There is also evidence of deliberately filed teeth on some 130 male Viking skulls. By JENNIFER OUELLETTE German archaeologists discovered that the skulls of three medieval Viking women found on the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea showed evidence of an unusual procedure to elongate their skulls. The process gave them an unusualContinue reading “Three skulls of medieval Viking women were deliberately elongated”
Category Archives: old norse blog
Viking Age women with cone-shaped skulls likely learned head-binding practice from far-flung region
By Tom Metcalfe The skull modifications were found on the skeletons of three women buried on Gotland almost 1,000 years ago. The elongated, cone-shaped skulls of Viking Age women buried on the Baltic island of Gotland may be evidence of trading contacts with the Black Sea region, a new study finds. The women’s skulls were mostContinue reading “Viking Age women with cone-shaped skulls likely learned head-binding practice from far-flung region”
What’s the farthest place the Vikings reached?
By Victoria Atkinson The Vikings reached as far west as Newfoundland, but did they also venture into Africa, the Middle East and Asia? In less than 300 years, the Vikings raided and explored land in at least four continents, spreading out in every direction from Scandinavia to invade and trade with civilizations across Europe and beyond.Continue reading “What’s the farthest place the Vikings reached?”
Viking Age Iceland: The Flexibility of the Goði-Thingman Relationship
This is 89 of our ongoing series about Viking Age Iceland. For centuries, this island country, unique in Medieval Europe, operated with no king, no great lords, no foreign policy, and no defense forces but which developed legal and judicial systems to limit the violence of bloodfeud and protect the rights of freemen. Far out in the North Atlantic, Iceland was where theContinue reading “Viking Age Iceland: The Flexibility of the Goði-Thingman Relationship”
Thor’s hammer part of Viking finds returning to Thetford
A Thor’s hammer and a pottery lamp are among Viking Great Army finds returning to the town where they were discovered. Thousands of Scandinavians formed an army in England to raid and conquer between AD865-878, and Thetford in Norfolk was one of their winter camps. The story of how this led to the town becomingContinue reading “Thor’s hammer part of Viking finds returning to Thetford”