern Crusades: Second Edition by Eric Christiansen; ISBN 0-14-026653-4
53.Jump up ^ "Written sources shed light on Viking travels". National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
54.Jump up ^ Hall, 2010, p. 8 and passim.
55.Jump up ^ Roesdahl, pp. 16–22.
56.Jump up ^ Hall, pp. 8–11
57.Jump up ^ Lindqvist, pp. 160–61
58.Jump up ^ See List of English words of Old Norse origin for further explanations on specific words.
59.Jump up ^ See Norman toponymy.
60.Jump up ^ Henriksen, Louise Kæmpe: Nordic place names in Europe Viking Ship Museum Roskilde
61.Jump up ^ Viking Words The British Library
62.Jump up ^ Joel Supéry. "Germanic Toponomy". Vikings in Aquitaine. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
63.Jump up ^ Joel Supéry. "A colony in Gascony?". Vikings in Aquitaine. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
64.Jump up ^ The French Regions of Poitou-Charentes and Aquitaine to be precise.
65.Jump up ^ Annie Dumont (2007). "Méthodes d'étude d'un site fluvial du haut Moyen Age: Taillebourg – Port d'Envaux, (Charente-Maritime)" (PDF). Proceedings of the 4th International Congress of Medieval and Modern Archaeology (in French) (Medieval Europe, Paris 2007). Retrieved 1 March 2014.
66.Jump up ^ Department of Scandinavian Research University of Copenhagen
67.Jump up ^ See information on the "Slavonic and Norse names of the Dnieper rapids" on Trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks.
68.Jump up ^ Else Roesdahl (prof. in Arch. & Hist.): The Vikings, Penguin Books (1999), ISBN 0-14-025282-7
69.Jump up ^ Sawyer, P H: 1997
70.Jump up ^ Jelling stones. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008.
71.Jump up ^ Rundata, DR 42
72.Jump up ^ baþum (Sm101), see Nordiskt runnamnslexikon PDF
73.Jump up ^ In the nominative: krikiaR (G216). In the genitive: girkha (U922$), k—ika (U104). In the dative: girkium (U1087†), kirikium (SöFv1954;20, U73, U140), ki(r)k(i)(u)(m) (Ög94$), kirkum (U136), krikium (Sö163, U431), krikum (Ög81A, Ög81B, Sö85, Sö165, Vg178, U201, U518), kri(k)um (U792), krikum (Sm46†, U446†), krkum (U358), kr... (Sö345$A), kRkum (Sö82). In the accusative: kriki (Sö170). Uncertain case krik (U1016$Q). Greece also appears as griklanti (U112B), kriklati (U540), kriklontr (U374$), see Nordiskt runnamnslexikon PDF
74.Jump up ^ Karusm (Vs1), see Nordiskt runnamnslexikon PDF
75.Jump up ^ iaursaliR (G216), iursala (U605†), iursalir (U136G216, U605, U136), see Nordiskt runnamnslexikon PDF
76.Jump up ^ lakbarþilanti (SöFv1954;22), see Nordiskt runnamnslexikon PDF
77.Jump up ^ serklat (G216), se(r)kl... (Sö279), sirklanti (Sö131), sirk:lan:ti (Sö179), sirk*la(t)... (Sö281), srklant- (U785), skalat- (U439), see Nordiskt runnamnslexikon PDF
78.Jump up ^ eklans (Vs18$), eklans (Sö83†), ekla-s (Vs5), enklans (Sö55), iklans (Sö207), iklanþs (U539C), ailati (Ög104), aklati (Sö166), akla-- (U616$), anklanti (U194), eg×loti (U812), eklanti (Sö46, Sm27), eklati (ÖgFv1950;341, Sm5C, Vs9), enklanti (DR6C), haklati (Sm101), iklanti (Vg20), iklati (Sm77), ikla-ti (Gs8), i...-ti (Sm104), ok*lanti (Vg187), oklati (Sö160), onklanti (U241), onklati (U344), -klanti (Sm29$), iklot (N184), see Nordiskt runnamnslexikon PDF
79.Jump up ^ luntunum (DR337$B), see Nordiskt runnamnslexikon PDF
80.^ Jump up to: a b Jasmine Idun Tova Lyman (2007), Viking Age graves in Iceland (PDF), University of Iceland, p. 4
81.Jump up ^ Medieval Archaeology: An Encyclopaedia (Pamela Crabtree, ed., 2001), "Vikings," p. 510.
82.Jump up ^ Roesdahl, p. 20.
83.Jump up ^ Roesdahl p. 70 (in Women, gender roles and children)
84.Jump up ^ The Hemlanden cemetery located here is the largest Viking Period cemetery in Scandinavia Phillip Pulsiano, Kirsten Wolf, ed. (1993). Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia (Illustrated ed.). United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. pp. 238–239. ISBN 978-0-8240-4787-0.
85.Jump up ^ Erlandson (2005). "A Viking-Age Valley in Iceland: The Mosfell Archaeological Project" (PDF). Medieval Archaeology Journal of the Society For Medieval Archaeology XLIX.
86.Jump up ^ See also Jon M. Erlandson.
87.Jump up ^ [I)ór Magnússon: Bátkumlió í Vatnsdal, Arbók hies íslenzka fornleifafélags (1966), 1-32
88.Jump up ^ A comprehensive list of registered pagan graves in Iceland, can be found in Eldjárn & Fridriksson (2000): Kuml og haugfé.
89.Jump up ^ Dale Mackenzie Brown (28 February 2000). "The Fate of Greenland's Vikings". Archaeology. the Archaeological Institute of America. Retrieved 22 February 2014.
90.Jump up ^ Longships are sometimes erroneously called drakkar, a corruption of "dragon" in Norse.
91.Jump up ^ Hadingham, Evan: Secrets of Viking Ships (05.09.00) NOVA science media.
92.Jump up ^ Durham, Keith: Viking Longship Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2002.
93.Jump up ^ Block, Leo, To Harness the Wind: A Short History of the Development of Sails, Naval Institute Press, 2002, ISBN 1-55750-209-9
94.Jump up ^ Ian Heath, The Vikings, p. 4, Osprey Publishing, 1985.
95.Jump up ^ Curry, Andrew (10 June 2013). "The First Vikings". Archaeology. the Archaeological Institute of America. Retrieved 22 February 2014.
96.^ Jump up to: a b Roesdahl, pp. 38–48, pp.61-71.
97.Jump up ^ Mari Kildah (5 December 2013). "Double graves with headless slaves". University of Oslo. Retrieved 23 June 2014.
98.Jump up ^ Borgström Eva (Swedish): Makalösa kvinnor: könsöverskridare i myt och verklighet (Marvelous women : gender benders in myth and reality) Alfabeta/Anamma, Stockholm 2002. ISBN 91-501-0191-9 (inb.). Libris 8707902.
99.Jump up ^ Borgström Eva (Swedish): Makalösa kvinnor: könsöverskridare i myt och verklighet (Marvelous women : gender benders in myth and reality) Alfabeta/Anamma, Stockholm 2002. ISBN 91-501-0191-9 (inb.). Libris 8707902.
100.Jump up ^ Borgström Eva (Swedish): Makalösa kvinnor: könsöverskridare i myt och verklighet (Marvelous women : gender benders in myth and reality) Alfabeta/Anamma, Stockholm 2002. ISBN 91-501-0191-9 (inb.). Libris 8707902.
101.Jump up ^ Borgström Eva (Swedish): Makalösa kvinnor: könsöverskridare i myt och verklighet (Marvelous women : gender benders in myth and reality) Alfabeta/Anamma, Stockholm 2002. ISBN 91-501-0191-9 (inb.). Libris 8707902.
102.Jump up ^ Borgström Eva(Swedish): Makalösa kvinnor: könsöverskridare i myt och verklighet (Marvelous women : gender benders in myth and reality) Alfabeta/Anamma, Stockholm 2002. ISBN 91-501-0191-9 (inb.). Libris 8707902.
103.Jump up ^ Ohlander, Ann-Sofie & Strömberg, Ulla-Britt, Tusen svenska kvinnoår: svensk kvinnohistoria från vikingatid till nutid, 3. (A Thousand Swedish Women's Years: Swedish Women's History from the Viking Age until now), [omarb. och utök.] uppl., Norstedts akademiska förlag, Stockholm, 2008
104.Jump up ^ Ohlander, Ann-Sofie & Strömberg, Ulla-Britt, Tusen svenska kvinnoår: svensk kvinnohistoria från vikingatid till nutid, 3. (A Thousand Swedish Women's Years: Swedish Women's History from the Viking Age until now), [omarb. och utök.] uppl., Norstedts akademiska förlag, Stockholm, 2008
105.Jump up ^ Ohlander, Ann-Sofie & Strömberg, Ulla-Britt, Tusen svenska kvinnoår: svensk kvinnohistoria från vikingatid till nutid, 3. (A Thousand Swedish Women's Years: Swedish Women's History from the Viking Age until now), [omarb. och utök.] uppl., Norstedts akademiska förlag, Stockholm, 2008
106.Jump up ^ Ingelman-Sundberg, Catharina, Forntida kvinnor: jägare, vikingahustru, prästinna [Ancient women: hunters, viking wife, priestess], Prisma, Stockholm, 2004
107.Jump up ^ Ingelman-Sundberg, Catharina, Forntida kvinnor: jägare, vikingahustru, prästinna [Ancient women: hunters, viking wife, priestess], Prisma, Stockholm, 2004
108.Jump up ^ Ingelman-Sundberg, Catharina, Forntida kvinnor: jägare, vikingahustru, prästinna [Ancient women: hunters, viking wife, priestess], Prisma, Stockholm, 2004
109.Jump up ^ Cite error: The named reference Anamma_2002 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
110.Jump up ^ "Appearance - What did the Vikings look like?". National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
111.Jump up ^ Sk. V. Gudjonsson (1941): Folkekost og sundhedsforhold i gamle dage. Belyst igennem den oldnordiske Litteratur. (Dvs. først og fremmest de islandske sagaer). København. (Danish) Short description in English: Diet and health in previous times, as revealed in the Old Norse Literature, especially the Icelandic Sagas.
112.^ Jump up to: a b c Pernille Rohde Sloth, Ulla Lund Hansen & Sabine Karg (2013). "Viking Age garden plants from southern Scandinavia – diversity, taphonomy and cultural aspect" (PDF). Danish Journal of Archaeology. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
113.Jump up ^ This will cause a lactic acid fermentation process to occur.
114.Jump up ^ "Forråd til vinteren - Salte, syrne, røge og tørre [Supplies for the winter - curing, fermenting, smoking and drying]". Ribe Vikingecenter (in Danish). Retrieved 20 April 2015.
115.^ Jump up to: a b Roesdahl, p. 54
116.Jump up ^ "Viking Food". National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
117.Jump up ^ See the article on the Northern European short-tailed sheep for specific information. In southern Scandinavia (ie. Denmark), the heath sheeps of Lüneburger Heidschnucke was raised and kept.
118.Jump up ^ "The animals on the farm - Genetic connection". Ribe Vikingecenter. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
119.Jump up ^ "Poultry". Danish Agricultural Museum. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
120.Jump up ^ O'Conner, Terry. 1999? "The Home- Food and Meat." Viking Age York. Jorvik Viking Centre.
121.Jump up ^ Roesdahl p. 102-117
122.Jump up ^ Nedkvitne, Arnved. "Fishing, Whaling and Seal Hunting." in Pulsiano, Phillip (1993). Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities.
123.Jump up ^ Inge Bødker Enghoff (2013). Huntng, fishing and animal husbandry at The Farm Beneath The Sand, Western Greenland. Man & Society 28 (the Greenland National Museum, Dansk Polar Center). Retrieved 23 June 2014.
124.^ Jump up to: a b "A Viking Feast - an abundance of foods". Ribe Vikingecenter. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
125.Jump up ^ Roesdahl, p. 110-111
126.Jump up ^ Fondén, R; Leporanta, K; Svensson, U (2007). "Chapter 7. Nordic/Scandinavian Fermented Milk Products". In Tamime, Adnan. Fermented Milks. Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9780470995501.ch7. ISBN 9780632064588.
127.^ Jump up to: a b "The Seastallion from Glendalough" (PDF) (in Danish). Vikingeskibsmuseet. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
128.^ Jump up to: a b Hall, A. R. 1999? "The Home: Food- Fruit, Grain and Vegetable." Viking Age York. The Jorvik Viking Centre.
129.Jump up ^ "The farm crops". Ribe Vikingecenter. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
130.^ Jump up to: a b "From grains to bread - coarse, heavy and filling". Ribe Vikingecenter (in Danish). Retrieved 19 June 2014.
131.Jump up ^ Bo Ejstrud et.al. (2011). "From Flax To Linen - experiments with flax at Ribe Viking Centre" (PDF). University of Southern Denmark. ISBN 978-87-992214-6-2. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
132.^ Jump up to: a b c d Kirsten Wolf: Daily Life of the Vikings Greenwood Press "Daily life through history" series, 2004, ISBN 0-313-32269-4, Ch. 7
133.^ Jump up to: a b Isak Ladegaard (19 November 2012). "How Vikings killed time". ScienceNordic. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
134.^ Jump up to: a b c "Games and entertainment in the Viking period". National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
135.Jump up ^ Fotevikens Museum Official homepage
136.Jump up ^ Darrell Markewitz 1998–2010. "IRON SMELTING at the Norse Encampment -Daily Life in the Viking Age circa 1000 AD at Vinland. The Viking Encampment living history program at Parks Canada L'Anse aux Meadows NHSC in Newfoundland". Warehamforge.ca. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
137.Jump up ^ Return of Dublin's Viking Warship. Retrieved 14 November 2007.
