If you were a man in Scandinavia between 750 CE and 1100 CE, at some point you would have gone to sea – or gone “a-viking” – to seek adventure. You would have felt safe while traveling. After all, Viking vessels were the most advanced of the day.
How do we know what a ship that sailed the seas over 1,000 years ago looked like? A few Viking ships have been found buried in large mounds. They were preserved by the extremely wet conditions in the British Isles and near the fjords (coastal inlets) of Norway and Denmark. It was a Viking tradition to bury rich people and their belongings in ships that had been dragged onto the land. The ships were believed to carry the dead to Viking heaven. The buried items would allow the person to continue his or her lifestyle in the next world.
Go back in time now, and take a tour of some of the most seaworthy vessels of 1,000 years ago.
