View allAll Photos Tagged vikingage
ⓒRebecca Bugge, All Rights Reserved
Do not use without permission.
Valsgärde is one of the most famous Iron Age sites in Sweden - this hill contains some 80 burials, dating from the 1st century A.D. to the 11th. But what makes this place really famous are the 15 ship burials from the Vendel Period and Viking Age (the Vendel period is traditionally dated 550-800 A.D. - named after another important site of ship burials, very close to this spot, but now excavated and only the finds are preserved). The place has been archaeologically examined and the results show that the ship burials were all the graves of men, and about one burial for each generation. It is suspected that these are the burials of local and wealthy chieftains (there have even been finds of silk fabrics from China in them!). The remains of a rich farmstead, suitable for a local leader, has been found nearby and the people buried here most likely lived there.
And yes, a ship burial really means that the burial contains a big boat. The remains that have been excavated here measure lengths of between circa 8,5 and 12 metres.
ⓒRebecca Bugge, All Rights Reserved
Do not use without permission.
This is not a slim stone with some random scratch-marks - though, admittedly it kind of looks like that. Well, it is slim but the scratches are actually runes. The inscription (partly seen in this shot) means, according to a nearby information sign: Roar raised this stone for Olve, his father. The stone dates to the first half of the 11th century and who Roar and Olve were is not known.
The top of this very tall, and slim, rune-stone had been broken off, but was later found at a nearby bridge and reassembled. The stone is from the area, but it has been moved around a bit so it is probably not in its exact original position.
ⓒRebecca Bugge, All Rights Reserved
Do not use without permission.
A runestone from the 11th century, commemorating the building of a bridge over the river Kroppån - a feat already celebrated on another runestone, on the other side of the (see www.flickr.com/photos/dameboudicca/32497056838 ). This stone might very well be somewhat younger and therefore the meaning would be that the people responsible here made substantial repairs to an already existing bridge, or something like that. The stone has the official name SM 100, and spent some time laying down, but in 1885 it was put in its current position, not far from the spot where the original bridge must have stood - of course nothing really remains of that one.
What you can't really see in this picture is just how tall the stone actually is: it is well over 2 metres!
The inscription, in translation, runs: Tormar had the bridge done after [in memory] of Saxe, his son. God help his soul well.
The runestone is decorated with a cross (almost at the top of the stone), meaning that Tormar/Saxe family most likely where Christians.
ⓒRebecca Bugge, All Rights Reserved
Do not use without permission.
A runestone from the 11th century, commemorating the building of a bridge - made by the two brothers who also commissioned this stone, in memory of their father. The stone is somewhat damaged, and used as building material for a road, before being put in its current position (which is approximately its original place) in the 1930s. The official number of this runestone is SM 99 (and can be found in Scandinavian Runic-text Database at Uppsala university), and the text in English would be something like: þurþR and þurbiourn made this bridge in memory of their father Verskulf.
Funny thing, there is a second runestone on the opposite side of the river (Kroppån), where other people are commemorating that THEY built a bridge here. The stones are probably referring to the same bridge, but that it at some point needed substantial repairs, and that counted as building a bridge. (The other stone can be found here: www.flickr.com/photos/dameboudicca/39787234343/ )
The picture is from the 2nd and last trip with the new motorhome. Now that I have cancer in the prostate with spread to the lymph, the car has been put up for sale, I have to realize that the time must be used for other things than photo safaris far away.
Heddal Stave Church
The church is a triple nave stave church and is Norway's largest stave church. It was constructed at the beginning of the 13th century. After the reformation, the church was in a very poor condition, and a restoration took place during 1849–1851. However, because the restorers lacked the necessary knowledge and skills, yet another restoration was necessary in the 1950s. The interior is marked by the period after the Lutheran Reformation in 1536–1537 and is for a great part a result of the restoration that took place in the 1950s.
© Sigmund Løland. All Rights Reserved.
At this site, more than 1,000 years ago, the lines of the first Norwegian laws were drawn up. Which in turn led to Norway being united into one kingdom, under one king.
The verb blóta meant "to worship with blood sacrifice", or "to strengthen".
The written sources and the archaeological record indicate that in Old Norse religious practice the sacrifice of animals, particularly pigs and horses, played a significant part in the blót. More than just a simple sacrifice, the blót was central to all the ritual activities that took place in Norse sacral structures. Closer in conception to a gift, the blót usually involved killing animals, and sometimes humans, in ritual fashion with their blood being poured into bowls or onto stones. Twigs were dipped into the liquid and shaken, throwing a spray onto the onlookers and the buildings. At the temple-hall of Hofstaðir in northern Iceland, oxen were decapitated in seasonal rituals for many years. Osteological analysis of the bones shows that the animals were killed with blows to the neck by axe or sword. This method was intended to produce the spectacle of a shower of arterial blood.
The ritual killing of animals was followed by feasts on the meat, as described in the Eddic and Scaldic poetry, the Icelandic sagas, and on rune stones.
The meat was boiled in large cooking pits with heated stones, either indoors or outdoors, and ale or mead (mjöð) was drunk in the ceremony.[
ⓒRebecca Bugge, All Rights Reserved
Do not use without permission.