138.Jump up ^ "Beyond Lands' End: Viking Voyage 1000". Dougcabot.com. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
139.Jump up ^ Shona Grimbly (16 August 2013). Encyclopedia of the Ancient World. Routledge. pp. 121–. ISBN 978-1-136-78688-4.
140.Jump up ^ Dennis Howard Green; Frank Siegmund (2003). The Continental Saxons from the Migration Period to the Tenth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective. Boydell Press. pp. 306–. ISBN 978-1-84383-026-9.
141.Jump up ^ Howard D. Fabing. "On Going Berserk: A Neurochemical Inquiry." Scientific Monthly. 83 [Nov. 1956] p. 232
142.Jump up ^ Robert Wernick. The Vikings. Alexandria VA: Time-Life Books. 1979. p. 285
143.^ Jump up to: a b Gareth Williams: Viking Money BBC History
144.Jump up ^ Graham-Campbell, James: The Viking World, Frances Lincoln Ltd, London (2013). Maps of trade routes.
145.Jump up ^ Andrew Curry (July 2008). "Raiders or Traders?". Smithsonian Magazine. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
146.^ Jump up to: a b c Vikings as traders, Teachers' notes 5. Royal Museums Greenwhich
147.Jump up ^ "Herbs, spices and vegetables in the Viking period". National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
148.Jump up ^ Heidi Michelle Sherman (2008). Barbarians come to Market: The Emporia of Western Eurasia from 500 BC to AD 1000. ProQuest LLC. pp. 250–5. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
149.Jump up ^ HL Renart of Berwick: Glass Beads of the Viking Age. An inquiry into the glass beads of the Vikings. Sourced information and pictures.
150.Jump up ^ Glass and Amber Regia Anglorum. Sourced information and pictures.
151.Jump up ^ Yngve Vogt (1 November 2013). "Norwegian Vikings purchased silk from Persia". Apollon - research magazine. University of Oslo. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
152.Jump up ^ Marianne Vedeler: Silk for The Vikings, Oxbow 2014.
153.Jump up ^ Elizabeth Wincott Heckett (2002). "Irish Viking Age silks and their place in Hiberno-Norse society". Department of Archaeology, University College Cork, NUI Cork, Ireland. Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings (University of Nebraska - Lincoln (Digital Commons)). Retrieved 28 February 2014.
154.^ Jump up to: a b c Jørgensen, Lise Bender; Jesch, Judith (2002). "Rural Economy: Ecology, Hunting, Pastoralism, Agricultural and Nutritional Aspects". The Scandinavians - from the Vendel Period to the Tenth Century. Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Social Stress. pp. 131–7.
155.Jump up ^ English Historical Documents, c. 500–1042 by Dorothy Whitelock; p.776
156.Jump up ^ Derry (2012). A History of Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, p. 16.
157.Jump up ^ Northern Shores by Alan Palmer; p.21; ISBN 0-7195-6299-6
158.Jump up ^ The Viking Revival By Professor Andrew Wawn at bbc
159.Jump up ^ The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings by Peter Hayes Sawyer ISBN 0-19-820526-0
160.Jump up ^ Hall, pp. 220–1; Fitzhugh and Ward, pp. 362–64
161.Jump up ^ Fitzhugh and Ward, p. 363
162.Jump up ^ Hall, p. 221
163.Jump up ^ Frank, Roberta (2000). International Scandinavian and Medieval Studies in Memory of Gerd Wolfgang Weber. Ed. Parnaso. p. 487. ISBN 978-88-86474-28-3.
164.Jump up ^ Did Vikings really wear horns on their helmets?, The Straight Dope, 7 December 2004. Retrieved 14 November 2007.
165.Jump up ^ "Did Vikings wear horned helmets?". The Economist (www.economist.com). Retrieved 10 April 2014.
166.Jump up ^ "The Gjermundbu Find - The Chieftain Warrior". Retrieved 10 April 2014.
167.Jump up ^ Williams, G. (2001) How do we know about the Vikings? BBC.co.uk. Retrieved 14 November 2007.
168.Jump up ^ Ullidtz, Per (2014). 1016: The Danish Conquest of England. Copenhagen: Books on Demand. p. 300.
169.Jump up ^ "Annals of Human Genetics. Volume 72 Issue 3 Pages 337–348, May 2008". Blackwell-synergy.com. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
170.Jump up ^ Helgason, A.; Hickey, E.; Goodacre, S.; Bosnes, V.; Stefánsson, K. R.; Ward, R.; Sykes, B. (2001). "MtDNA and the Islands of the North Atlantic: Estimating the Proportions of Norse and Gaelic Ancestry". The American Journal of Human Genetics 68 (3): 723–37. doi:10.1086/318785. PMC 1274484. PMID 11179019.
171.Jump up ^ Roger Highfield, "Vikings who chose a home in Shetland before a life of pillage", Telegraph, 7 April 2005, accessed 16 November 2008
172.Jump up ^ "Excavating Past Population Structures by Surname-Based Sampling; The Genetic Legacy of the Vikings in Northwest England, Georgina R. Bowden, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 20 November 2007". Mbe.oxfordjournals.org. 20 November 2007. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
173.Jump up ^ "A Y Chromosome Census of the British Isles, Capelli, Current Biology, Vol. 13, May 27, 2003" (PDF). Retrieved 21 May 2012.
174.Jump up ^ James Randerson, "Proof of Liverpool's Viking past", The Guardian, 3 Dec 2007, accessed 16 November 2008
175.Jump up ^ "DNA shows Celtic hero Somerled's Viking roots". Scotsman. 26 April 2005.
References
Brink, Stefan (2008). "Who were the Vikings?". In Brink, Stefan; Price, Neil. The Viking World. Routledge. pp. 4–10. ISBN 9780415692625.
Brookes, Ian (2004). Chambers concise dictionary. Allied Publishers. ISBN 9798186062363.
D'Amato, Raffaele (2010). The Varangian Guard 988-453. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84908-179-5.
Derry, T.K. (2012). A History of Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland. London and Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-81663-799-7.
Educational Company of Ireland (10 October 2000). Irish-English/English-Irish Easy Reference Dictionary. Roberts Rinehart. ISBN 978-1-4616-6031-6.
Fitzhugh, William W.; Ward, Elisabeth I. (2000). Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga ; (an Exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., April 29, 2000 - September 5, 2000). Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 9781560989707.
Hall, Richard Andrew (2007). The World of the Vikings. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500051443.
Hall, Richard (January 1990). Viking Age Archaeology in Britain and Ireland. Shire. ISBN 9780747800637.
Lindqvist, Thomas (4 September 2003). "Early Political Organisation: (a) An Introductory Survey". In Helle, Knut. The Cambridge History of Scandinavia: Prehistory to 1520. Cambridge University Press. pp. 160–67. ISBN 9780521472999.
Roesdahl, Else (1998). The Vikings. Penguin Books. ISBN 9780140252828.
Sawyer, Peter Hayes (1 February 1972). Age of the Vikings. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780312013653.
Williams, Gareth (2007). "Kingship, Christianity and coinage: monetary and political perspectives on silver economy in the Viking Age". In Graham-Campbell, James; Williams, Gareth. Silver Economy in the Viking Age. Left Coast Press. pp. 177–214. ISBN 9781598742220.
Wolf, Kirsten (1 January 2004). Daily Life of the Vikings. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-32269-3.
Further reading
Askeberg, Fritz (1944). Norden och kontinenten i gammal tid: studier i forngermansk kulturhistoria. Almqvist & Wiksells boktr.
Downham, Clare (2007). Viking kings of Britain and Ireland: the dynasty of ́Ívarr to A.D. 1014. Dunedin Academic Press. ISBN 9781903765890.
Downham, Clare (2011). "Viking Ethnicities. A Historiographic Overview", History Compass 10.1 (2012), pp. 1–12. PDF Academic.edu - registration required
Hadley, Dawn (2006). The Vikings in England: Settlement, Society and Culture. Manchester University Press. ISBN 9780719059827.
Heide, Eldar (2005). "Víking – 'rower shifting'? An etymological contribution". Arkiv för nordisk filologi (PDF) 120. C.W.K. Gleerup. pp. 41–54.
Heide, Eldar (2008). "Viking, week, and Widsith. A reply to Harald Bjorvand". Arkiv för nordisk filologi (PDF) 123. C.W.K. Gleerup. pp. 23–28. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008.
Hodges, Richard (2006). Goodbye to the Vikings: Re-Reading Early Medieval Archaeology. Gerald Duckworth & Company Limited. ISBN 9780715634295.
Svanberg, Fredrik (2003). Decolonizing the Viking Age. Almqvist & Wiksell International. ISBN 9789122020066.
Wamers, Egon (1985). Insularer Metallschmuck in wikingerzeitlichen Gräbern Nordeuropas. Untersuchungen zur skandinavischen Westexpansion. Neumünster: Karl Wachholtz. ISBN 9783529011566.
Wamers, Egon (1998). "Insular Finds in Viking Age Scandinavia and the State Formation of Norway". In Clarke, H.B.; Mhaonaigh, M. Ní; Floinn, R. Ó. Ireland and Scandinavia in the Early Viking Age. Dublin: Four Courts Press. pp. 37–72. ISBN 9781851822355.
Wawn, M.A. (2000). The Vikings and the Victorians: Inventing the Old North in Nineteenth Century Britain. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer. ISBN 9780859916448.
External links
Look up Viking in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Viking Age.
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Northmen
Vikings—View videos at The History Channel
Copenhagen-Portal – The Danish Vikings
BBC: History of Vikings
Encyclopædia Britannica: Viking, or Norseman, or Northman, or Varangian (people)
Borg Viking museum, Norway
Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah, by James E. Montgomery, with full translation of Ibn Fadlan
Reassessing what we collect website – Viking and Danish London History of Viking and Danish London with objects and images
Wawm, Andrew, The Viking Revival - BBC Online, Ancient History in Depth (updated 17 February 2011)
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Vikings
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For other uses, see Viking (disambiguation).
Sea-faring Danes depicted invading England. Illuminated illustration from the 12th century Miscellany on the Life of St. Edmund. Pierpont Morgan Library.
Snow cover across Scandinavia, as imaged by MODIS on board NASA's Terra satellite in 2002
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Vikings (Norwegian and Danish: Vikinger; Swedish and Nynorsk: Vikingar; Icelandic: Víkingar), from Old Norse víkingr, were Germanic Norse seafarers, speaking the Old Norse language, who raided and traded from their Scandinavian homelands across wide areas of northern and central Europe, as well as European Russia, during the late 8th to late 11th centuries.[1][2] The term is also commonly extended in modern English and other vernaculars to the inhabitants of Viking home communities during what has become known as the Viking Age. This period of Norse military, mercantile and demographic expansion constitutes an important element in the early medieval history of Scandinavia, the British Isles, France, Kievan Rus' and Sicily.[3]
Facilitated by advanced seafaring skills, and characterised by the longship, Viking activities at times also extended into the Mediterranean littoral, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. Following extended phases of (primarily sea- or river-borne) exploration, expansion and settlement, Viking (Norse) communities and polities were established in diverse areas of north-western Europe, European Russia, the North Atlantic islands and as far as the north-eastern coast of North America. This period of expansion witnessed the wider dissemination of Norse culture, while simultaneously introducing strong foreign cultural influences into Scandinavia itself, with profound developmental implications in both directions.
Popular, modern conceptions of the Vikings—the term frequently applied casually to their modern descendants and the inhabitants of modern Scandinavia—often strongly differ from the complex picture that emerges from archaeology and historical sources. A romanticized picture of Vikings as noble savages began to emerge in the 18th century; this developed and became widely propagated during the 19th-century Viking revival.[4][5] Perceived views of the Vikings as alternatively violent, piratical heathens or as intrepid adventurers owe much to conflicting varieties of the modern Viking myth that had taken shape by the early 20th century. Current popular representations of the Vikings are typically based on cultural clichés and stereotypes, complicating modern appreciation of the Viking legacy.
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology 1.1 Other names
2 History 2.1 Viking Age
2.2 Viking expansion 2.2.1 Motives
2.3 End of the Viking Age
3 Culture 3.1 Literature and language 3.1.1 Runestones
3.2 Burial sites
3.3 Ships
3.4 Everyday life 3.4.1 Social structure
3.4.2 Appearances
3.4.3 Farming and cuisine
3.4.4 Sports
3.4.5 Games and entertainment
3.4.6 Experimental archaeology
4 Weapons and warfare
5 Trade 5.1 Goods
6 Legacy 6.1 Medieval perceptions of the Vikings
6.2 Post-medieval perceptions 6.2.1 In 20th-century politics
6.2.2 In modern popular culture
6.3 Common misconceptions 6.3.1 Horned helmets
6.3.2 Barbarity
7 Genetic legacy
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
11 Further reading
12 External links
Etymology
A reconstructed Viking house in Iceland.
A reconstructed Viking Age long house, at Fyrkat, Denmark
One etymology derives víking from the feminine vík, meaning "creek, inlet, small bay".[6] Various theories have been offered that the word viking may be derived from the name of the historical Norwegian district of Viken (or Víkin in Old Norse), meaning "a person from Viken". According to this theory, the word simply described persons from this area, and it is only in the last few centuries that it has taken on the broader sense of early medieval Scandinavians in general. However, there are a few major problems with this theory. People from the Viken area were not called 'Viking' in Old Norse manuscripts, but are referred to as víkverir (Modern Norwegian: vikvær), 'Vík dwellers'. In addition, that explanation could only explain the masculine (Old Scandinavian víkingr) and ignore the feminine (Old Norse víking), which is a serious problem because the masculine is easily derived from the feminine but hardly vice versa. [7][8][9] The form also occurs as a personal name on some Swedish rune stones. There is little indication of any negative connotation in the term before the end of the Viking Age.
