Rollo: Viking Sea Lord, Chieftain, Lone Wolf And The First Ruler Of Normandy

 

At the height of their glory, the Vikings formed many new Scandinavian dynasties. At first, they were considered foreigners, but they eventually integrated with local communities, even religiously.

One of them was Rollo (also known as Gånge-Rolf), an ancestor of the famous William the Conqueror, who led the conquest of Normans to England and became king of the country in 1066.

Believed to have lived between 846 and 931 AD, the first historical account of Rollo detailed his leadership of the Vikings during their siege of Paris from 885 to 6 AD.

Mentioned in Icelandic sagas, as a man of high social status, Rollo is often referred to as Rolf the Walker ("Ganger-Hrolf, "in Old Danish) because he had such an imposing figure that his horse could not carry him and was obliged to travel on foot

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Scandinavia's oldest known ship burial is located in mid-Norway

This summer, archaeologists and a metal detectorist conducted a small survey of Herlaugshagen, at Leka in the northern part of Trøndelag County. They found something amazing.

The goal was to date a burial mound and find out if it contained a ship. They carried out the surveys on behalf of the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage and in collaboration with Trøndelag County Authority.

The archaeologists were over the moon when they found large rivets confirming that this was indeed a ship burial, and their enthusiasm didn't subside when the finds were recently dated.

"The mound was constructed in approximately 700 CE. This is called the Merovingian period and precedes the Viking Age. This dating is really exciting because it pushes the whole tradition of ship burials quite far back in time," said Geir Grønnesby, an archaeologist at the NTNU University Museum.

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Possible 1,400-Year-Old Temple Excavated in Eastern England

RENDLESHAM, ENGLAND—In the eighth century, an English monk and historian known as The Venerable Bede wrote of a king’s village at “Rendlaesham,” and of a temple equipped with both Christian and pre-Christian altars. BBC News reports that the site of a possible 1,400-year-old temple has been uncovered at Rendlesham in eastern England, which is located near Sutton Hoo, the archaeological site where East Anglian king Raedwald is thought to have been buried in A.D. 625. The possible temple structure measured more than 30 feet long and 16 feet wide, and had been built with substantial foundations. The excavation also uncovered evidence of a ditch that may have surrounded the royal village, traces of two other timber buildings, and a mold used for casting fine pieces of decorative horse harnesses similar to those unearthed at Sutton Hoo.

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Video Shows Fragments Falling from the Dome of Hagia Sophia

A still from a recently released video shows visitors rushing to take cover as fragments fall from the dome of Hagia Sophia. Credit: Daily Motion/BirGün

A video from 2022 that came to light recently shows fragments falling on visitors from the dome of Hagia Sophia, the former epicenter of Christian worship at Constantinople, today’s Istanbul.

The footage released by the Turkish newspaper, BirGün, raises serious questions over the safety of the former Orthodox Christian cathedral, now a mosque.

BirGün notably quoted officials as saying that “pieces are falling from the roof, due to the humidity created by the crowd, but no precautions are being taken”.

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More Than 100 Cultural Landmarks Have Been Destroyed During Gaza Airstrikes, Report Says

Israel’s repeated airstrikes on Gaza have destroyed more than 100 cultural landmarks and historic sites according to a preliminary report by the Catalonian NGO Heritage for Peace that was released earlier this month.

The airstrikes, which took place after the October 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,400 Israelis and involved the taking of 240 hostages, have “destroyed or damaged” roughly 45 percent of housing in Gaza, leading to what the United Nations has called a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

Historic religious sites, museums, and archaeological sites have been destroyed, the report says, noting that Gaza has been a cultural hub for every civilization that has conquered the region, from Egypt in the early 15th century BCE, to the Greeks under Alexander the Great, to the Roman and Byzantine Empires.

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Viking-era graves found in the heart of Gothenburg, Sweden

A report just published by the Gothenburg City Museum confirms that the graves found in Burgårdsparken this summer date to the Viking era.

Two graves discovered this summer in the center of Gothenburg by archaeologists from the City Museum date back to the Viking era, according to a Swedish-language report the museum has just published.

A first for Gothenburg 

These are the first such finds in central Gothenburg, Sweden's second-largest city. The location, the pretty gardens of Burgårdsparken, is close to Gothenburg's main football stadium, the Ullevi, where the 1958 World Cup Final was played. 

The chief archaeologist on the dig, Ulf Ragnesten, suggests that further investigations are required. The remains are protected by Sweden's Cultural Environment Act. 

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Medieval building discovered by archaeologists in Germany

Archaeologists working at Magdeburg’s Cathedral Square in eastern Germany have uncovered the remains of a large medieval building thought to be over a thousand years old. 

The archaeological dig, which is being carried out by the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt and the University of Heidelberg, only began last month but has already produced outstanding results.

For the first time, actual architectural remains were found in the form of two walls – the outer wall of a semicircular room (apse) and a wall base at its north end that runs west – which can be assigned to a building from the Ottonian period (919–1024). On the former outside of the building, both walls to the west have a sloping base made of plaster mortar, which was primarily used to protect against moisture. The outer wall of the apse appears to have been structured by half-columns or pilasters. It was part of the western end of the building, which extended to the east parallel to a cathedral that was built around the same time.

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