This runestone (in Swedish known as Rökstenen, the Rök stone) has the longest preserved runic inscription in the world - and dating to the early 9th century. The date also means that it is about 200 years older than most runstones you will come across in Sweden. The paint-work is obviously restored in more modern times.
The text is written with the runic alphabet known as the futhark, which can be read. But much has happened to the language spoken here since the time it was written (they didn't speak what we would call Swedish then, but Old Norse), which means it can be quite hard to understand all the same. Not to mention the text seems to have been meant to be cryptic to begin with. So I won't get into what the stone actually says. But I can say the stone was erected by Varin in memory of his dead son Vämod.
For anyone more interested in the text I can actually recommend Wikipedia for it - where you can find it translated to for example English, German, French, Spanish and Italian, though I am less sure how much they get into how much the actual meaning of the text is debated.
Today you can find the stone next to the cemetery wall in Rök. It is not its original place (it even spent a few centuries in a wall), but the original placing was probably rather quite close by.
Here on the Island Utvær, which is known from history all the way back to the Viking Age, these grinding marks can be found in the sea rock. The Saga and the history tells us that these are traces of the Vikings who sharpened their swords and axes before they crossed the sea on a Viking expedition. This place in the bay, also has the nickname "Likberget". Which in English means something like "A rock covered with dead bodies"...
© Sigmund Løland. All Rights Reserved.
Bronseplassen is a reconstructed farm from the Bronze Age which is located along county road 401 in Høvåg in Lillesand municipality in Agder. The farm shows how our ancestors lived about 3,500 years ago. The 25 meter long and 8 meter wide longhouse is decorated as people lived at this time, with space for cooking, storage of food, sleeping places and rooms for the pets. The longhouse's building materials are cow dung, clay, twigs and peat. In addition to the longhouse, there are bark boats, maze, sacrificial site and burial ground on site. archery and archery are also demonstrated, as well as a separate fertility labyrinth. Bronseplassen has an herb garden with plants that have been used for food and medicine since the Bronze Age and up to our time.
The place has its own department from the Viking Age (700 - 1000s AD) with reconstructions from the Oseberg find. Here, a large Viking tent, dragon bed, utensils from the Viking Age and Grindehus smithy have been set up. Bronseplassen is open during the summer months of May-September.
.... this is a warning for you Vikings... do not come to the shores of Vancouver... you will fail....
A Viking is one of the Norse (Scandinavian) explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late eighth to the early eleventh century.[1] These Norsemen used their famed longships to travel as far east as Constantinople and the Volga River in Russia, and as far west as Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland. This period of Viking expansion is known as the Viking Age, and forms a major part of the medieval history of Scandinavia, the British Isles and Europe in general.
Kristiansand, Norway.
The former fire station located at Øvre torv was designed by Keyser Frølich and was built after the city fire in 1892. It has number 18 and is today the information center for the municipality.
Scenes from Midgardsblot Metalfestival 2019. The festival is held at Midgard Vikingsenter, Borre. This was the last Midgardsblot before the plague hit us, and everything was shut down for two whole seasons. It will be back next year, in full force!
Domsteinane stone circle. It's located close to Sola airport, Stavanger. It's one of the largest in Scandinavia. Approx 22,5 meters in diameter. A magic place. Lots of energy. It's worth a visit.
Scenes from Midgardsblot Metalfestival 2019. The festival is held at Midgard Vikingsenter, Borre. This was the last Midgardsblot before the plague hit us, and everything was shut down for two whole seasons. It will be back next year, in full force!
Scenes from Midgardsblot Metalfestival 2019. The festival is held at Midgard Vikingsenter, Borre. This was the last Midgardsblot before the plague hit us, and everything was shut down for two whole seasons. It will be back next year, in full force!
Borre mound cemetery (Norwegian: Borrehaugene from the Old Norse words borró and haugr meaning mound) forms part of the Borre National Park at Horten in Vestfold og Telemark, Norway.
It is home to seven large and 21 smaller burial mounds. Excavations in the 1980s revealed that the oldest mounds date to 600 AD, i.e. prior to the Viking Age.
The park covers 45 acres (182,000 m²) and its collection of burial mounds is exceptional in Scandinavia. Today, seven large mounds and one cairn can be seen. At least two mounds and one cairn have been destroyed in modern times. There are also 25 smaller cairns and the cemetery may have been larger. Some of the monuments are over 45m in diameter and up to 6m high. Borrehaugene provides important historical knowledge and can be seen as evidence that there was a local power center from the Merovingian period to the Viking Age.
The first investigations of the cemetery took place in 1851–1852. Local road-builders used one of the mounds as a gravel-pit and in the process destroyed large parts of a richly equipped grave in a Viking ship. Antiquarian Nicolay Nicolaysen examined what was left of the mound. The grave contained weapons and riding equipment. The excavations uncovered an unusually good selection of craft work, much of which is on display at the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo.
This artistic craft work has become known as the Borre style and is today known for its beautiful animal and knot ornaments, which were often used for decorating harnesses. Some of the smaller cairns were investigated in 1925. They turned out to be simple cremation graves. More recent excavations were undertaken by archaeologist Bjørn Myhre in 1989 to 1991, both in and around the national park.