Another etymology derives viking from the same root as ON vika, f. ‘sea mile’, originally ‘the distance between two shifts of rowers’, from the root *weik or *wîk, as in the Proto-Germanic verb *wîkan, ‘to recede’. This is found in the Proto-Nordic verb *wikan, ‘to turn’, similar to Old Icelandic víkja (ýkva, víkva) ‘to move, to turn’, with well-attested nautical usages.[10] Linguistically, this theory is better attested,[10] and the term most likely predates the use of the sail by the Germanic peoples of North-Western Europe, because the Old Frisian spelling shows that the word was pronounced with a palatal k and thus in all probability existed in North-Western Germanic before that palatalization happened, that is, in the 5th century or before (in the western branch).[11] In that case, the idea behind it seems to be that the tired rower moves aside for the rested rower on the thwart when he relieves him. The Old Norse feminine víking (as in the phrase fara í víking) may originally have been a sea journey characterized by the shifting of rowers, i.e. a long-distance sea journey, because in the pre-sail era, the shifting of rowers would distinguish long-distance sea journeys. A víkingr (the masculine) would then originally have been a participant on a sea journey characterized by the shifting of rowers. In that case, the word Viking was not originally connected to Scandinavian seafarers but assumed this meaning when the Scandinavians begun to dominate the seas.[12]
In Old English, the word wicing appears first in the Anglo-Saxon poem, Widsith, which probably dates from the 9th century. In Old English, and in the history of the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen written by Adam of Bremen in about 1070, the term generally referred to Scandinavian pirates or raiders. As in the Old Norse usages, the term is not employed as a name for any people or culture in general. The word does not occur in any preserved Middle English texts. The word Viking was introduced into Modern English during the 18th-century Viking revival, at which point it acquired romanticised heroic overtones of "barbarian warrior" or noble savage. During the 20th century, the meaning of the term was expanded to refer not only to seaborne raiders from Scandinavia and other places settled by them (like Iceland and the Faroe Islands), but secondarily to any member of the culture that produced said raiders during the period from the late 8th to the mid-11th centuries, or more loosely from about 700 to as late as about 1100. As an adjective, the word is used to refer to ideas, phenomena, or artefacts connected with those people and their cultural life, producing expressions like Viking age, Viking culture, Viking art, Viking religion, Viking ship, and so on.[13]
Other names
The Vikings were known as Ascomanni "ashmen" by the Germans for the ash wood of their boats,[14] Lochlannach by the Gaels,[15] and Dene by the Anglo-Saxons.[16]
The Slavs, the Arabs and the Byzantines knew them as the Rus' or Rhōs,[17] probably derived from various uses of rōþs-, "related to rowing", or derived from the area of Roslagen in east-central Sweden, where most of the Vikings who visited the Slavic lands came from. Some archaeologists and historians of today believe that these Scandinavian settlements in the Slavic lands played a significant role in the formation of the Kievan Rus' federation, and hence the names and early states of Russia and Belarus.[18][19][20] The modern day name for Sweden in several neighbouring countries is possibly derived from rōþs-, Ruotsi in Finnish and Rootsi in Estonian.
The Slavs and the Byzantines also called them Varangians (Russian: варяги, from Old Norse Væringjar, meaning "sworn men", from vàr- "confidence, vow of fealty," related to Old English wær "agreement, treaty, promise," Old High German wara "faithfulness"[17]). Scandinavian bodyguards of the Byzantine emperors were known as the Varangian Guard.
History
Viking Age
Main article: Viking Age
Frankish empire, kingdoms, and tribes of Europe and near east, early 9th century, historical scholarship as of 1905, from "The Public Schools Historical Atlas" by Ch. Colbeck
The period from the earliest recorded raids in the 790s until the Norman conquest of England in 1066 is commonly known as the Viking Age of Scandinavian history.[21] Vikings used the Norwegian Sea and Baltic Sea for sea routes to the south. The Normans were descended from Vikings who were given feudal overlordship of areas in northern France—the Duchy of Normandy—in the 10th century. In that respect, descendants of the Vikings continued to have an influence in northern Europe. Likewise, King Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, had Danish ancestors. Two Vikings even ascended to the throne of England, with Sweyn Forkbeard claiming the English throne from 1013 - 1014 and his son Cnut the Great becoming king of England from 1016 - 1035.[22][23][24][25][26]
Geographically, a Viking Age may be assigned not only to Scandinavian lands (modern Denmark, Norway and Sweden), but also to territories under North Germanic dominance, mainly the Danelaw, including Scandinavian York, the administrative centre of the remains of the Kingdom of Northumbria,[27] parts of Mercia, and East Anglia.[28] Viking navigators opened the road to new lands to the north, west and east, resulting in the foundation of independent settlements in the Shetland, Orkney, and Faroe Islands; Iceland; Greenland;[29] and L'Anse aux Meadows, a short-lived settlement in Newfoundland, circa 1000.[30] They may have been deliberately sought out, perhaps on the basis of the accounts of sailors who had seen land in the distance. The Greenland settlement eventually died out, possibly due to climate change.[31] Viking dynasty also took control of territories in Slavic and Finno-Ugric-dominated areas of Eastern Europe, annexed Kiev in 882 to serve as the capital of the Kievan Rus'.[32]
As early as 839, when Swedish emissaries are first known to have visited Byzantium, Scandinavians served as mercenaries in the service of the Byzantine Empire.[33] In the late 10th century, a new unit of the imperial bodyguard formed. Traditionally containing large numbers of Scandinavians, it was known as the Varangian Guard. The word Varangian may have originated in Old Norse, but in Slavic and Greek it could refer either to Scandinavians or Franks. The most eminent Scandinavian to serve in the Varangian Guard was Harald Hardrada, who subsequently established himself as king of Norway (1047–66).
Important trading ports during the period include Birka, Hedeby, Kaupang, Jorvik, Staraya Ladoga, Novgorod, and Kiev.
There is archaeological evidence that Vikings reached Baghdad, the centre of the Islamic Empire.[34] The Norse regularly plied the Volga with their trade goods: furs, tusks, seal fat for boat sealant, and slaves.
Generally speaking, the Norwegians expanded to the north and west to places such as Ireland, Scotland, Iceland, and Greenland; the Danes to England and France, settling in the Danelaw (northern/eastern England) and Normandy; and the Swedes to the east, founding the Kievan Rus, the original Russia. Among the Swedish runestones mentioning expeditions overseas, almost half tell of raids and travels to western Europe. According to the Icelandic sagas, many Norwegian Vikings also went to eastern Europe. In the Viking Age, the present day nations of Norway, Sweden and Denmark did not exist, but were largely homogeneous and similar in culture and language, although somewhat distinct geographically. The names of Scandinavian kings are reliably known only for the later part of the Viking Age. After the end of the Viking Age the separate kingdoms gradually acquired distinct identities as nations, which went hand-in-hand with their Christianization. Thus the end of the Viking Age for the Scandinavians, also marks the start of their relatively brief Middle Ages.
Viking expansion
Main article: Viking expansion
Travels of the Vikings
Scandinavian settlements of the 8th through 11th centuries[image reference needed]
The Vikings explored the northern islands and coasts of the North Atlantic, ventured south to North Africa and east to Russia, Constantinople, and the Middle East.[19][20][35] They raided and pillaged, but also engaged in trade, settled wide-ranging colonies, and acted as mercenaries.[36] Vikings under Leif Ericson, heir to Erik the Red, reached North America and set up short-lived settlements in present-day L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, and Labrador, Canada.
Viking expansion into continental Europe was limited. Their realm was bordered by powerful cultures to the south. Early on it was the Saxons, who occupied Old Saxony, located in what is now Northern Germany. The Saxons were a fierce and powerful people and were often in conflict with the Vikings. To counter the Saxon aggression and solidify their own presence, the Danes constructed the huge defence fortification of Danevirke in and around Hedeby.[37] The Vikings soon witnessed the violent subduing of the Saxons by Charlemagne, in the thirty-year Saxon Wars in 772-804. The Saxon defeat resulted in their forced christening and absorption of Old Saxony in the Carolingian Empire. Fearing the Franks, this led the Vikings to further expand Danevirke and the defence constructions were in use throughout the Viking Age and even up until 1864.[38] The south coast of the Baltic Sea was ruled by the Obotrites, a federation of Slavic tribes loyal to the Carolingians and later the Frankish empire. The Vikings – led by King Gudfred – destroyed the Obotrite city of Reric on the southern Baltic coast in 808 AD and transferred the merchants and traders to Hedeby. This secured their supremacy in the Baltic Sea, which remained throughout the Viking Age.
Motives
The motives driving the Viking expansion are a topic of much debate in Nordic history. One common theory posits that Charlemagne "used force and terror to Christianise all pagans", leading to baptism, conversion or death, and as a result Vikings and other pagans wanted revenge.[39][40][41][42][43] Professor Rudolf Simek states that "it is not a coincidence if the early Viking activity occurred during the reign of Charlemagne".[39][44] The penetration of Christianity into Scandinavia led to serious conflict dividing Norway for almost a century.[45]
Another explanation is that the Vikings exploited a moment of weakness in the surrounding regions. England suffered from internal divisions and was relatively easy prey given the proximity of many towns to the sea or to navigable rivers. Lack of organised naval opposition throughout Western Europe allowed Viking ships to travel freely, raiding or trading as opportunity permitted. The decline in the profitability of old trade routes could also have played a role. Trade between western Europe and the rest of Eurasia suffered a severe blow when the Roman Empire fell in the 5th century.[46] The expansion of Islam in the 7th century had also affected trade with western Europe.[47]
Raids in Europe including raids and settlements from Scandinavia, were not something new and also seen long before the Vikings came. The Jutes invaded the British Isles three centuries earlier, pouring out from Jutland during the Age of Migrations, before the Danes settled there. The Saxons and the Angles did the same, embarking from mainland Europe. The Viking raids were the first to be documented in writing by eyewitnesses, and they were much larger in scale and frequency than in previous times.[48]
End of the Viking Age
During the Viking Age, Scandinavian men and women travelled to many parts of Europe and beyond, in a cultural diaspora that left its traces from Newfoundland to Byzantium. This period of energetic activity also had a pronounced effect in the Scandinavian homelands, which were subject to a variety of new influences.[49] In the 300 years from the late 8th century, when contemporary chroniclers first commented on the appearance of Viking raiders, to the end of the 11th century, Scandinavia underwent profound cultural changes.
Blar a' Bhuailte, site of the Vikings' last stand in Skye
By the late 11th century, royal dynasties legitimised by the Catholic Church (which had had little influence in Scandinavia 300 years earlier) were asserting their power with increasing authority and ambition, and the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden had taken shape. Towns appeared that functioned as secular and ecclesiastical administrative centres and market sites, and monetary economies began to emerge based on English and German models.[50] By this time the influx of Islamic silver from the East had been absent for more than a century, and the flow of English silver had come to an end in the mid-11th century.[51] Christianity had taken root in Denmark and Norway with the establishment of dioceses during the 11th century, and the new religion was beginning to organise and assert itself more effectively in Sweden. Foreign churchmen and native elites were energetic in furthering the interests of Christianity, which was now no longer operating only on a missionary footing, and old ideologies and lifestyles were transforming. By 1103, the first archbishopric was founded in Scandinavia, at Lund, Scania, then part of Denmark.
The assimilation of the nascent Scandinavian kingdoms into the cultural mainstream of European Christendom altered the aspirations of Scandinavian rulers and of Scandinavians able to travel overseas, and changed their relations with their neighbours. One of the primary sources of profit for the Vikings had been slave-taking. The medieval Church held that Christians should not own fellow Christians as slaves, so chattel slavery diminished as a practice throughout northern Europe. This took much of the economic incentive out of raiding, though sporadic slaving activity continued into the 11th century. Scandinavian predation in Christian lands around the North and Irish Seas diminished markedly.
The kings of Norway continued to assert power in parts of northern Britain and Ireland, and raids continued into the 12th century, but the military ambitions of Scandinavian rulers were now directed toward new paths. In 1107, Sigurd I of Norway sailed for the eastern Mediterranean with Norwegian crusaders to fight for the newly established Kingdom of Jerusalem, and Danes and Swedes participated energetically in the Baltic Crusades of the 12th and 13th centuries.[52]
Culture
A variety of sources illuminate the culture, activities, and beliefs of the Vikings. Although they were generally a non-literate culture that produced no literary legacy, they had an alphabet and described themselves and their world on runestones. Most contemporary literary and written sources on the Vikings come from other cultures that were in contact with them.[53] Since the mid-20th century, archaeological findings have built a more complete and balanced picture of the lives of the Vikings.[54][55] The archaeological record is particularly rich and varied, providing knowledge of their rural and urban settlement, crafts and production, ships and military equipment, trading networks, as well as their pagan and Christian religious artefacts and practices.
Literature and language
See also: Old Norse and The Norse Sagas
One of the few surviving manuscript leaves from the Heimskringla Sagas, written by Snorri Sturluson c. 1260. The leaf tells of King Ólafur.
The most important primary sources on the Vikings are contemporary texts from Scandinavia and regions where the Vikings were active.[56] Writing in Latin letters was introduced to Scandinavia with Christianity, so there are few native documentary sources from Scandinavia before the late 11th and early 12th centuries.[57] The Scandinavians did write inscriptions in runes, but these are usually very short and formulaic. Most contemporary documentary sources consist of texts written in Christian and Islamic communities outside Scandinavia, often by authors who had been negatively affected by Viking activity.
