Viking Ships and Danish History

I had a lovely day out visiting the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, and the open air museum Sagnlandet Lejre.

The first stop, the Viking Ship Museum, displays fragments of real Viking ships which were sunk between 1060-1080, in Roskilde fjord, in order to block the passage to Roskilde by sea. The five ships were found in fragments (50.000 in total) and dug out in 1962. The fragments were conserved and put on metal frames in order to show the different sizes and types of ships. Today, the Viking Ship Museum still creates reconstructions of the Viking ships as well. These, they use to perform trial voyages, for scientific and historic purposes. The reconstructions are done with copies of Viking Age tools, and corresponding materials and techniques.

“Skuldelev 1”, as displayed in the video, is an ocean-going cargo ship.

“Skuldelev 2”, as displayed in the video, is a warship, able to carry up to 70 men.

“Skuldelev 3”, as displayed in the video, is a trading ship, built for transporting goods in Danish waters and the Baltic. This ship is the best preserved of the five.

“Skuldelev 5”, as displayed in the video, is a war ship, more precisely a longship, one of the smaller ships in a war fleet.

“Skuldelev 6”, as displayed in the video, is a fishing boat built in western Norway at the same time as “Skuldelev 1”.

For those confused by the ”missing” ”Skuldelev 4”: During the excavation in 1962, the archaeologists believed there to be fragments of SIX ships. However, it turned out that fractions from ”Skuldelev 4” were actually from ”Skuldelev 2”. The numbering of the ships were not changed, and therefore, ”Skuldelev 4” is ”missing”.

The last stop of the day was Sagnlandet Lejre. The main attraction here, apart from depictions of buildings and life in the Danish 1800’s, Mesolithic period, and Stone Age, is of course the reconstructed Viking Hall. Opened to the public in 2020, it is modeled on the archeological finds from actual Viking Halls found nearby in Gl. Lejre. I filmed a video there, walking the length of the halls, where they were actually discovered:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snn8B7Hd_Bo

Covering 600 square meters and being 10 meters tall, the hall of the Viking King was an impressive sight.

Thanks for watching, and stay tuned for lots more content coming up.

Background music: pixabay.com