Section 4 of 9
Oseberg, Gokstad, Skuldelev. Why one ship could not serve every purpose.
The ship is the one technology of the age that explains everything else. A draught of about a metre meant a fleet could enter any river. Overlapping planking gave the hull flexibility: it did not break on a wave, it worked with it. And its lightness allowed a vessel to be hauled overland between river systems — without which there would have been no route to Byzantium and no Volga trade.
Field note
02
Experimental archaeology
probable reconstruction
Skuldelev 2 carried a sail of about 120 m². Gathering wool or flax, preparing the fibre, spinning and weaving required immense labour and specialist knowledge: the sail was a technology in its own right, not an accessory to the hull.
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Exhibit view
Artistic reconstruction
The image is informed by Skuldelev 2, a long seagoing warship from the eleventh century. Its full-scale museum reconstruction helps test hull form, sail performance and the ship’s behaviour in open water.
12 entries, 2 of them disputed
Overlapping planking: thin boards are fixed to the keel and lap over one another, joined by rivets. The technique is nearly two thousand years old and was inscribed on the intangible heritage list on 14 December 2021 on a joint nomination by five countries.
The wealth of the grave goods indicates that at least one of them held high political and possibly religious standing.
The man buried in it was tall and over fifty, with battle injuries including deep cuts to the legs.
They were raised in 1962. Skuldelev 1–6 are several different types at once, cargo and war alike, which is what revealed how specialised the fleet really was.
The knarr is broader, deeper and roomier: it carried cargo across the ocean under sail. The longship is narrow and shallow, driven by oars — built for speed and for rivers. The one all-purpose ship is a film invention.
Only a very rich family could afford to bury a serviceable ship under a mound. Most people of the age were buried incomparably more modestly.
The sagas mention a sólarsteinn, and a crystal of Iceland spar really does let you find the sun in overcast weather from the polarisation of the light. Experiments confirm it.
Not one sunstone has been found in a Norse shipboard context, and the saga mention is both too late and too brief. The physics of the method is proven; its use by the Vikings is not.
They steered by the sun and stars, by the height of the sun above the horizon, by birds, the colour of the water and the currents. They held a latitude and ran along it — a method that needs experience rather than instruments.
This is the only reason the route from the Varangians to the Greeks existed at all: the vessels were light enough to be hauled across land from one river to the next.
Because the steering oar was on the right, a ship came alongside a quay on its left. That side is still called port in English — the side facing the harbour.
A tall man in his forties, with blade cuts on his leg bones that had not begun to heal. The burial is around 900; the ship itself was built about 890.
A wooden fragment notched around its rim was found at Uunartoq in Greenland. Some researchers take it for part of a navigational instrument that found direction from a shadow.
There is a single find, about half of it preserved, and several readings of it: a sun compass, a household object, or a decorated vessel base. Trials with replicas show it could have worked as a compass — but that proves possibility, not purpose.