Later writings on the Vikings and the Viking Age can also be important for understanding them and their culture, although they need to be treated cautiously. After the consolidation of the church and the assimilation of Scandinavia and its colonies into the mainstream of medieval Christian culture in the 11th and 12th centuries, native written sources begin to appear, in Latin and Old Norse. In the Viking colony of Iceland, an extraordinary vernacular literature blossomed in the 12th through 14th centuries, and many traditions connected with the Viking Age were written down for the first time in the Icelandic sagas. A literal interpretation of these medieval prose narratives about the Vikings and the Scandinavian past is of course doubtful, but many specific elements remain worthy of consideration, such as the great quantity of skaldic poetry attributed to court poets of the 10th and 11th centuries, the exposed family trees, the self images, the ethical values, all included in these literary writings.
Indirectly the Vikings have also left a window open to their language, culture and activities, through many Old Norse place names and words, found in their former sphere of influence. Some of these place names and words are still in direct use today, almost unchanged, and sheds light on where they settled and what specific places meant to them, as seen in place names like Egilsay (from Eigils Ø meaning Eigil's Island), Ormskirk (from Ormr kirkja meaning Orms Church or Church of the Worm), Meols (from merl meaning Sand Dunes), Snaefell (Snow Fell), Ravenscar (Ravens Rock), Vinland (Land of Wine or Land of Winberry), Kaupanger (Market Harbour) and Tórshavn (Thor's Harbour) or the religious centre of Odense, meaning a place where Odin was worshipped. It is also evident in concepts like the present day Tynwald on the Isle of Man. Common words in everyday English language, like some of the weekdays (Thursday means Thor's day), axle, crook, raft, knife, plough, leather, bylaw, thorp, skerry, ombudsman, husband, heathen, Hell, Norman and ransack stem from the Old Norse of the Vikings, and give us an opportunity to understand their interactions with the people and cultures of the British Isles.[58] In the Northern Isles of Shetland and Orkney, Old Norse completely replaced the local languages and over time evolved into the now extinct Norn language. Some modern words and names only emerge and contribute to our understanding after a more intense research of linguistic sources from medieval or later records, such as York (Horse Bay), Swansea (Sveinn's Isle) or some of the place names in Northern France like Tocqueville (Toki's farm).[59] Linguistic and etymological studies continue to provide a vital source of information on the Viking culture, their social structure and history and how they interacted with the people and cultures they met, traded, attacked or lived with in overseas settlements.[60][61] It has been speculated that several place names on the west coast of southern France might also stem from Viking activities.[62] Place names like Taillebourg (Trelleborg, meaning City of Thralls or Castle of Thralls) exist as far south as the Charente River.[63] Gascony and vicinity[64] is an active area of Viking archaeology at present.[65] A lot of Old Norse connections are evident in the modern-day languages of Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Faroese and Icelandic.[66] Old Norse did not exert any great influence on the Slavic languages in the Viking settlements of Eastern Europe. It has been speculated that the reason was the great differences between the two languages, combined with the Rus' Vikings more peaceful businesses in these areas and the fact that they were outnumbered. The Norse named some of the rapids on the Dnieper, but this can hardly be seen from the modern names.[67][68]
A consequence of the available written sources, which may have coloured how we perceive the Viking Age as a historical period, is that we know a lot more of the Vikings' activities in western Europe than in the East. One reason for this is that the peoples living in north-eastern Europe at the time were non-literate, and did not produce a legacy of literature. Another is that the vast majority of Scandinavian written sources come from Iceland, a nation originally settled by Norwegian colonists. As a result, there is much more material from the Viking Age concerning Norway than Sweden, which apart from many runic inscriptions, has almost no written sources from the early Middle Ages.
Runestones
Main article: Runestone
The Lingsberg Runestone, Sweden
The Viking peoples could read and write and used a non-standardized alphabet, called runor, built upon sound values. While there are few remains of runic writing on paper from the Viking era, thousands of stones with runic inscriptions have been found where Vikings lived. They are usually in memory of the dead, though not necessarily placed at graves. The use of runor survived into the 15th century, used in parallel with the Latin alphabet.
The majority of runic inscriptions from the Viking period are found in Sweden and date from the 11th century. The oldest stone with runic inscriptions was found in Norway and dates to the 4th century, suggesting that runic inscriptions pre-date the Viking period. Many runestones in Scandinavia record the names of participants in Viking expeditions, such as the Kjula runestone that tells of extensive warfare in Western Europe and the Turinge Runestone, which tells of a war band in Eastern Europe. Other runestones mention men who died on Viking expeditions. Among them are around 25 Ingvar runestones in the Mälardalen district of Sweden, erected to commemorate members of a disastrous expedition into present-day Russia in the early 11th century. Runestones are important sources in the study of Norse society and early medieval Scandinavia, not only of the Viking segment of the population.[69]
Runic inscriptions on the larger of the Jelling Stones
The Jelling stones date from between 960 and 985. The older, smaller stone was raised by King Gorm the Old, the last pagan king of Denmark, as a memorial honouring Queen Thyre.[70] The larger stone was raised by his son, Harald Bluetooth, to celebrate the conquest of Denmark and Norway and the conversion of the Danes to Christianity. It has three sides: one with an animal image, one with an image of the crucified Jesus Christ, and a third bearing the following inscription:
King Haraldr ordered this monument made in memory of Gormr, his father, and in memory of Thyrvé, his mother; that Haraldr who won for himself all of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian.[71]
Runestones attest to voyages to locations such as Bath,[72] Greece,[73] Khwaresm,[74] Jerusalem,[75] Italy (as Langobardland),[76] Serkland (i.e. the Muslim world),[77] England[78] (including London[79]), and various places in Eastern Europe. Viking Age inscriptions have also been discovered on the Manx runestones on the Isle of Man.
Burial sites
See also: Norse funeral and Ship burial
There are numerous burial sites associated with Vikings throughout Europe and their sphere of influence – in Scandinavia, the British Isles, Greenland, Iceland, Faeroe Islands, Germany, The Baltic, Russia, etc.. The burial practices of the Vikings were quite varied, from dug graves in the ground, to tumuli, sometimes including so-called ship burials.
Burial mounds at Gamle Uppsala
Burial mounds at Gamla Uppsala
Lindholm Høje
Some of the funerary stone settings at Lindholm Høje
Examples of Viking burial mounds and stone set graves, collectively known as tumuli.
Oseberg ship head post
Head post from the ship
The Oseberg ship prow
The ship prow
Details of the burial ship from Oseberg. On exhibit at Viking Ship Museum, Oslo.
According to written sources, most of the funerals took place at sea. The funerals involved either burial or cremation, depending on local customs. In the area that is now Sweden, cremations were predominant, in Denmark burial was more common, and in Norway both were common.[80] Viking barrows are one of the primary source of evidence for circumstances in the Viking Age.[81] The items buried with the dead give some indication as to what was considered important to possess in the afterlife.[82] We do not have any idea what mortuary services were given to dead children by the Vikings.[83] Some of the burial sites that are most important to our understanding of the Vikings include:
Norway: Oseberg; Gokstad; Borrehaugene.
Sweden: Gettlinge gravfält; the cemeteries of Birka, a World Heritage Site;[84] Valsgärde; Gamla Uppsala; Hulterstad gravfält, near Alby; Hulterstad, Öland.
Denmark: Jelling, a World Heritage Site; Lindholm Høje; Ladby ship; Mammen chamber tomb and hoard.
Scotland: Port an Eilean Mhòir ship burial; Scar boat burial, Orkney.
Faroe Islands: Hov.
Iceland: Mosfellsbær in Capital Region;[85][86] the boat burial in Vatnsdalur, Austur-Húnavatnssýsla.[80][87][88]
Greenland: Brattahlíð.[89]
Germany: Hedeby.
Latvia: Grobiņa.
Ukraine: the Black Grave.
Russia: Gnezdovo.
Ships
Main article: Viking ships
There have been several archaeological finds of Viking ships of all sizes, providing knowledge of the craftsmanship that went into building them. There were many types of Viking ships, built for various uses; the best-known type is probably the longship.[90] Longships were intended for warfare and exploration, designed for speed and agility, and were equipped with oars to complement the sail, making navigation possible independently of the wind. The longship had a long, narrow hull and shallow draught to facilitate landings and troop deployments in shallow water. Longships were used extensively by the Leidang, the Scandinavian defence fleets. The longship allowed the Norse to go Viking, which might explain why this type of ship has become almost synonymous with the concept of Vikings.[91][92]
Sea Stallion
The reconstructed longship Sea Stallion.
Knarr Haithabu
A model of the knarr ship type.
The longship facilitated far-reaching expeditions, but the Vikings also constructed several other types of ships.
The Vikings built many other types of watercraft, used for more peaceful tasks. The knarr was a dedicated merchant vessel designed to carry cargo in bulk. It had a broader hull, deeper draught, and a small number of oars (used primarily to manoeuvre in harbours and similar situations). One Viking innovation was the 'beitass', a spar mounted to the sail that allowed their ships to sail effectively against the wind.[93] It was common for seafaring Viking ships to tow or carry a smaller boat to transfer crews and cargo from the ship to shore.
Ships were an integral part of the Viking culture. They facilitated everyday transportation across seas and waterways, exploration of new lands, raids, conquests, and trade with neighbouring cultures. They also held a major religious importance. People with high status were sometimes buried in a ship along with animal sacrifices, weapons, provisions and other items, as evidenced by the buried vessels at Gokstad and Oseberg in Norway[94] and the excavated ship burial at Ladby in Denmark. Ship burials were also practised by Vikings abroad, as evidenced by the excavations of the Salme ships on the Estonian island of Saaremaa.[95]
Well-preserved remains of five Viking ships were excavated from Roskilde Fjord in the late 1960s, representing both the longship and the knarr. The ships were scuttled there in the 11th century, to block a navigation channel and thus protect Roskilde, then the Danish capital, from seaborne assault. The remains of these ships are on display at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde.
Everyday life
Social structure
The Viking society was divided into the three socio-economic classes of Thralls, Karls and Jarls. This is described vividly in the Eddic poem of Rigsthula, which also explains that it was the God Ríg - father of mankind also known as Heimdallr - who created the three classes. Archaeology has confirmed this social structure.[96]
Thralls were the lowest ranking class and were slaves. Slavery was of vital importance to Viking society, for everyday chores and large scale construction and also to trade and economy. Thralls were used as servants and workers in the farms and larger households of the Karls and Jarls and they were used for constructing fortresses, fortifications, ramps, canals, mounds, roads and similar hard work projects. According to the Rigsthula, Thralls were despised and looked down upon. New thralls were supplied by either the sons and daughters of thralls or they were captured abroad. The Vikings often deliberately captured many people on their raids in Europe, enslaved and made them into thralls. The new thralls were then brought back home to Scandinavia by boat, used on location or in newer settlements to build needed structures or sold, often to the Arabs in exchange for silver. Other names for thrall were 'træl' and 'ty'.
Karls were free peasants. They owned farms, land and cattle and engaged in daily chores like ploughing the fields, milking the cattle, building houses and wagons, but employed thralls to make ends meet. Other names for Karls were 'bonde' or simply free men.
The Jarls were the aristocracy of the Viking society. They were wealthy and owned large estates with huge longhouses, horses and many thralls. The thralls or servants took care of most of the daily chores, while the Jarls engaged in administration, politics, hunting, sports, paid visits to other Jarls or were abroad on expeditions. When a Jarl died and was buried, his household thralls were sometimes sacrificially killed and buried next to him, as many excavations have revealed.[97]
In daily life, there were many intermediate positions in the overall social structure and it is believed that there must have been some social mobility. These details are unclear, but titles and positions like hauldr, thegn, landmand, show mobility between the Karls and the Jarls.
Other social structures included the communities of félag in both the civil and the military spheres, to which its members (called félagi) were obliged. A félag could be centred around certain trades, a common ownership of a sea vessel or a military obligation under a specific leader. Members of the latter were referred to as drenge; one of the words for warrior. There were also official communities within towns and villages, the overall defence, religion, the legal system and the Things.
Women had a relatively free status in the Nordic countries of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, illustrated in the Icelandic Grágás and the Norwegian Frostating laws and Gulating laws.[98] The paternal aunt, paternal niece and paternal granddaughter, referred to as odalkvinna, all had the right to inherit property from a deceased man.[99] In the absence of male relatives, an unmarried woman with no son could, inherit not only property but also the position as head of the family from a deceased father or brother. Such a woman was referred to as Baugrygr, and she exercised all the rights afforded to the head of a family clan, such as the right to demand and receive fines for the slaughter of a family member, until she married, by which her rights were transferred to her husband.[100] After the age of 20, an unmarried woman, referred to as maer and mey, reached legal majority and had the right to decide of her place of residence and was regarded as her own person before the law.[101] An exception to her independence was the right to choose a marriage partner, as marriages was normally arranged by the clan.[102] Widows enjoyed the same independent status as unmarried women. A married woman could divorce her husband and remarry.[103] It was also socially acceptable for a free woman to cohabit with a man and have children with him without marrying him, even if that man was married: a woman in such a position was called frilla.[104] There was no distinction made between children born inside or outside of marriage: both had the right to inherit property after their parents, and there was no "legitimate" or "illegitimate" children.[105] Women had religious authority and were active as priestesses (gydja) and oracles (sejdkvinna);[106] they were active within art as poets (skalder)[107] and rune masters, and as merchants and medicine women.[108] These liberties gradually disappeared after the introductions of Christianity, and from the late 13th-century, they are no longer mentioned.[109]
Appearances
Typical jewellery worn by women of the Karls and Jarls. Ornamented silver brooches, coloured glass-beads and amulets.
