Ships and Boats of the North
The Viking Ship Museum is working to produce as clear and detailed a picture as possible of the development of the ship in North, from the earliest times to early modern times. But ship sites are not just important as sources concerning the history of the art of shipbuilding – they also provide evidence of the society which produced them. Their construction reflects the intentions and needs which they were built to meet; wear, repairs/refitting, remains of cargoes and even the place where they sank or were broken up reflect the life they lived. Research into a wreck is therefore not complete before the life story of the ship has been written. Each find of a ship tells its own unique story, but the sum of these stories tells the history of society.
With the research series Ships and Boats of the North the Viking Ship Museum contributes to the investigation of the past shipbuilding and seafaring of the North.
Following, presentations of the now published seven volumes of the series.
’Skinboats of Greenland’ ved H. C. Petersen. Ships and Boats of the North 1. Roskilde 1986, 214 sider. ISBN 9788785180087. The book is published in collaboration between the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde and the National Museums in Denmark and Greenland. The book is kindly supported by The Royal Greenland Foundation, The Danish Research Council for the Humanities, Kay Bojesens Fond, A.P. Møller og hustru Chastine McKinney-Møllers Fond til Almene Formål & Tuborg-Fondet.
This book presents the Inuit knowledge of and experiences with the kayak and umiak for posterity.
At the end of the 1920’s most boys were still raised to be hunters as soon as they were able to sit on their father’s and mother’s knees. Holding the small hands of the hunter-to-be, his parents taught him how to row, how to hold the harpoon, and how to throw it. But even then, there were many men who grew up without kayaks. Fishing was beginning to compete with hunting and many men chose rowboats rather than kayaks for that purpose. Fishing also meant jobs on land. In the course of the 1930’s even more kayaks were replaced by fishing dinghies.
Many of the older generation deeply mourned the decline of the kayak. Some regarded the kayak so highly that they preferred to see it vanish completely rather than watch it change into a strange kind of fishing boat, used by men who had none of their forefathers’ skills and traditions. There were others, however, who consoled themselves with the thought that the kayak would be preserved in museums for the future.
‘Viking-Age Ships and Shipbuilding in Hedeby/Haithabu and Schleswig’ ved Ole Crumlin-Pedersen. Med bidrag af Christian Hirte, Kenn Jensen og Susan Möller-Wiering. Ships and Boats of the North 2. Schleswig & Roskilde 1997, 328 sider. ISBN 8785180300. The book is published in collaboration between the Viking Ship Museum, the National Museum of Denmark and Archäologisches Landesmuseum der Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseum, Schloss Gottorp. The book is kindly supported by Kulturstiftung des Landes Schleswig-Holstein, Danish National Research Foundation, Danish Research Council for the Humanities.
This book investigates the finds of ships and boats as well as objects related to these from Viking-Age Hedeby. Hedeby was not only an important centre in the international trade-network of the Viking-Age, but also a building-site for specialised ships and boats of different standards and for different purposes.
Hedeby was a melting pot for impulses from many directions. Thus, it would be expected that influences from all these sides would be traceable in the archaeological evidence for the building of boats and ships. To some degree this is indeed the case, even though the overwhelming part of the evidence seems to represent the shipbuilding traditions of the Danes.
"Ladby. A Danish Ship-Grave from the Viking Age by Anne C. Sørensen. With contributions by Vibeke Bischoff, Kenn Jensen and Peter Henrichsen. Ships and Boats of the North 3. Roskilde 2001, 293 pages. ISBN 8785189440. Published by the Viking Ship Museum in collaboration with the National Museum of Denmark and Kertemindeegnens Museer. The book is kindly supported by: The Danish National Research Foundation, The Danish Research Council for the Humanities, Ingeniør N.M. Knudsens Fond og Møllerens Fond.
The ship-grave from Ladby is one of the major ship-graves, in the category which also includes the boat chamber-grave from Hedeby and the ship-graves from Oseberg, Borre, Gokstad and Tune in South Norway, all built in the 9th and 10th centuries. The grave, which is situated in an ordinary burial site from the Viking Age, contains an abundance of grave-goods consisting of both objects and animals, and it was previously dated to the first half of the 10th century on the basis of the find of a gilded link of bronze for a dog-harness decorated in Jelling style. The grave was subsequently subjected to extensive disturbance, and since there was apparently no trace of the dead person or persons, the disturbance has been interpreted as the result of translatio, i.e. removal from a heathen to a Christian grave.
The queries concerning the ship-grave from Ladby concern e.g. the construction of the grave, the precise characteristics of certain parts of the artefacts found, the positioning of the body or bodies, the dating of the grave and the significance and date of the disturbance. Then there is the question, at a higher order of significance, of the socio-historical importance of the location of the find. How should this find be understood in relation to the burial site immediately alongside it, to the local area, to the island of Funen (Fyn) and to the rest of Southern Scandinavia and the Kattegat area as a whole in the period around 900?
The book is providing answers to these questions. By conducting various analyses taken of both the artefact material and the bone material (x-ray photographs, and fluorescence analysis, accelerator dating, wood-anatomical and anthropological analyses and textile, fibre and rope analyses.) In parallel a comparison was made of this ship-grave with other similar contemporary finds, and with Viking-Age graves in general, chiefly from the South Scandinavian region. In order to achieve a deeper understanding of the background for the existence of the ship-grave, an investigation was carried out of the burial site where the ship-grave is situated and of the possibly associated settlement, as well as of the settlement-development in the local area from around the time of the birth of Christ to the early Middle Ages.
Complexity is the most conspicuous aspect of the ship-grave from Ladby, which at the same time displays references to travel activity and contains features which can be explained in the local context. The contents show connections internally on Funen, and also across the whole Scandinavian region, and at the same time reflect association with an elite milieu characterised by a homogeneous demonstration of wealth and power. North-east Funen has a central position on Kattegat and thus in relation to the sea-travel routes used inter-regionally and super-regionally. Kerteminde Fjord and Kertinge Nor were of great significance for access to and from Odense, and the dead man in the ship-grave may have been the controlling authority in this context. With this background we can reach a greater understanding of the dead person in the ship-grave from Ladby, for whom the ship probably had overwhelming significance for the maintenance of a ruling position in Viking-Age society.
‘The Faroese Boat - Boatbuilders, craftsmanship, and the use of clinker-built boats in the Faroese Islands, 1830-1975’ by Morten Gøthche. Ships and Boats of the North, Volume 8. Roskilde 2023. 361 pages. ISBN 978-87-85180-76-6. The book is published with support from: Boghandler Henning Clausens Fond, Dansk-Færøsk kulturfond, Hiddenfjord, Konsul George Jorck og Hustru Emma Jorck’s Fond & Mentanargrunnur Landsins.
The Faroese boat has been developed and adapted to the special sailing conditions around the Faroe Islands, which consist of strong currents and sudden gusts of wind. The boat was primarily utilised as a rowing boat but could also be powered by sail. It was built in different sizes, and the boatbuilders always had to rely on materials imported from abroad with the additional use of driftwood for various boat components.
This volume presents the building process and usage of the Faroese boat. It shows the boat’s great importance to Faroese society, as it was used for fishing and transporting people and goods. The building process, craftsmanship, and seamanship are examined in great detail, and the maritime history of the Faroese Islands from the Viking Age to the 1970s is presented.
