Vikings may have fled Greenland to escape rising seas

An account of a wedding that took place at this former church in 1408 is the last written record from the Norse occupation of Greenland.

In 1721, a Norwegian missionary set sail for Greenland in the hopes of converting the Viking descendants living there to Protestantism. When he arrived, the only traces he found of the Nordic society were ruins of settlements that had been abandoned 300 years earlier.

There is no written record to explain why the Vikings left or died out. But a new simulation of Greenland’s coastline reveals that as the ice sheet covering most of the island started to expand around that time, sea levels rose drastically, researchers report December 15 at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in New Orleans.

These shifting coastlines would have inundated grazing areas and farmland, and could have helped bring about the end of the Nordic way of life in Greenland, says Marisa Borreggine, a geophysicist at Harvard University.

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Brutal Viking Ritual Called 'Blood Eagle' Was Anatomically Possible, Study Shows

Man lying on his belly with another man using a weapon on his back. (Stora Hammar Stone)

Famed for their swift longboats and bloody incursions, Vikings have long been associated with brutal, over-the-top violence. Between the eighth and 11th centuries, these groups left their Nordic homelands to make their fortunes by trading and raiding across Europe.

Particularly infamous is the so-called "blood eagle", a gory ritual these warriors are said to have performed on their most hated enemies. The ritual allegedly involved carving the victim's back open and cutting their ribs away from their spine, before the lungs were pulled out through the resulting wounds.

The final fluttering of the lungs splayed out on the outspread ribs would supposedly resemble the movement of a bird's wings – hence the eagle in the name.

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Galloway Hoard yields another exciting discovery

A rare rock crystal jar found wrapped in textiles as part of the Galloway Hoard, which dates back to around the year 900, has been conserved, revealing a Latin inscription written in gold. The inscription says the jar was made for a bishop named Hyguald.

The Galloway Hoard is the richest collection of rare and unique Viking-age objects ever found in the British Isles. It was discovered in 2014 and acquired by National Museums Scotland in 2017. The hoard includes over a hundred objects, such as brooches, ingots, glass beads, a Christian cross, and a silver vessel. Even some textiles that originally wrapped the materials have survived.

The crystal jar, which is around 5cm high and resembles an ornate perfume bottle, is thought to have had an ecclesiastical function. It has now been carefully separated from its wrapping. The Latin inscription on the base, spelled out in gold letters, translates as ‘Bishop Hyguald had me made.’ It is the clearest evidence that some of the material in the hoard may have come from a church in the Kingdom of Northumbria, which stretched as far north as Edinburgh and as far south as Sheffield.

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Plans for new home refused due to site potentially housing Anglo-Saxon remains

The site of the proposed house sits between the A179 and the road leading to The Fens (Image: Google)

Councillors have refused plans for a new home after hearing the land could be of "national and international importance" due to potentially housing Anglo-Saxon remains.

Hartlepool Borough Council Planning Committee on Wednesday (December 15) refused proposals for a single house to be built on land at the Fens in Hart village.

The proposals, submitted by Mr R Greig, had been recommended for refusal, with council planning officers raising several concerns such as that it could cause "substantial harm" and a loss of archaeology to the area.

At the meeting, Robin Daniels, from Tees Archaeology, outlined how neighbouring land, which the Manor Park development has been built on, has shown to be home to an Anglo-Saxon cemetery with "something like 350" human remains.

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Ancient sheep poop reveals an unknown population on Faroe Islands before Vikings

The bed of this lake on the Faroese island of Eysturoy contains sediment from 500 AD that documents the first arrival of sheep and humans.

The isolated Faroe Islands were once home to an unknown population in 500 AD, about 350 years before Vikings ever arrived, according to new research. And the evidence comes from an unusual source: ancient sheep poop.

The striking Faroes are a small archipelago located in the North Atlantic halfway between Norway and Iceland. Vikings reached the islands once they developed ships for long-distance sailing, about 850 AD, before they moved on to Iceland in 874. For a long time, researchers believed they were the first human inhabitants of the rugged Faroes.

Until this century, the only evidence for the first people to set foot on the Faroes ahead of the Vikings came from mentions in medieval texts. There is no current evidence to suggest that Indigenous people ever lived there.

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1,400-Year-Old Byzantine Church, Mosaic Found Near Jerusalem

The impressive mosaics discovered in the church depict birds and plants but there is no icon of the martyr to whom the church was dedicated. Credit: Israel Antiquities Authority

An important archaeological discovery of a Byzantine mosaic and Greek inscriptions, which perhaps pose more questions than answers, was made public by members of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

After three years of painstaking excavations, a Byzantine-era Christian church with spectacular, well-preserved mosaics and frescoes has finally been completely unearthed. The structure is located approximately ten miles west of the city of Jerusalem.

The fascinating, yet mysterious, findings include some Greek inscriptions as well.

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‘Extraordinary’ restoration of Roman rock crystal jar from Galloway hoard

The rock crystal jar was part of the Galloway hoard, unearthed in Kirkcudbrightshire in 2014. Photograph: Neil Hanna

Exclusive: Vessel may have held a perfume or other potion used to anoint kings or in religious ceremonies

When the Galloway hoard was unearthed from a ploughed field in western Scotland in 2014, it offered the richest collection of Viking-age objects ever found in Britain or Ireland. But one of the artefacts paled in comparison with treasures such as a gold bird-shaped pin and a silver-gilt vessel because it was within a pouch that was mangled and misshapen after almost 1,000 years in the ground.

Now that pouch has been removed and its contents restored, revealing an extraordinary Roman rock crystal jar wrapped in exquisite layers of gold thread by the finest medieval craftsman in the late eighth or early ninth century.

About 5cm high, it may once have held a perfume or other prized potion used to anoint kings, or in religious ceremonies. It had been carefully wrapped in a silk-lined leather pouch, reflecting its significance.

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