The three classes were easily recognisable by their appearances. Men and women of the Jarls were well groomed with neat hairstyles and expressed their wealth and status by wearing expensive clothes (often silk) and well crafted jewellery like brooches, belt buckles, necklaces and arm rings. Almost all of the jewellery was crafted in specific designs unique to the Norse (see Viking art). Finger rings were seldom used and earrings were not used at all, as they were seen as a Slavic phenomenon. Most Karls expressed similar tastes and hygiene, but in a more relaxed and inexpensive way.[96][110]
Farming and cuisine
The Sagas tell us about the diet and cuisine of the Vikings,[111] but first hand evidence, like cesspits, kitchen middens and garbage dumps have proved to be of great value and importance. Undigested remains of plants from cesspits at Coppergate in York have provided a lot of information in this respect. Overall, archaeo-botanical investigations have been undertaken increasingly in recent decades, as a collaboration between archaeologists and palaeoethno-botanists. This new approach sheds new light on the agricultural and horticultural practices of the Vikings and therefore also on their cuisine.[112]
When the information from various sources are put together, a picture of a diverse cuisine, with lots of different ingredients emerges. Meat products of all kinds, such as cured, smoked and whey-preserved meat,[113] sausages and boiled or fried fresh meat cuts, were prepared and consumed.[114] There were plenty of seafood, bread, porridges, dairy products, vegetables, fruits, berries and nuts. Alcoholic drinks like beer, mead, bjórr (a strong fruit wine) and, for the rich, imported wine were served.[115][116]
Certain livestock were typical and unique to the Vikings, including the Icelandic horse, Icelandic cattle, a plethora of sheep breeds,[117] the Danish hen and the Danish goose.[118][119] The Vikings in York mostly ate beef, mutton, and pork with small amounts of horse meat. Most of the beef and horse leg bones were found split lengthways, to get out the marrow. The mutton and swine were cut into leg and shoulder joints and chops. The frequent remains of pig skull and foot bones found on house floors indicate that brawn and trotters were also popular. Hens were kept for both their meat and eggs, and the bones of game birds such as the black grouse, golden plover, wild ducks, and geese have also been found.[120]
Seafood was an important part of the diet, in some places even more so than meat. Whales and walrus were hunted for food in Norway and the north-western parts of the North Atlantic region, and seals were hunted nearly everywhere. Oysters, mussels and shrimps were eaten in large quantities and cod and salmon were popular fish. In the southern regions, herring was also important.[121][122][123]
Milk and buttermilk were popular, both as cooking ingredients and drinks, but were not always available, even at farms.[124] The milk came from cows, goats and sheep, with priorities varying from location to location,[125] and fermented milk products like skyr or surmjölk were produced as well as butter and cheese.[126]
Food was often salted and enhanced with spices, some of which were imported like black pepper. Home grown spices that were used included caraway, mustard and horseradish as evidenced from the Oseberg ship burial[115] or dill, coriander, and wild celery, as found during the archaeological examinations of cesspits at Coppergate in York. Thyme, juniper berry, sweet gale, yarrow, rue and peppercress were also used and cultivated in herb gardens.[112][127]
Vikings collected and ate fruits, berries and nuts. Apple (wild crab apples) plums and cherries were part of the diet,[128] as were rose hips and raspberry, wild strawberry, blackberry, elderberry, rowan, hawthorn and various wild berries, specific to the locations.[127] Hazelnuts were an important part of the diet in general and large amounts of walnut shells have been found in cities like Hedeby. The shells were used for dyeing and it is assumed the nuts were enjoyed as well.[112][124]
The invention and introduction of the mouldboard plough revolutionized agriculture in Scandinavia in the early Viking Age and made it possible to farm even the poor soils. In Ribe, grains of rye, barley, oat and wheat dated to the 8th century have been found and examined, and these are believed to have been cultivated locally.[129] Grains and flour were used for making porridges, some cooked with milk, some cooked with fruit and sweetened with honey, and also various forms of bread. Remains of bread from primarily Birka in Sweden were made of barley and wheat. It is unclear if the Norse leavened their breads, but their ovens and baking utensils suggest that they did.[130] Flax was a very important crop for the Vikings. For oil extraction, food consumption and most importantly the production of linen. More than 40% of all known textile recoveries from the Viking Age can be traced as linen. This suggests a much higher actual percentage, as linen is poorly preserved compared to wool for example.[131]
The quality of food for common people was not always particularly high. The research at Coppergate shows that the Vikings in York made bread from whole meal flour — probably both wheat and rye - but with the seeds of cornfield weeds included. Corncockle (Agrostemma), would have made the bread dark-coloured, but the seeds are poisonous, and people who ate the bread might have become ill. Seeds of carrots, parsnip, and brassicas were also discovered, but they were poor specimens and tend to come from white carrots and bitter tasting cabbages.[128] The rotary querns often used in the Viking Age inevitably left tiny stone fragments (often from basalt rock) in the flour and when eaten later on, these small stones wore down the teeth. The effects of this can be seen on skeletal remains of that period.[130]
Sports
Sports were widely practised and encouraged by the Vikings.[132][133] Sports that involved weapons training and developing combat skills were popular. This included spear and stone throwing, building and testing physical strength through wrestling, fist fighting, and stone lifting. In areas with mountains, mountain climbing was practised as a sport. Agility and balance were built and tested by running and jumping for sport, and there is mention of a sport that involved jumping from oar to oar on the outside of a ship's railing as it was being rowed. Swimming was a popular sport and Snorri Sturluson describes three types: diving, long-distance swimming and a contest in which two swimmers try to duck one another. Children often participated in some of the sport disciplines and women have also been mentioned as swimmers, although it is unclear if they took part in competition. King Olaf Tryggvason was hailed as a master of both mountain climbing and oar-jumping, and was said to have excelled in the art of knife juggling as well.
Skiing and ice skating were the primary winter sports of the Vikings, although skiing was also used as everyday means of transport in winter time and in the colder regions of the north.
Horse fighting was practised for sport, although the rules are unclear. It appears to have involved two stallions pitted against each other, within smell and sight of fenced-off mares. Whatever the rules were, the fights often resulted in the death of one of the stallions.
Icelandic sources refer to the sport of knattleik. A ball game akin to hockey, knattleik involved a bat and a small hard ball and was usually played on a smooth field of ice. The rules are unclear, but it was popular with both adults and children, even though it often led to injuries. Knattleik appears to have been played only in Iceland, where it attracted many spectators, as did horse fighting.
Hunting, as a sport, was limited to Denmark, where it was not regarded as an important occupation. Birds, deer, hares and foxes were hunted with bow and spear, and later with crossbows. The techniques were stalking, snare and traps and par force hunting with dog packs.
Games and entertainment
Rook, Lewis chessmen, at the British Museum in London
Both archaeological finds and written sources testify to the fact that the Vikings set aside time for social and festive gatherings.[132][133][134]
Board games and dice games were played as a popular pastime, at all levels of society. Preserved gaming pieces and boards show game boards made of easily available materials like wood, with game pieces manufactured from stone, wood or bone, while other finds include elaborately carved boards and game pieces of glass, amber, antler or walrus tusk, together with materials of foreign origin, such as ivory. The Vikings played several types of tafl games; hnefatafl, nitavl (Nine Men's Morris) and the less common kvatrutafl. Chess also appeared at the end of the Viking Age. Hnefatafl is a war game, in which the object is to capture the king piece – a large hostile army threatens and the king's men have to protect the king. It was played on a board with squares using black and white pieces, with moves made according to dice rolls. The Ockelbo Runestone shows two men engaged in Hnefatafl, and the sagas suggest that money or valuables could have been involved in some dice games.[132][134]
On festive occasions storytelling, skaldic poetry, music and alcoholic drinks, like beer and mead, contributed to the atmosphere.[134] Music was considered an art form and music proficiency as fitting for a cultivated man. The Vikings are known to have played instruments including harps, fiddles, lyres and lutes.[132]
Experimental archaeology
Experimental archaeology of the Viking Age is a flourishing branch and several places have been dedicated to this technique, such as Jorvik Viking Centre in United Kingdom, Sagnlandet Lejre and Ribe Viking Center in Denmark, Foteviken Museum[135] in Sweden or Lofotr Viking Museum in Norway. Viking-age reenactors have undertaken experimental activities such as iron smelting and forging using Norse techniques at Norstead in Newfoundland for example.[136]
On 1 July 2007, the reconstructed Viking ship Skuldelev 2, renamed Sea Stallion,[137] began a journey from Roskilde to Dublin. The remains of that ship and four others were discovered during a 1962 excavation in the Roskilde Fjord. Tree-ring analysis has shown the ship was built of oak in the vicinity of Dublin in about 1042. Seventy multi-national crew members sailed the ship back to its home, and Sea Stallion arrived outside Dublin's Custom House on 14 August 2007. The purpose of the voyage was to test and document the seaworthiness, speed, and manoeuvrability of the ship on the rough open sea and in coastal waters with treacherous currents. The crew tested how the long, narrow, flexible hull withstood the tough ocean waves. The expedition also provided valuable new information on Viking longships and society. The ship was built using Viking tools, materials, and much the same methods as the original ship.
Other vessels, often replicas of the Gokstad ship (full- or half-scale) or Skuldelev I have been built and tested as well. The Snorri (a Skuldelev I Knarr), was sailed from Greenland to Newfoundland in 1998.[138]
Weapons and warfare
Main article: Viking Age arms and armour
Viking swords
Our knowledge about the arms and armour of the Viking age is based on archaeological finds, pictorial representation, and to some extent on the accounts in the Norse sagas and Norse laws recorded in the 13th century. According to custom, all free Norse men were required to own weapons and were permitted to carry them all the time. These arms were indicative of a Viking's social status: a wealthy Viking had a complete ensemble of a helmet, shield, mail shirt, and sword. A typical bóndi (freeman) was more likely to fight with a spear and shield, and most also carried a seax as a utility knife and side-arm. Bows were used in the opening stages of land battles and at sea, but they tended to be considered less "honourable" than a melee weapon. Vikings were relatively unusual for the time in their use of axes as a main battle weapon. The Húscarls, the elite guard of King Cnut (and later of King Harold II) were armed with two-handed axes that could split shields or metal helmets with ease.
The warfare and violence of the Vikings were often motivated and fuelled by their beliefs in Norse religion, focusing on Thor and Odin, the gods of war and death.[139][140] In combat it is believed, that the Vikings sometimes engaged in a disordered style of frenetic, furious fighting known as berserkergang, leading them to be termed berserkers. Such tactics may have been deployed intentionally by shock troops and the berserk-state may have been induced through ingestion of materials with psychoactive properties, such as the hallucinogenic mushrooms, Amanita muscaria,[141] or large amounts of alcohol.[142]
Trade
See also: Trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks and Volga trade route
The scales and weights of a Viking trader. Used for measuring silver and sometimes gold. From the Sigtuna box.
The Vikings established and engaged in extensive trading networks throughout the known world and had a profound influence on the economic development of Europe and Scandinavia not the least.[143][144]
Except for the major trading centres of Ribe, Hedeby and the like, the Viking world was unfamiliar with the use of coinage and was based on so called bullion economy. Silver was the most common metal in the economy by large, although gold was also used to some extent. Silver circulated in the form of bars, or ingots, as well as in the form of jewellery and ornaments. Traders carried small scales, enabling them to measure weight very accurately, so it was possible to have a very precise system of trade and exchange, even without a regular coinage.[143]
Goods
The organized trade covered everything from ordinary items in bulk to exotic luxury products. The Viking ship designs, like that of the knarr, were an important factor in their success as merchants.[145] Imported goods from other cultures included:[146]
Spices were obtained from Chinese and Persian traders, who met with the Viking traders in Russia. Vikings used homegrown spices and herbs like caraway, thyme, horseradish and mustard,[147] but imported cinnamon.
Glass was much prized by the Norse. The imported glass was often made into beads for decoration and these have been found in their thousands. Åhus in Scania and the old market town of Ribe had major production of glass beads.[148][149][150]
Silk was a very important commodity obtained from Byzantium (modern day Istanbul) and China. It was valued by many European cultures of the time, and the Vikings used it to illustrate status such as wealth and nobility. Many of the archaeological finds in Scandinavia include silk.[151][152][153]
Wine was imported from France and Germany as a drink of the wealthy, to vary the regular mead and beer.
To counter these valuable imports, the Vikings exported a large variety of goods. These goods included:[146]
Amber - the fossilized resin of the pine tree - was frequently found on the North Sea and Baltic coastline. It was worked into beads and ornamental objects, before being traded. (See also the Amber Road).
Fur was also exported as it provided warmth. This included the furs of pine martens, foxes, bears, otters and beavers.
Cloth and wool. The Vikings were skilled spinners and weavers and exported woollen cloth of a high quality.
Down were collected and exported. The Norwegian west coast supplied eiderdowns and sometimes feathers were bought from the Samis. Down was used for bedding and quilted clothing. Fowling on the steep slopes and cliffs was dangerous work and was often lethal.[154]
Slaves, known as thralls in Old Norse. On their raids, the Vikings captured many people, among them monks and clergymen. They were sometimes sold as slaves to Arab merchants in exchange for silver.
