Half a century ago, archaeology entered a new field of work with the excavation of ancient ships found under water. A new discipline emerged: maritime archaeology.
In this book, Ole Crumlin-Pedersen, the Danish pioneer of maritime archaeology, gives a fascinating overview of more than forty of years of work. Beginning with the natural conditions for seafaring, the author explains the evolution of basic water craft into those plank-built, sail-carrying ships which enabled the seaborne activities of the Viking Age and the following medieval periods, concluding with case studies of the maritime cultural landscape of Roskilde Fjord and the ship as symbol. The themes of this volume were first presented in six Rhind Lectures for the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in Edinburgh in 2008.
Author(s): Ole Crumlin-Pedersen
Series: Maritime Culture of the North, 3
Publisher: The Viking Ship Museum
Year: 2010
Language: English
Pages: 184
City: Roskilde
Foreword / Barbara Crawford & Tinna Damgård-Sørensen 9
Introduction 11
I. STUDYING THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MARITIME CULTURES 13
The ship as an archaeological object 13
Studying maritime archaeology 13
What defines a 'maritime culture'? 13
The potential of waterlogged sites 14
The seafarer's geographical framework 14
The Danish scene: submarine Stone Age 18
Hydrography and shipping lanes 19
The Skuldelev ships 20
Other Danish ship-finds 25
The Centre for Maritime Archaeology in Roskilde 25
Publications 26
Two examples 28
Hjortspring, a large war canoe of the Pre-Roman Iron Age 28
The history of Skuldelev 2, a Dublin-built 11th-century longship 31
Shipbuilding resources and craftsmanship 32
Sea trials and voyages 36
II. BOATS AND SHIPS BEFORE AD 800 41
Wood technology and tools 42
The ethnographical evidence for basic boatbuilding concepts and materials 46
Skin and hide boats 47
Bark boats 48
Logboats 48
Expanded logboats 49
Outriggers and composite logboats 51
Plank boats 52
The archaeological evidence 52
Mesolithic boats 52
Neolithic and Bronze-Age logboats 53
Bronze-Age logboat-based complex vessels 55
The Dover boat 56
The Ferriby boats and the Brigg vessel 58
The concepts of Bronze-Age boats 60
Romano-Celtic vessels 60
Nordic ship images 62
The Hjortspring boat 63
Expanded boats 65
The Nydam ships 65
Roman influence 68
The Sutton Hoo ship 69
Paddles, oars, sails 69
From Nydam to the Vikings 70
III. ANGLO-SAXON AND SCANDINAVIAN LONGSHIPS 77
The origin of the longship concept 71
Maritime expertise 72
The source groups 73
Four conceptual approaches 73
The vessels of the Franks and Frisians 74
The ships of Britain and Ireland 77
Ships of Scandinavia and the Baltic area 80
Viking longships 81
The Hedeby 1 longship 83
The Skuldelev 5 ship 86
Roskilde 6, a royal longship at the doorstep of the Viking Ship Museum 88
The Puck longship 89
The ship as a status object 90
Names for ship-types 90
Longships in Central and Southern Europe 91
Conclusion 92
The aftermath of the longship period 93
IV. THE SHIPS OF VIKING-AGE AND MEDIEVAL TRADERS AND SETTLERS 95
The world of the Vikings 95
The Sutton Hoo ship 96
The introduction of the sail 97
Viking expansion: loot or trade? 100
The Early Viking Age, ca 700-840 100
Trade and early centres 100
Ribe, the first Danish town? 100
The Middle Viking Age, ca 840-950 102
The early Christian mission 102
Vikings in the West 102
Scandinavian settlements in Scotland and Ireland 103
Ships and boats in Scotland 103
Ohthere's voyages 104
Wulfstan's voyage 105
The Late Viking Age, 950-1100 107
State formation and control of shipping lanes 107
The North Atlantic route 107
Skuldelev 1, a medium-sized Norwegian 'knorr' 109
Skuldelev 3, a small Danish 'byrding' 110
Hedeby 3, a large Danish 'knorr' 112
Scandinavian ships, 1100-1250 113
The Baltic expansion 113
Large clinker-built cargo ships 114
Small vessels 116
Other high- and late-medieval ship-types 118
The early cogs 118
Later cogs 120
The 'hulc' 122
British high- and late-medieval ship-finds 122
Conclusion 124
V. THE MARITIME CULTURAL LANDSCAPE 125
The Skuldelev example 125
Routes across land and sea 126
Roskilde Fjord 127
An ancient cultural landscape 127
Skuldelev fieldwork 128
Reconstruction of the paleo-landscape 129
Early warning systems - a hypothetical reconstruction 131
Lejre - Roskilde - Copenhagen 132
The coast as a contact zone along Roskilde Fjord 134
Navigational barriers 135
Portages 137
The place-name 'snekke' 138
Norwegian boathouses 140
The Kanhave canal 141
The seafarer's cross 142
VI. THE SHIP AS SYMBOL IN THE SCANDINAVIAN IRON AGE AND VIKING AGE 145
Ship representations in several media 145
Traditional interpretations 146
Criteria for boat graves 146
'Rich' graves with ships and boats 149
'Ordinary' grave boats 150
The Slusegaard cemetery 150
Grave 1072 151
The Slusegaard boat graves in general 152
Male and female graves 153
The interpretation of the boat-grave custom 153
The two families of gods 154
'Skiðblaðnir', Freyr's ship-of-luck 155
The confrontation with the Christian mission 157
Sutton Hoo 157
Oseberg 158
Large stone ships 159
Transition to Christianity 160
The source value of icons 161
Summary of the evidence from boat graves and stone ships 162
Small boat graves 162
Large ship graves 162
Large stone ships 162
The 'Valhalla' myth 162
King Scyld and the 'Beowulf' poem 163
Bibliography 164
About the author 176
Select index 177
