#viking-archaeology

#viking-archaeology

The concept of hóf in Norse culture represents a cultural expectation of moderation and restraint, which was pivotal in resolving disputes and maintaining order within communities.

This collection of essays honors Shaun F.D. Hughes by sharing scholarship that engages deeply with Middle English, Old English, Icelandic, and Old Norse traditions, while also breaking new ground.

The flagpole at the front of a house, just a three-minute drive from the handful of shops and restaurants, has become an advertisement for the exploits of Heimaey's most famous son.

The most significant find was discovered during construction of one of the wind turbine platforms. Objects of bronze and amber were found close together, leading to the excavation of a hoard of Bronze Age jewelry dating from around 1500 to 1300 BC.

Similar to four others unearthed nearby earlier this month, it is sitting upright at the bottom of a one-metre-wide pit. The skeleton's hands are resting in its lap. Like the others, its back is against the eastern wall, its face directed westward.

The ostraca show us an astonishing variety of everyday situations. We find tax lists, deliveries, short notes about everyday activities, religious texts, and priestly certificates attesting the quality of sacrificial animals.

"The ruins from the Middle Ages are part of our common history. With these grants, we are strengthening the work that makes it possible to preserve them, not only as historical traces, but also as living sources of knowledge for both researchers, craftsmen and local communities."

Excavations carried out in 2025 by the Arctic University Museum of Norway revealed that the artefacts came from a boat burial. The grave contained the skeleton of a woman placed inside a boat measuring about 5.5 metres in length. She had been buried together with a dog, suggesting the animal may have been an important companion in life.

CHARM is built around a large-scale survey of material connected to three major writing centres-Turku, Naantali, and Viipuri-in the 15th century. By comparing charters and book fragments together, the researchers aim to map how writing practices were adopted, modified, and localised, and what that meant for society and administration in a region that was then part of the Swedish realm.

Beyond the reach of medieval Christendom, Viking-age Scandinavia drew its ideas about gender less from scripture than from myth, law, and the practical demands of life in a raiding and trading world. Luke Daly explores how women could wield real authority-as estate managers, property holders, ritual figures, and, at times, political actors-within a society that was still hierarchical and often violent. Beyond the cathedrals and the long shadow cast by Rome lay societies whose moral and social assumptions were not governed by the cross.

"Cnut: The North Sea King" by Ryan Lavelle is a short and engaging biography of the most ambitious and successful Scandinavian leader of the Viking Age. Lavelle captures both the brutality and pragmatism that allowed Cnut to govern England effectively for almost two decades, despite being an outsider and a foreign conqueror. In 1066 and All That (1930), a parody book of English history,

We get started by exploring the origins of the Normans in the county and then duchy of Normandy. We will understand their Norse background and their relationship with the Carolingians. The timeline approach will help us discover all the counts and dukes of Normandy, and what they contributed to their realm. This will set the foundation for the interconnected stories that will lead us to England and the Mediterranean.