Other exports included weapons, walrus ivory, wax, salt and cod. As one of the more exotic exports, hunting birds were sometimes provided from Norway to the European aristocracy, from the 10th century.[154]
Many of these goods were also traded within the Viking world itself, as well as goods such as soapstone and whetstone. Soapstone was traded with the Norse on Iceland and in Jutland, who used it for pottery. Whetstones were traded and used for sharpening weapons, tools and knives.[146] There are indications from Ribe and surrounding areas, that the extensive medieval trade with oxen and cattle from Jutland (see Ox Road), reach as far back as c. 720 AD. This trade satisfied the Vikings' need for leather and meat to some extent, and perhaps hides for parchment production on the European mainland. Wool was also very important as a domestic product for the Vikings, to produce warm clothing for the cold Scandinavian and Nordic climate, and for sails. Sails for Viking ships required large amounts of wool, as evidenced by experimental archaeology. There are archaeological signs of organized textile productions in Scandinavia, reaching as far back as the early Iron Ages. Artisans and craftsmen in the larger towns were supplied with antlers from organized hunting with large-scale reindeer traps in the far north. They were used as raw material for making everyday utensils like combs.[154]
Legacy
Medieval perceptions of the Vikings
In England the Viking Age began dramatically on 8 June 793 when Norsemen destroyed the abbey on the island of Lindisfarne. The devastation of Northumbria's Holy Island shocked and alerted the royal courts of Europe to the Viking presence. "Never before has such an atrocity been seen," declared the Northumbrian scholar Alcuin of York.[155] Medieval Christians in Europe were totally unprepared for the Viking incursions and could find no explanation for their arrival and the accompanying suffering they experienced at their hands save the "Wrath of God".[156] More than any other single event, the attack on Lindisfarne demonised perception of the Vikings for the next twelve centuries. Not until the 1890s did scholars outside Scandinavia begin to seriously reassess the achievements of the Vikings, recognizing their artistry, technological skills, and seamanship.[157]
Norse Mythology, sagas, and literature tell of Scandinavian culture and religion through tales of heroic and mythological heroes. Early transmission of this information was primarily oral, and later texts were reliant upon the writings and transcriptions of Christian scholars, including the Icelanders Snorri Sturluson and Sæmundur fróði. Many of these sagas were written in Iceland, and most of them, even if they had no Icelandic provenance, were preserved there after the Middle Ages due to the continued interest of Icelanders in Norse literature and law codes.
The 200-year Viking influence on European history is filled with tales of plunder and colonization, and the majority of these chronicles came from western witnesses and their descendants. Less common, though equally relevant, are the Viking chronicles that originated in the east, including the Nestor chronicles, Novgorod chronicles, Ibn Fadlan chronicles, Ibn Rusta chronicles, and brief mentions by Photius, patriarch of Constantinople, regarding their first attack on the Byzantine Empire. Other chroniclers of Viking history include Adam of Bremen, who wrote, in the fourth volume of his Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum, "[t]here is much gold here (in Zealand), accumulated by piracy. These pirates, which are called wichingi by their own people, and Ascomanni by our own people, pay tribute to the Danish king." In 991, the Battle of Maldon between Viking raiders and the inhabitants of Maldon in Essex was commemorated with a poem of the same name.
Post-medieval perceptions
A modern reenactment of a Viking battle
Early modern publications, dealing with what we now call Viking culture, appeared in the 16th century, e.g. Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (Olaus Magnus, 1555), and the first edition of the 13th-century Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus in 1514. The pace of publication increased during the 17th century with Latin translations of the Edda (notably Peder Resen's Edda Islandorum of 1665).
In Scandinavia, the 17th-century Danish scholars Thomas Bartholin and Ole Worm and the Swede Olaus Rudbeck used runic inscriptions and Icelandic sagas as historical sources. An important early British contributor to the study of the Vikings was George Hicke, who published his Linguarum vett. septentrionalium thesaurus in 1703–05. During the 18th century, British interest and enthusiasm for Iceland and early Scandinavian culture grew dramatically, expressed in English translations of Old Norse texts and in original poems that extolled the supposed Viking virtues.
The word "viking" was first popularised at the beginning of the 19th century by Erik Gustaf Geijer in his poem, The Viking. Geijer's poem did much to propagate the new romanticised ideal of the Viking, which had little basis in historical fact. The renewed interest of Romanticism in the Old North had contemporary political implications. The Geatish Society, of which Geijer was a member, popularised this myth to a great extent. Another Swedish author who had great influence on the perception of the Vikings was Esaias Tegnér, member of the Geatish Society, who wrote a modern version of Friðþjófs saga hins frœkna, which became widely popular in the Nordic countries, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
Everyday life in the Viking Age
Fascination with the Vikings reached a peak during the so-called Viking revival in the late 18th and 19th centuries. In Britain this was called Septentrionalism, in Germany "Wagnerian" pathos or Esotericism in Germany and Austria, and in the Scandinavian countries Romantic nationalism or Scandinavism. Pioneering 19th-century scholarly editions of the Viking Age began to reach a small readership in Britain, archaeologists began to dig up Britain's Viking past, and linguistic enthusiasts started to identify the Viking-Age origins of rural idioms and proverbs. The new dictionaries of the Old Norse language enabled the Victorians to grapple with the primary Icelandic sagas.[158]
Until recently, the history of the Viking Age was largely based on Icelandic sagas, the history of the Danes written by Saxo Grammaticus, the Russian Primary Chronicle, and Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib. Few scholars still accept these texts as reliable sources, as historians now rely more on archaeology and numismatics, disciplines that have made valuable contributions toward understanding the period.[159]
In 20th-century politics
The romanticised idea of the Vikings constructed in scholarly and popular circles in northwestern Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries was a potent one, and the figure of the Viking became a familiar and malleable symbol in different contexts in the politics and political ideologies of 20th-century Europe.[160] In Normandy, which had been settled by Vikings, the Viking ship became an uncontroversial regional symbol. In Germany, awareness of Viking history in the 19th century had been stimulated by the border dispute with Denmark over Schleswig-Holstein and the use of Scandinavian mythology by Richard Wagner. The idealised view of the Vikings appealed to Germanic supremacists who transformed the figure of the Viking in accordance with the ideology of the Germanic master race.[161] Building on the linguistic and cultural connections between Norse-speaking Scandinavians and other Germanic groups in the distant past, Scandinavian Vikings were portrayed in Nazi Germany as a pure Germanic type. The cultural phenomenon of Viking expansion was re-interpreted for use as propaganda to support the extreme militant nationalism of the Third Reich, and ideologically informed interpretations of Viking paganism and the Scandinavian use of runes were employed in the construction of Nazi mysticism. Other political organizations of the same ilk, such as the former Norwegian fascist party Nasjonal Samling, similarly appropriated elements of the modern Viking cultural myth in their symbolism and propaganda. In communist Russia, the ideology of Slavic racial purity led to the complete denial that Scandinavians had played a part in the emergence of the principalities of the Rus', which were supposed to have been founded by Slavs. Evidence to the contrary was suppressed until the 1990s. Novgorod now enthusiastically acknowledges its Viking history and has included a Viking ship in its logo.[162]
In modern popular culture
File:Jomvikings Winkinger Kampftraining.webm
Play media
Viking reenactment training (Jomsvikings group)
Led by the operas of German composer Richard Wagner, such as Der Ring des Nibelungen, Vikings and the Romanticist Viking Revival have inspired many creative works. These have included novels directly based on historical events, such as Frans Gunnar Bengtsson's The Long Ships (which was also released as a 1963 film), and historical fantasies such as the film The Vikings, Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead (movie version called The 13th Warrior), and the comedy film Erik the Viking. The vampire Eric Northman, in the HBO TV series True Blood, was a Viking prince before being turned into a vampire. Vikings appear in several books by the Danish American writer Poul Anderson, while British explorer, historian, and writer Tim Severin authored a trilogy of novels in 2005 about a young Viking adventurer Thorgils Leifsson, who travels around the world.
In 1962, American comic book writer Stan Lee and his brother Larry Lieber, together with Jack Kirby, created the Marvel Comics superhero Thor, which they based on the Norse god of the same name. The character is featured in the 2011 Marvel Studios film Thor and its sequel Thor: The Dark World and also appears in the 2012 film The Avengers and its associated animated series.
Since the 1960s, there has been rising enthusiasm for historical reenactment. While the earliest groups had little claim for historical accuracy, the seriousness and accuracy of reenactors has increased. The largest such groups include The Vikings and Regia Anglorum, though many smaller groups exist in Europe, North America, New Zealand, and Australia. Many reenactor groups participate in live-steel combat, and a few have Viking-style ships or boats.
The Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League are so-named owing to the large Scandinavian population in the US state of Minnesota.
Modern reconstructions of Viking mythology have shown a persistent influence in late 20th- and early 21st-century popular culture in some countries, inspiring comics, role-playing games, computer games, and music, including Viking metal, a subgenre of heavy metal music.
Common misconceptions
Horned helmets
Main article: Horned helmet
Magnus Barelegs Viking Festival
Apart from two or three representations of (ritual) helmets – with protrusions that may be either stylised ravens, snakes, or horns – no depiction of the helmets of Viking warriors, and no preserved helmet, has horns. The formal, close-quarters style of Viking combat (either in shield walls or aboard "ship islands") would have made horned helmets cumbersome and hazardous to the warrior's own side.
Historians therefore believe that Viking warriors did not wear horned helmets; whether such helmets were used in Scandinavian culture for other, ritual purposes, remains unproven. The general misconception that Viking warriors wore horned helmets was partly promulgated by the 19th-century enthusiasts of Götiska Förbundet, founded in 1811 in Stockholm.[163] They promoted the use of Norse mythology as the subject of high art and other ethnological and moral aims.
The Vikings were often depicted with winged helmets and in other clothing taken from Classical antiquity, especially in depictions of Norse gods. This was done to legitimize the Vikings and their mythology by associating it with the Classical world, which had long been idealized in European culture.
The latter-day mythos created by national romantic ideas blended the Viking Age with aspects of the Nordic Bronze Age some 2,000 years earlier. Horned helmets from the Bronze Age were shown in petroglyphs and appeared in archaeological finds (see Bohuslän and Vikso helmets). They were probably used for ceremonial purposes.[164]
Cartoons like Hägar the Horrible and Vicky the Viking, and sports kits such as those of the Minnesota Vikings and Canberra Raiders have perpetuated the myth of the horned helmet.[165]
Viking helmets were conical, made from hard leather with wood and metallic reinforcement for regular troops. The iron helmet with mask and mail was for the chieftains, based on the previous Vendel-age helmets from central Sweden. The only true Viking helmet found is from Gjermundbu in Norway. This helmet is made of iron and has been dated to the 10th century.[166]
Barbarity
The image of wild-haired, dirty savages sometimes associated with the Vikings in popular culture is a distorted picture of reality.[2] Non-Scandinavian Christians are responsible for most surviving accounts of the Vikings, and consequently, a strong possibility for bias exists. This attitude is likely attributed to Christian misunderstandings regarding paganism. Viking tendencies were often misreported, and the work of Adam of Bremen, among others, told largely disputable tales of Viking savagery and uncleanliness.[167]
Contrary to the wild, filthy image of Vikings, the early thirteenth-century chronicler John of Wallingford described a grave problem of Englishwomen seeking out Danish men as lovers because of their appealing "habit of combing their hair every day, of bathing every Saturday, and regularly changing their clothes," in contrast to local men.[168]
Genetic legacy
Studies of genetic diversity provide some indication of the origin and expansion of the Viking population. Haplogroup I-M253 (defined by specific genetic markers on the Y-chromosome) mutation occurs with the greatest frequency among Scandinavian males: 35 percent in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, and peaking at 40 percent within western Finland.[169] It is also common near the southern Baltic and North Sea coasts, and then successively decreasing further to the south geographically.
Genetic studies in the British Isles of the Y-DNA haplogroup R-M420, seen also across Scandinavia, have demonstrated that the Vikings settled in Britain and Ireland as well as raiding there. Both male and female descent studies show evidence of Norse descent in areas closest to Scandinavia, such as the Shetland and Orkney islands.[170] Inhabitants of lands farther away show most Norse descent in the male Y-chromosome lines.[171]
A specialised genetic and surname study in Liverpool demonstrated marked Norse heritage: up to 50 percent of males who belonged to original families, those who lived there before the years of industrialization and population expansion.[172] High percentages of Norse inheritance – tracked through R-M420 haplotype signatures – were also found among males in the Wirral and West Lancashire.[173] This was similar to the percentage of Norse inheritance found among males in the Orkney Islands.[174]
Recent research suggests that the Scottish warrior Somerled, who drove the Vikings out of Scotland and was the progenitor of Clan Donald, may have been of Viking descent, a member of haplogroup R-M420.[175]
See also
Faroese people
Geats
Gotlander
Gutasaga
Proto-Norse language
Scandinavian prehistory
Swedes (Germanic tribe)
Viking raid warfare and tactics
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Notes
1.Jump up ^ Viking (people), Encyclopædia Britannica.
2.^ Jump up to: a b Roesdahl, pp. 9–22.
3.Jump up ^ Brink 2008
4.Jump up ^ Wawn 2000
5.Jump up ^ Johnni Langer, "The origins of the imaginary viking", Viking Heritage Magazine, Gotland University/Centre for Baltic Studies. Visby (Sweden), n. 4, 2002.
6.Jump up ^ The Syntax of Old Norse by Jan Terje Faarlund; p 25 ISBN 0-19-927110-0; The Principles of English Etymology By Walter W. Skeat, published in 1892, defined Viking: better Wiking, Icel. Viking-r, O. Icel. *Viking-r, a creek-dweller; from Icel. vik, O. Icel. *wik, a creek, bay, with suffix -uig-r, belonging to Principles of English Etymology By Walter W. Skeat; Clarendon press; Page 479
7.Jump up ^ Eldar Heide (2005). "Víking - 'rower shifting'? An etymylogical contribution" (PDF). Arkiv för nordisk filologi 120: 41–54. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
8.Jump up ^ Walter W. Skeat: Principles of English Etymology Clarendon press, p. 479
9.Jump up ^ Kvilhaug, Maria. "The Tribe that Gave Vikings Their Name?". http://freya.theladyofthelabyrinth.com/. Freya. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
10.^ Jump up to: a b Hans C. Boas (13 May 2014). "Indo-European Lexicon - PIE Etymon and IE Reflexes". Linguistics Research Center. The University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
11.Jump up ^ Bernard Mees (2012). "Taking Turns: linguistic economy and the name of the Vikings". Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). Arkiv för nordisk filologi (academia.edu) 127: 5–12. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
12.Jump up ^ Eldar Heide (2008). "Viking, week, and Widsith. A reply to Harald Bjorvand". Centre of Medieval Studies (University of Bergen). Arkiv för nordisk filologi (ANF) (academia.edu) 123: 23–28. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
13.Jump up ^ Beard, David. "The Term "Viking"". http://www.archeurope.com. Archaeology in Europe. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
14.Jump up ^ Wolf 2004, p. 2.