From an exhibition in Reykjavik, Iceland.
A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. The classical period of witch-hunts in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America took place in the Early Modern period or about 1450 to 1750, spanning the upheavals of the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, resulting in an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 executions.
The last executions of people convicted as witches in Europe took place in the 18th century. In other regions, like Africa and Asia, contemporary witch-hunts have been reported from sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea, and official legislation against witchcraft is still found in Saudi Arabia and Cameroon today.
Haithabu / Schleswig-Holstein / Germany
Haithabu (Hedeby) was an important Viking city in the Middle Ages (8th to the 11th centuries) and now an UNESCO World Heritage Site with open-air museum. Before and after this time, it was just a beautiful piece of land.
Album of Germany (the north): www.flickr.com/photos/tabliniumcarlson/albums/72157712098...
The Viking Age (793–1066 AD) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest and trading throughout Europe, and reached North America.
It followed the Migration Period and the Germanic Iron Age. The Viking Age applies not only to their homeland of Scandinavia, but to any place significantly settled by Scandinavians during the period.
The Scandinavians of the Viking Age are often referred to as Vikings as well as Norsemen, although few of them were Vikings in the technical sense.
Voyaging by sea from their homelands in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the Norse people settled in the British Isles, Ireland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Normandy, the Baltic coast, and along the Dnieper and Volga trade routes in eastern Europe (where they were known as Varangians). They also briefly settled in Newfoundland, becoming the first Europeans to reach North America. The Norse-Gaels, Normans, Rus' people, Faroese and Icelanders emerged from these Norse colonies. The Vikings founded several kingdoms and earldoms in Europe: the kingdom of the Isles (Suðreyjar), Orkney (Norðreyjar), York (Jórvík) and the Danelaw (Danalǫg), Dublin (Dyflin), Normandy, and Kievan Rus' (Garðaríki).
The Norse homelands were also unified into larger kingdoms during the Viking Age, and the short-lived North Sea Empire included large swathes of Scandinavia and Britain.
Several things drove this expansion. The Vikings were drawn by the growth of wealthy towns and monasteries overseas, and weak kingdoms. They may also have been pushed to leave their homeland by overpopulation, lack of good farmland, and political strife arising from the unification of Norway.
The aggressive expansion of the Carolingian Empire and forced conversion of the neighboring Saxons to Christianity may also have been a factor.
Sailing innovations had allowed the Vikings to sail further and longer to begin with.
Information about the Viking Age is drawn largely from primary sources written by those the Vikings encountered, as well as archaeology, supplemented with secondary sources such as the Icelandic Sagas. wikipedia
Coastal trading ship.
Material: oak
Length: 14 metres
Breadth: 3.3 metres
Draught: 0.9 metres
Displacement: 9.6 tons
Cargo capacity: 4.6 tons
No. of oars: 5 oar ports
Crew: 5-8 men
Sail area: 45 m2
Average speed: 4-5 knots
Top speed: 8-10 knots
Dating: ca. 1040
In front of the mill is a Viking age burial mound. This probably looked almost the same 150 years ago. By the way, the last miller closed up shop here in 1950.
Scenes from Midgardsblot Metalfestival 2019. The festival is held at Midgard Vikingsenter, Borre. This was the last Midgardsblot before the plague hit us, and everything was shut down for two whole seasons. It will be back next year, in full force!
"Cattle die, kinsmen die, the self must also die ... but glory never dies, for he who wins it has earned it."
(from "The Hávamál")
('Norseman' by Frazetta: Icon Collectibles / Frazetta Girls)
Diorama and background painting by RK
Scenes from Midgardsblot Metalfestival 2019. The festival is held at Midgard Vikingsenter, Borre. This was the last Midgardsblot before the plague hit us, and everything was shut down for two whole seasons. It will be back next year, in full force!
From Wednesdays walk in fresh air during the Corona Crisis!
Although the burial ground at Lindholm Høje has only been known since the 1950's, it has quickly become Denmark's most famous cemetery.
On a slope overlooking the Limfjord lie about 700 graves for people who lived here until storms a thousand years ago covered both fields and graves with sand.
The burial ground covers the entire period during which the Viking Age and Denmark as a country grew, as people are buried on the mounds from about 400 years in the Iron Age and until the turn of the millennium around the period when Sweyn Forkbeard was the king of Denmark.
Built in the 12th Century, Borgund Stave Church is the best preserved stave church in Norway. I only had a couple of minutes to shoot the Church, but could not let the opportunity pass by.
From Wednesdays walk in fresh air during the Corona Crisis!
Although the burial ground at Lindholm Høje has only been known since the 1950's, it has quickly become Denmark's most famous cemetery.
On a slope overlooking the Limfjord lie about 700 graves for people who lived here until storms a thousand years ago covered both fields and graves with sand.
The burial ground covers the entire period during which the Viking Age and Denmark as a country grew, as people are buried on the mounds from about 400 years in the Iron Age and until the turn of the millennium around the period when Sweyn Forkbeard was the king of Denmark.