Fyrkat Ring Fortress

The ring fortress was built around 980 near Onsild River in the reign of Harold Bluetooth. Ships could sail right up to the fort via Mariager Fjord, Vestre Fjord and then the river. Excavations in the 1950s showed that the original turf embankments and palisades of oak had been levelled due to agricultural activity. The ramparts have now been rebuilt and can be clearly seen in the landscape. The earthen embankments have a circumference of nearly 450 metres. The long halls the archaeologists found inside the ramparts are marked out. Three of the, in all, four residential blocks – each with four halls – have been excavated whilst the last block awaits new excavation techniques that can tell us even more about this site. A long hall like one of those inside Fyrkat has been reconstructed just outside the fortress. The hall is built of oak, is 28.5m long and 7.4m wide. There’s a burial site in the area between Fyrkat and the reconstructed long hall. About 30 men, women and children were buried here during the time the fort was in use. One grave proved to be different to the rest from this period. The woman in the grave is now known as the Fyrkat Sorceress. The chieftain’s estate Approx. 1km before arriving at the fortress via Fyrkatvej, there’s a chieftain’s estate – a reconstructed settlement based on previous finds at Vorbasse. The estate has nine residential and workshop buildings, including a smithy made of oak timbers, mud-built walls and thatched roofs and gives a real insight into everyday Viking life.