15.Jump up ^ Educational Company of Ireland 2000, p. 472.
16.Jump up ^ Brookes 2004, p. 297.
17.^ Jump up to: a b D'Amato 2010, p. 3.
18.Jump up ^ Douglas Harper: Russia Online Etymology Dictionary. A private homepage project.
19.^ Jump up to: a b "Land of the Rus - Viking explorations to the east". National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
20.^ Jump up to: a b "Dangerous journeys to Eastern Europe and Russia". National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
21.Jump up ^ Peter Sawyer, The Viking Expansion, The Cambridge History of Scandinavia, Issue 1 (Knut Helle, ed., 2003), p.105.
22.Jump up ^ Lund, Niels (2001). "The Danish Empire and the End of the Viking Age", The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings. Ed. P. H. Sawyer. Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 167–181. ISBN 0-19-285434-8.
23.Jump up ^ The Royal Household, "Sweyn", The official Website of The British Monarchy, 15 March 2015, accessed 15 March 2015
24.Jump up ^ Lawson, M K (2004). "Cnut: England's Viking King 1016-35". The History Press Ltd, 2005, ISBN 978-0582059702.
25.Jump up ^ The Royal Household, "Canute The Great", The official Website of The British Monarchy, 15 March 2015, accessed 15 March 2015
26.Jump up ^ Badsey, S. Nicolle, D, Turnbull, S (1999). "The Timechart of Military History". Worth Press Ltd, 2000, ISBN 1-903025-00-1.
27.Jump up ^ "History of Northumbria: Viking era 866 AD–1066 AD" www.englandnortheast.co.uk.
28.Jump up ^ Toyne, Stanley Mease. The Scandinavians in history Pg.27. 1970.
29.Jump up ^ The Fate of Greenland's Vikings, by Dale Mackenzie Brown, Archaeological Institute of America, 28 February 2000
30.Jump up ^ "The Norse discovery of America". Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. 4 April 2012. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
31.Jump up ^ Ross, Valerie (31 May 2011). "Climate change froze Vikings out of Greenland". Discover (Kalmback Publishing). Retrieved 6 April 2013.
32.Jump up ^ Rurik Dynasty (medieval Russian rulers) Britannica Online Encyclopedia
33.Jump up ^ Hall, p. 98
34.Jump up ^ "Vikings' Barbaric Bad Rap Beginning to Fade". News.nationalgeographic.com. 28 October 2010. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
35.Jump up ^ "Los vikingos en Al-Andalus (abstract available in English)" (PDF). Jesús Riosalido. 1997. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
36.Jump up ^ John Haywood: Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings, Penguin (1996). Detailed maps of Viking settlements in Scotland, Ireland, England, Iceland and Normandy.
37.Jump up ^ Matthias Schulz (27 August 2010). "'Sensational' Discovery: Archeologists Find Gateway to the Viking Empire". Spiegel Online International. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
38.Jump up ^ Lotte Flugt Kold (3 November 2014). "Dannevirke". danmarkshistorien.dk (in Danish). Aarhus University. Retrieved 20 December 2014.
39.^ Jump up to: a b Rudolf Simek, "the emergence of the viking age: circumstances and conditions", "The vikings first Europeans VIII–XI century—the new discoveries of archaeology", other, 2005, pp. 24–25
40.Jump up ^ Bruno Dumézil, master of Conference at Paris X-Nanterre, Normalien, aggregated history, author of conversion and freedom in the barbarian kingdoms. 5th–8th centuries (Fayard, 2005)
41.Jump up ^ "Franques Royal Annals" cited in Peter Sawyer, "The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings", 2001, p. 20
42.Jump up ^ Dictionnaire d'histoire de France, Perrin, Alain Decaux and André Castelot, 1981, pages 184/185. ISBN 2-7242-3080-9.
43.Jump up ^ "the Vikings" R.Boyer history, myths, dictionary, Robert Laffont several 2008, p96 ISBN 978-2-221-10631-0
44.Jump up ^ François-Xavier Dillmann, "Viking civilisation and culture. A bibliography of French-language ", Caen, Centre for research on the countries of the North and Northwest, University of Caen, 1975, p.19, and "Les Vikings: the Scandinavian and European 800–1200", 22nd exhibition of art from the Council of Europe, 1992, p. 26
45.Jump up ^ "History of the Kings of Norway" by Snorri Sturlusson translated by Professor of History François-Xavier Dillmann, Gallimard ISBN 2-07-073211-8 pp. 15–16, 18, 24, 33–34, 38
46.Jump up ^ Macauley Richardson, Lloyd. "Books: Eurasian Exploration". Policy Review. Hoover Institution. Archived from the original on 2009-12-16.
47.Jump up ^ Crone, Patricia. Meccan trade and the rise of Islam First Georgias Press. 2004.
48.Jump up ^ "Viking expeditions and raids". National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
49.Jump up ^ Roesdahl, pp. 295–7
50.Jump up ^ Gareth Williams, 'Kingship, Christianity and coinage: monetary and political perspectives on silver economy in the Viking Age', in Silver Economy in the Viking Age, ed. James Graham-Campbell and Gareth Williams, pp. 177–214; ISBN 978-1-59874-222-0
51.Jump up ^ Roesdahl, pp. 296
52.Jump up ^ The Northern Crusades: Second Edition by Eric Christiansen; ISBN 0-14-026653-4
53.Jump up ^ "Written sources shed light on Viking travels". National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
54.Jump up ^ Hall, 2010, p. 8 and passim.
55.Jump up ^ Roesdahl, pp. 16–22.
56.Jump up ^ Hall, pp. 8–11
57.Jump up ^ Lindqvist, pp. 160–61
58.Jump up ^ See List of English words of Old Norse origin for further explanations on specific words.
59.Jump up ^ See Norman toponymy.
60.Jump up ^ Henriksen, Louise Kæmpe: Nordic place names in Europe Viking Ship Museum Roskilde
61.Jump up ^ Viking Words The British Library
62.Jump up ^ Joel Supéry. "Germanic Toponomy". Vikings in Aquitaine. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
63.Jump up ^ Joel Supéry. "A colony in Gascony?". Vikings in Aquitaine. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
64.Jump up ^ The French Regions of Poitou-Charentes and Aquitaine to be precise.
65.Jump up ^ Annie Dumont (2007). "Méthodes d'étude d'un site fluvial du haut Moyen Age: Taillebourg – Port d'Envaux, (Charente-Maritime)" (PDF). Proceedings of the 4th International Congress of Medieval and Modern Archaeology (in French) (Medieval Europe, Paris 2007). Retrieved 1 March 2014.
66.Jump up ^ Department of Scandinavian Research University of Copenhagen
67.Jump up ^ See information on the "Slavonic and Norse names of the Dnieper rapids" on Trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks.
68.Jump up ^ Else Roesdahl (prof. in Arch. & Hist.): The Vikings, Penguin Books (1999), ISBN 0-14-025282-7
69.Jump up ^ Sawyer, P H: 1997
70.Jump up ^ Jelling stones. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008.
71.Jump up ^ Rundata, DR 42
72.Jump up ^ baþum (Sm101), see Nordiskt runnamnslexikon PDF
73.Jump up ^ In the nominative: krikiaR (G216). In the genitive: girkha (U922$), k—ika (U104). In the dative: girkium (U1087†), kirikium (SöFv1954;20, U73, U140), ki(r)k(i)(u)(m) (Ög94$), kirkum (U136), krikium (Sö163, U431), krikum (Ög81A, Ög81B, Sö85, Sö165, Vg178, U201, U518), kri(k)um (U792), krikum (Sm46†, U446†), krkum (U358), kr... (Sö345$A), kRkum (Sö82). In the accusative: kriki (Sö170). Uncertain case krik (U1016$Q). Greece also appears as griklanti (U112B), kriklati (U540), kriklontr (U374$), see Nordiskt runnamnslexikon PDF
74.Jump up ^ Karusm (Vs1), see Nordiskt runnamnslexikon PDF
75.Jump up ^ iaursaliR (G216), iursala (U605†), iursalir (U136G216, U605, U136), see Nordiskt runnamnslexikon PDF
76.Jump up ^ lakbarþilanti (SöFv1954;22), see Nordiskt runnamnslexikon PDF
77.Jump up ^ serklat (G216), se(r)kl... (Sö279), sirklanti (Sö131), sirk:lan:ti (Sö179), sirk*la(t)... (Sö281), srklant- (U785), skalat- (U439), see Nordiskt runnamnslexikon PDF
78.Jump up ^ eklans (Vs18$), eklans (Sö83†), ekla-s (Vs5), enklans (Sö55), iklans (Sö207), iklanþs (U539C), ailati (Ög104), aklati (Sö166), akla-- (U616$), anklanti (U194), eg×loti (U812), eklanti (Sö46, Sm27), eklati (ÖgFv1950;341, Sm5C, Vs9), enklanti (DR6C), haklati (Sm101), iklanti (Vg20), iklati (Sm77), ikla-ti (Gs8), i...-ti (Sm104), ok*lanti (Vg187), oklati (Sö160), onklanti (U241), onklati (U344), -klanti (Sm29$), iklot (N184), see Nordiskt runnamnslexikon PDF
79.Jump up ^ luntunum (DR337$B), see Nordiskt runnamnslexikon PDF
80.^ Jump up to: a b Jasmine Idun Tova Lyman (2007), Viking Age graves in Iceland (PDF), University of Iceland, p. 4
81.Jump up ^ Medieval Archaeology: An Encyclopaedia (Pamela Crabtree, ed., 2001), "Vikings," p. 510.
82.Jump up ^ Roesdahl, p. 20.
83.Jump up ^ Roesdahl p. 70 (in Women, gender roles and children)
84.Jump up ^ The Hemlanden cemetery located here is the largest Viking Period cemetery in Scandinavia Phillip Pulsiano, Kirsten Wolf, ed. (1993). Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia (Illustrated ed.). United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. pp. 238–239. ISBN 978-0-8240-4787-0.
85.Jump up ^ Erlandson (2005). "A Viking-Age Valley in Iceland: The Mosfell Archaeological Project" (PDF). Medieval Archaeology Journal of the Society For Medieval Archaeology XLIX.
86.Jump up ^ See also Jon M. Erlandson.
87.Jump up ^ [I)ór Magnússon: Bátkumlió í Vatnsdal, Arbók hies íslenzka fornleifafélags (1966), 1-32
88.Jump up ^ A comprehensive list of registered pagan graves in Iceland, can be found in Eldjárn & Fridriksson (2000): Kuml og haugfé.
89.Jump up ^ Dale Mackenzie Brown (28 February 2000). "The Fate of Greenland's Vikings". Archaeology. the Archaeological Institute of America. Retrieved 22 February 2014.
90.Jump up ^ Longships are sometimes erroneously called drakkar, a corruption of "dragon" in Norse.
91.Jump up ^ Hadingham, Evan: Secrets of Viking Ships (05.09.00) NOVA science media.
92.Jump up ^ Durham, Keith: Viking Longship Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2002.
93.Jump up ^ Block, Leo, To Harness the Wind: A Short History of the Development of Sails, Naval Institute Press, 2002, ISBN 1-55750-209-9
94.Jump up ^ Ian Heath, The Vikings, p. 4, Osprey Publishing, 1985.
95.Jump up ^ Curry, Andrew (10 June 2013). "The First Vikings". Archaeology. the Archaeological Institute of America. Retrieved 22 February 2014.
96.^ Jump up to: a b Roesdahl, pp. 38–48, pp.61-71.
97.Jump up ^ Mari Kildah (5 December 2013). "Double graves with headless slaves". University of Oslo. Retrieved 23 June 2014.
98.Jump up ^ Borgström Eva (Swedish): Makalösa kvinnor: könsöverskridare i myt och verklighet (Marvelous women : gender benders in myth and reality) Alfabeta/Anamma, Stockholm 2002. ISBN 91-501-0191-9 (inb.). Libris 8707902.
99.Jump up ^ Borgström Eva (Swedish): Makalösa kvinnor: könsöverskridare i myt och verklighet (Marvelous women : gender benders in myth and reality) Alfabeta/Anamma, Stockholm 2002. ISBN 91-501-0191-9 (inb.). Libris 8707902.
100.Jump up ^ Borgström Eva (Swedish): Makalösa kvinnor: könsöverskridare i myt och verklighet (Marvelous women : gender benders in myth and reality) Alfabeta/Anamma, Stockholm 2002. ISBN 91-501-0191-9 (inb.). Libris 8707902.
101.Jump up ^ Borgström Eva (Swedish): Makalösa kvinnor: könsöverskridare i myt och verklighet (Marvelous women : gender benders in myth and reality) Alfabeta/Anamma, Stockholm 2002. ISBN 91-501-0191-9 (inb.). Libris 8707902.
102.Jump up ^ Borgström Eva(Swedish): Makalösa kvinnor: könsöverskridare i myt och verklighet (Marvelous women : gender benders in myth and reality) Alfabeta/Anamma, Stockholm 2002. ISBN 91-501-0191-9 (inb.). Libris 8707902.
