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National Geographic : 2017 Mar
Contents
new visions of the vikings 39 eruption of at least one large volcano—darkened the sun beginning in A .D. 536, lowering summer temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere for the next 14 years. The extended cold and darkness brought death and ruin to Scandinavia, lying as it did along the northern edge of medieval agri- culture. In Sweden’s Uppland region, for example, nearly 75 percent of villages were abandoned, as residents succumbed to starvation and fighting. So dire was this disaster that it seems to have given birth to one of the darkest of all world myths—the Nordic legend of Ragnarök, the end of creation and the final battle, in which all gods, all supernatural beings, and all humans and other living creatures die. Ragnarök was said to begin with Fimbulwinter, a deadly time when the sun turns black and the weather turns bitter and treacherous—events that eerily parallel the dust veil that began in 536, Price says. When summer at last returned to the north and populations rebounded, Scandinavian soci- ety assumed a new, more truculent form. Leaders surrounded themselves with heavily armed war bands and began seizing and defending aban- doned territory. In this real-life Game of Thrones, a militarized society arose in which men and women alike celebrated the virtues of warfare— fearlessness, aggression, cunning, strength under fire. On the Swedish island of Gotland, where ar- chaeologists have found many intact graves from this period, “almost every second man seems to be buried with weapons,” notes John Ljungkvist, an archaeologist at Uppsala University. As this weaponized society was gradually taking shape, a new technology began revolu- tionizing Scandinavian seafaring in the seventh century—the sail. Skilled carpenters began con- structing sleek, wind-powered vessels capable of carrying bands of armed fighters farther and fast- er than ever before. Aboard these ships, northern lords and their restless followers could voyage across the Baltic and North Seas, exploring new lands, sacking towns and villages, and enslav- ing inhabitants. And men with few marriage prospects at home could take female captives as wives by persuasion or force. All of this—centuries of kingly ambition, a seeming abundance of wifeless young warriors, and a new type of ship—created a perfect storm. The stage was set for the Vikings to pour out of the north, setting much of Europe on fire with their brand of violence. aroUnD 750 a BanD of early Viking warriors dragged two ships onto a sandy headland on the island of Saaremaa, just off the coast of Estonia. Far from their homes in the forests near Uppsala, Sweden, the men were the bloodied survivors of a costly raid. Inside their ships lay the tangled corpses of more than 40 Viking men, including one who may have been a king. All were in their youth or prime of life—tall, muscular, strapping men—and many had seen savage fighting. Some had been stabbed or hacked to death, others decapitated. One man died after a sword took off the top of his head. On the sandy headland the survivors began the gruesome task of reassembling severed body parts and arranging most of the dead men in the hull of the largest ship. Then they covered the bodies with cloth and raised a low, makeshift burial mound by placing their wood and iron war shields over their slain comrades. In 2008 a work crew laying an electrical cable discovered human bones and bits of a corroded sword, and local authorities called in archae- ologists. Today, sitting in his office at Uppsala University, Price marvels at the discovery. “This is the first time that archaeologists have ever been able to excavate what is clearly a Viking raid,” he says. More remarkable: The warriors laid to rest at Salme, Estonia, died nearly 50 years before Scandinavian raiders descended on the English monastery of Lindisfarne in 793, long thought to have been the first Viking attack. Today the ship burials at Salme are creating a stir among Viking specialists. “ What I find amaz- ing is all the swords,” Price says. Most researchers had long assumed that early Viking raiding parties consisted of a few elite warriors armed with swords and other costly war gear, as well as a few dozen poor farm boys furnished with cheap spears or longbows. But that’s clearly not the case at Salme. The burials there contained more swords than
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