1,400-year-old temple discovered in England

Sutton Hoo has been home to some of the most amazing discoveries from Early Medieval England. Now, archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a 1400-year-old, possible pre-Christian temple in the same area.

The discovery was made this summer near the village of Rendlesham in southeastern England, as part of digs conducted by Suffolk County Council’s Rendlesham Revealed community archaeology project. This comes from the same project that last year uncovered the remains of a large timber Royal Hall, confirming the location as a royal settlement of the East Anglian Kings.

This year’s excavations also uncovered evidence of fine metalworking associated with royal occupation, including a mould used for casting decorative horse harnesses similar to that known from the nearby princely burial ground at Sutton Hoo. The royal compound was found to have been more than twice the size that was previously thought, bounded by a 1.5 kilometre-long perimeter ditch that enclosed an area of 15 hectares (the equivalent to about 20 football pitches).

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Scandinavia’s Oldest Identified Ship Burial in Trøndelag “Rewrites History”

In Leka, a municipality in Norway’s Trøndelag county, archaeologists have uncovered Scandinavia’s oldest identified ship burial, dating back to around 700 AD.

This summer, archaeologists carried out a small survey of the 60-meter mound Herlaugshaugen, a site mentioned in Snorre’s royal sagas as the final resting place of King Herlaug.

Herlaugshaugen is one of the country’s largest burial mounds. In the late 1700s, it was excavated three times. According to reports, findings included a type of wall, iron nails, a bronze kettle, animal bones, and a seated skeleton with a sword.

“Unfortunately, these findings disappeared already in the early 1920s. The skeleton was once displayed at Trondheim Cathedral School as King Herlaug, but no one knows where it ended up,” explained Geir Grønnesby, project leader from NTNU Science Museum.

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Oldest Scandinavian Ship-Burial Identified Re-Writes History – Amazing Find That Predates The Viking Age

 

Under this mound at Leka in Trøndelag, archaeologists have found a ship grave from before the Viking Age. Credit: Robert Fry /NTNU Science Museum

Scientists took samples of the wood around the nails on the boat to date the shipwreck. Rogaland has some ship graves from the late 7th century, but this one is even older.

The ship is from the Merovingian period (550-800 C.E).

Geir Grønnesby, project leader from NTNU Science Museum, told NRK that the vessel predates the Viking Age, and challenges existing beliefs about the region's maritime and trading history.

Not only does the amazing discovery push the ship burial tradition quite far back in time, but it also offers evidence that the region was familiar with advanced maritime capabilities much earlier than previously thought. Obviously, people were in contact with foreign part of the world much earlier than one expected. "Because when one builds somewhat large ships, it is usually because one is going to travel a distance with them,” Grønnesby said.

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American Vikings?

For a thousand years, legends claimed that Vikings settled in North America. In my book American Vikings: How the Norse Sailed into the Lands and Imaginations of America, I explore the evidence for this in the literary sources and archaeology; and, also, in the way this idea has fed into the cultural DNA of North America and especially the USA.

What’s in a word?

First, a matter of terminology. “Viking” is something you did rather than what you were. In Old Norse, going “viking” involved taking part in muscular free enterprise. However today, in popular usage, “Viking” has come to describe both those involved in raiding expeditions, as Scandinavians originally used the term, and Scandinavians generally during the “Viking Age” (as it was never used in the past). Nevertheless, it is now the label-of-choice for most people. However, we need to remember that Scandinavian merchants and settlers would not have thought that it applied to them, since it was not what they did. Many modern experts prefer the term “Norse” to that of “Vikings” as a group term, but I have used “Norse” when describing the language or culture (as in “Norse mythology”), but “Viking” for the people and the period (as in the “Viking Age”) in reflection of popular usage.

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Viking Bracelet Made 1,000 Years Ago Found in Farmer's Field—'Real Shock'

The piece of a Viking Age silver bracelet was found in a farmer's field in Innlandet County, Norway, on October 28.
It is thought that the object may have been used as currency at the time.

The day before finding the silver bracelet, Strande uncovered the coin in the same field. The artifact was likely in circulation between the 10th and 11th centuries.

"I've found objects from the Viking Age before but nothing like these," he said.

After finding the artifacts, Strande took exact GPS coordinates and pictures, as well as notifying a local archaeologist. In Norway, the law requires people to hand over any objects older than the year 1537 to the government in exchange for a finder's fee.

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A Finnish Man Inspecting a Pipe Trench Discovered a Christian Burial Site Dating Back to the Swedish Crusades

Crusade-era mortuary is located in the yard of the house on the left.
Photo: Juha Ruohonen / University of Turku, archaeology.

A man who was inspecting geothermal pipes in Salo, Finland, unwittingly uncovered a Christian cemetery dating back a thousand years to the time of the Swedish Crusades.

The first discovery came in August, after days of heavy rain, when the local landowner spotted a shaft of iron sticking out of the ground. It turned out to be a 12th-century sword with a cross-guard and a three-sided knob, known as a pommel.

The landowner contacted an archeologist at the University of Turku who investigated the site alongside another archaeologist from the Turku Museum Center, responsible for assembling and conserving the region’s cultural heritage. Believing the sword was not an isolated object, the researchers began excavating the site in September with a team of archaeology students.

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Exploring the Mästermyr chest discovery and its Viking-era tools

Unearthed in a onetime peat bog near Gotland, Sweden, the Mastermyr chest is a cache of Viking artifacts showcasing advanced early medieval craftsmanship and technology. Source: The Swedish History Museum, Stockholm (CC BY-SA 2.0)

You know the scene. A horde of ravenous Vikings are rushing off their longship and about to destroy, burn, plunder, and pillage an unsuspecting medieval village. 

Whilst this scene has occurred multiple times throughout the world, from the Iberian Peninsula to the eastern shores of the Black Sea and everywhere in between, this is only part of the story of the Viking Age. 

The societies that produced Viking warriors also excelled in creating great works of art and advanced naval technology, bequeathing to us priceless cultural artifacts from runestones to the Norse sagas. 

Thanks to recent generations of historians, we are beginning to look afresh at people from Viking societies. 

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