103.Jump up ^ Ohlander, Ann-Sofie & Strömberg, Ulla-Britt, Tusen svenska kvinnoår: svensk kvinnohistoria från vikingatid till nutid, 3. (A Thousand Swedish Women's Years: Swedish Women's History from the Viking Age until now), [omarb. och utök.] uppl., Norstedts akademiska förlag, Stockholm, 2008
104.Jump up ^ Ohlander, Ann-Sofie & Strömberg, Ulla-Britt, Tusen svenska kvinnoår: svensk kvinnohistoria från vikingatid till nutid, 3. (A Thousand Swedish Women's Years: Swedish Women's History from the Viking Age until now), [omarb. och utök.] uppl., Norstedts akademiska förlag, Stockholm, 2008
105.Jump up ^ Ohlander, Ann-Sofie & Strömberg, Ulla-Britt, Tusen svenska kvinnoår: svensk kvinnohistoria från vikingatid till nutid, 3. (A Thousand Swedish Women's Years: Swedish Women's History from the Viking Age until now), [omarb. och utök.] uppl., Norstedts akademiska förlag, Stockholm, 2008
106.Jump up ^ Ingelman-Sundberg, Catharina, Forntida kvinnor: jägare, vikingahustru, prästinna [Ancient women: hunters, viking wife, priestess], Prisma, Stockholm, 2004
107.Jump up ^ Ingelman-Sundberg, Catharina, Forntida kvinnor: jägare, vikingahustru, prästinna [Ancient women: hunters, viking wife, priestess], Prisma, Stockholm, 2004
108.Jump up ^ Ingelman-Sundberg, Catharina, Forntida kvinnor: jägare, vikingahustru, prästinna [Ancient women: hunters, viking wife, priestess], Prisma, Stockholm, 2004
109.Jump up ^ Cite error: The named reference Anamma_2002 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
110.Jump up ^ "Appearance - What did the Vikings look like?". National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
111.Jump up ^ Sk. V. Gudjonsson (1941): Folkekost og sundhedsforhold i gamle dage. Belyst igennem den oldnordiske Litteratur. (Dvs. først og fremmest de islandske sagaer). København. (Danish) Short description in English: Diet and health in previous times, as revealed in the Old Norse Literature, especially the Icelandic Sagas.
112.^ Jump up to: a b c Pernille Rohde Sloth, Ulla Lund Hansen & Sabine Karg (2013). "Viking Age garden plants from southern Scandinavia – diversity, taphonomy and cultural aspect" (PDF). Danish Journal of Archaeology. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
113.Jump up ^ This will cause a lactic acid fermentation process to occur.
114.Jump up ^ "Forråd til vinteren - Salte, syrne, røge og tørre [Supplies for the winter - curing, fermenting, smoking and drying]". Ribe Vikingecenter (in Danish). Retrieved 20 April 2015.
115.^ Jump up to: a b Roesdahl, p. 54
116.Jump up ^ "Viking Food". National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
117.Jump up ^ See the article on the Northern European short-tailed sheep for specific information. In southern Scandinavia (ie. Denmark), the heath sheeps of Lüneburger Heidschnucke was raised and kept.
118.Jump up ^ "The animals on the farm - Genetic connection". Ribe Vikingecenter. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
119.Jump up ^ "Poultry". Danish Agricultural Museum. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
120.Jump up ^ O'Conner, Terry. 1999? "The Home- Food and Meat." Viking Age York. Jorvik Viking Centre.
121.Jump up ^ Roesdahl p. 102-117
122.Jump up ^ Nedkvitne, Arnved. "Fishing, Whaling and Seal Hunting." in Pulsiano, Phillip (1993). Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities.
123.Jump up ^ Inge Bødker Enghoff (2013). Huntng, fishing and animal husbandry at The Farm Beneath The Sand, Western Greenland. Man & Society 28 (the Greenland National Museum, Dansk Polar Center). Retrieved 23 June 2014.
124.^ Jump up to: a b "A Viking Feast - an abundance of foods". Ribe Vikingecenter. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
125.Jump up ^ Roesdahl, p. 110-111
126.Jump up ^ Fondén, R; Leporanta, K; Svensson, U (2007). "Chapter 7. Nordic/Scandinavian Fermented Milk Products". In Tamime, Adnan. Fermented Milks. Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9780470995501.ch7. ISBN 9780632064588.
127.^ Jump up to: a b "The Seastallion from Glendalough" (PDF) (in Danish). Vikingeskibsmuseet. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
128.^ Jump up to: a b Hall, A. R. 1999? "The Home: Food- Fruit, Grain and Vegetable." Viking Age York. The Jorvik Viking Centre.
129.Jump up ^ "The farm crops". Ribe Vikingecenter. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
130.^ Jump up to: a b "From grains to bread - coarse, heavy and filling". Ribe Vikingecenter (in Danish). Retrieved 19 June 2014.
131.Jump up ^ Bo Ejstrud et.al. (2011). "From Flax To Linen - experiments with flax at Ribe Viking Centre" (PDF). University of Southern Denmark. ISBN 978-87-992214-6-2. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
132.^ Jump up to: a b c d Kirsten Wolf: Daily Life of the Vikings Greenwood Press "Daily life through history" series, 2004, ISBN 0-313-32269-4, Ch. 7
133.^ Jump up to: a b Isak Ladegaard (19 November 2012). "How Vikings killed time". ScienceNordic. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
134.^ Jump up to: a b c "Games and entertainment in the Viking period". National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
135.Jump up ^ Fotevikens Museum Official homepage
136.Jump up ^ Darrell Markewitz 1998–2010. "IRON SMELTING at the Norse Encampment -Daily Life in the Viking Age circa 1000 AD at Vinland. The Viking Encampment living history program at Parks Canada L'Anse aux Meadows NHSC in Newfoundland". Warehamforge.ca. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
137.Jump up ^ Return of Dublin's Viking Warship. Retrieved 14 November 2007.
138.Jump up ^ "Beyond Lands' End: Viking Voyage 1000". Dougcabot.com. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
139.Jump up ^ Shona Grimbly (16 August 2013). Encyclopedia of the Ancient World. Routledge. pp. 121–. ISBN 978-1-136-78688-4.
140.Jump up ^ Dennis Howard Green; Frank Siegmund (2003). The Continental Saxons from the Migration Period to the Tenth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective. Boydell Press. pp. 306–. ISBN 978-1-84383-026-9.
141.Jump up ^ Howard D. Fabing. "On Going Berserk: A Neurochemical Inquiry." Scientific Monthly. 83 [Nov. 1956] p. 232
142.Jump up ^ Robert Wernick. The Vikings. Alexandria VA: Time-Life Books. 1979. p. 285
143.^ Jump up to: a b Gareth Williams: Viking Money BBC History
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145.Jump up ^ Andrew Curry (July 2008). "Raiders or Traders?". Smithsonian Magazine. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
146.^ Jump up to: a b c Vikings as traders, Teachers' notes 5. Royal Museums Greenwhich
147.Jump up ^ "Herbs, spices and vegetables in the Viking period". National Museum of Denmark. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
148.Jump up ^ Heidi Michelle Sherman (2008). Barbarians come to Market: The Emporia of Western Eurasia from 500 BC to AD 1000. ProQuest LLC. pp. 250–5. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
149.Jump up ^ HL Renart of Berwick: Glass Beads of the Viking Age. An inquiry into the glass beads of the Vikings. Sourced information and pictures.
150.Jump up ^ Glass and Amber Regia Anglorum. Sourced information and pictures.
151.Jump up ^ Yngve Vogt (1 November 2013). "Norwegian Vikings purchased silk from Persia". Apollon - research magazine. University of Oslo. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
152.Jump up ^ Marianne Vedeler: Silk for The Vikings, Oxbow 2014.
153.Jump up ^ Elizabeth Wincott Heckett (2002). "Irish Viking Age silks and their place in Hiberno-Norse society". Department of Archaeology, University College Cork, NUI Cork, Ireland. Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings (University of Nebraska - Lincoln (Digital Commons)). Retrieved 28 February 2014.
154.^ Jump up to: a b c Jørgensen, Lise Bender; Jesch, Judith (2002). "Rural Economy: Ecology, Hunting, Pastoralism, Agricultural and Nutritional Aspects". The Scandinavians - from the Vendel Period to the Tenth Century. Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Social Stress. pp. 131–7.
155.Jump up ^ English Historical Documents, c. 500–1042 by Dorothy Whitelock; p.776
156.Jump up ^ Derry (2012). A History of Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, p. 16.
157.Jump up ^ Northern Shores by Alan Palmer; p.21; ISBN 0-7195-6299-6
158.Jump up ^ The Viking Revival By Professor Andrew Wawn at bbc
159.Jump up ^ The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings by Peter Hayes Sawyer ISBN 0-19-820526-0
160.Jump up ^ Hall, pp. 220–1; Fitzhugh and Ward, pp. 362–64
161.Jump up ^ Fitzhugh and Ward, p. 363
162.Jump up ^ Hall, p. 221
163.Jump up ^ Frank, Roberta (2000). International Scandinavian and Medieval Studies in Memory of Gerd Wolfgang Weber. Ed. Parnaso. p. 487. ISBN 978-88-86474-28-3.
164.Jump up ^ Did Vikings really wear horns on their helmets?, The Straight Dope, 7 December 2004. Retrieved 14 November 2007.
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166.Jump up ^ "The Gjermundbu Find - The Chieftain Warrior". Retrieved 10 April 2014.
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169.Jump up ^ "Annals of Human Genetics. Volume 72 Issue 3 Pages 337–348, May 2008". Blackwell-synergy.com. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
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171.Jump up ^ Roger Highfield, "Vikings who chose a home in Shetland before a life of pillage", Telegraph, 7 April 2005, accessed 16 November 2008
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175.Jump up ^ "DNA shows Celtic hero Somerled's Viking roots". Scotsman. 26 April 2005.
References
Brink, Stefan (2008). "Who were the Vikings?". In Brink, Stefan; Price, Neil. The Viking World. Routledge. pp. 4–10. ISBN 9780415692625.
Brookes, Ian (2004). Chambers concise dictionary. Allied Publishers. ISBN 9798186062363.
D'Amato, Raffaele (2010). The Varangian Guard 988-453. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84908-179-5.
Derry, T.K. (2012). A History of Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland. London and Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-81663-799-7.
Educational Company of Ireland (10 October 2000). Irish-English/English-Irish Easy Reference Dictionary. Roberts Rinehart. ISBN 978-1-4616-6031-6.
Fitzhugh, William W.; Ward, Elisabeth I. (2000). Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga ; (an Exhibition at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., April 29, 2000 - September 5, 2000). Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 9781560989707.
Hall, Richard Andrew (2007). The World of the Vikings. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500051443.
Hall, Richard (January 1990). Viking Age Archaeology in Britain and Ireland. Shire. ISBN 9780747800637.
Lindqvist, Thomas (4 September 2003). "Early Political Organisation: (a) An Introductory Survey". In Helle, Knut. The Cambridge History of Scandinavia: Prehistory to 1520. Cambridge University Press. pp. 160–67. ISBN 9780521472999.
Roesdahl, Else (1998). The Vikings. Penguin Books. ISBN 9780140252828.
Sawyer, Peter Hayes (1 February 1972). Age of the Vikings. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780312013653.
Williams, Gareth (2007). "Kingship, Christianity and coinage: monetary and political perspectives on silver economy in the Viking Age". In Graham-Campbell, James; Williams, Gareth. Silver Economy in the Viking Age. Left Coast Press. pp. 177–214. ISBN 9781598742220.
Wolf, Kirsten (1 January 2004). Daily Life of the Vikings. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-32269-3.
Further reading
Askeberg, Fritz (1944). Norden och kontinenten i gammal tid: studier i forngermansk kulturhistoria. Almqvist & Wiksells boktr.
Downham, Clare (2007). Viking kings of Britain and Ireland: the dynasty of ́Ívarr to A.D. 1014. Dunedin Academic Press. ISBN 9781903765890.
Downham, Clare (2011). "Viking Ethnicities. A Historiographic Overview", History Compass 10.1 (2012), pp. 1–12. PDF Academic.edu - registration required
Hadley, Dawn (2006). The Vikings in England: Settlement, Society and Culture. Manchester University Press. ISBN 9780719059827.
Heide, Eldar (2005). "Víking – 'rower shifting'? An etymological contribution". Arkiv för nordisk filologi (PDF) 120. C.W.K. Gleerup. pp. 41–54.
Heide, Eldar (2008). "Viking, week, and Widsith. A reply to Harald Bjorvand". Arkiv för nordisk filologi (PDF) 123. C.W.K. Gleerup. pp. 23–28. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008.
Hodges, Richard (2006). Goodbye to the Vikings: Re-Reading Early Medieval Archaeology. Gerald Duckworth & Company Limited. ISBN 9780715634295.
Svanberg, Fredrik (2003). Decolonizing the Viking Age. Almqvist & Wiksell International. ISBN 9789122020066.
Wamers, Egon (1985). Insularer Metallschmuck in wikingerzeitlichen Gräbern Nordeuropas. Untersuchungen zur skandinavischen Westexpansion. Neumünster: Karl Wachholtz. ISBN 9783529011566.
Wamers, Egon (1998). "Insular Finds in Viking Age Scandinavia and the State Formation of Norway". In Clarke, H.B.; Mhaonaigh, M. Ní; Floinn, R. Ó. Ireland and Scandinavia in the Early Viking Age. Dublin: Four Courts Press. pp. 37–72. ISBN 9781851822355.
Wawn, M.A. (2000). The Vikings and the Victorians: Inventing the Old North in Nineteenth Century Britain. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer. ISBN 9780859916448.
External links
Look up Viking in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Viking Age.
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Northmen
Vikings—View videos at The History Channel
Copenhagen-Portal – The Danish Vikings
BBC: History of Vikings
Encyclopædia Britannica: Viking, or Norseman, or Northman, or Varangian (people)
Borg Viking museum, Norway
Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah, by James E. Montgomery, with full translation of Ibn Fadlan
Reassessing what we collect website – Viking and Danish London History of Viking and Danish London with objects and images
Wawm, Andrew, The Viking Revival - BBC Online, Ancient History in Depth (updated 17 February 2011)
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