When the Roskilde Ship Museum in Denmark decided to enlarge their harbor, little did they realize that they would find the remains of a Norse ship during the dredging. And not just any ship, but a Long Serpent class ship, which until this find, was thought to exist only in the imaginations of the saga tellers.
The ship measures 35 meters (115 feet) long, far longer than any previous find. The logs for her were felled in the year 1025.
By the end of 1998, fragments of ten Norse era ships have been found in the Roskilde Ship Museum harbor. Both longships and knörr have been identified. As this page was written, little additional information had come from the museum, and nothing official had been published of which I am aware.
A find in Belgium was reported in the spring of 1998. Fragments from a 9th century ship similar in construction and size to the Gokstad ship were found in the Schelde river in Belgium, 75km (50 miles) inland from the sea. This is the first such find outside of Scandinavia. The find provides confirmation of Norse activities well inland in Europe. In addition, it provides evidence that funerary ships (such as the Gokstad and Oseburg ships) were also used for actual voyages at sea.
|
©1996-2008 William R. Short |