Category Archives: Viking Articles

A long-lost battlefield where Anglo-Saxon forces delivered a devastating defeat to a Viking army could finally have been found. By Xantha Leatham A long-lost battlefield where Anglo-Saxon forces delivered a devastating defeat to a Viking army could finally have been found. Researchers believe Castle Hill, a former Iron Age hillfort near Beaford in North Devon,Continue reading “Has the spot where King Alfred’s men beat the Viking hordes finally been discovered… in Devon?”

King Olaf Tryggvason’s dramatic fall at the battle of Svolder in around AD 1000 became one of the most famous episodes of the Viking Age. But while most sources say he drowned beneath the waves, some later accounts – and some modern historians – have wondered whether Norway’s warrior king somehow escaped. By James OsborneContinue reading “He was one of the greatest Viking warlords – and his death is still an unsolved mystery”

1,000-year-old horseshoes, sleds, and tools are emerging from a shrinking ice patch in Norway, telling the story of the rise and fall of a mountain pass and the people who traveled along it. By Erin Blakemore It started with an 1,800-year-old shirt. Archaeologist Lars Holger Pilø had watched his colleagues discover the ancient wool tunicContinue reading “Lost Viking ‘highway’ revealed by melting ice”

Researchers say a new analysis of Denmark’s Jelling Stones suggest a 10th-century woman named Thyra may have been a key political player. ByTom Metcalfe New research on 1,000-year-old inscriptions suggests that the wife and mother of two Viking rulers may have been much more powerful in her own right—perhaps even a leader of the earlyContinue reading “‘Denmark’s salvation’? Runestones hint at Viking queen’s power”

New archaeological clues are shedding light on the fate of isolated Norse colonies in Greenland that disappeared during the Middle Ages. ByNeil Shea The first time I met Michael Nielsen he had just returned from a summer spent excavating a Viking site in southern Greenland, not far from where he’d lived as a child. Most sitesContinue reading “The Vikings who vanished”