a wave of terrifying violence
hit the coastal settlements of northern Europe,
Viking raves. [shouting] They plundered. They killed indiscriminately. And with each attack,
the stories grew. [dramatic music] It was as though the gates
of hell had been thrown open. NARRATOR: Their
leaders were legendary, even in their own time. Ivar the Boneless, Erik the
Red, Harald the Bluetooth, men who made their
names through savagery. Our investigators
are setting out to discover the
world they lived in. They'll build a picture of a
culture steeped in bloodshed, and yet highly sophisticated. They'll reconstruct the ruined
fortress of Harald Bluetooth, first king of all the Vikings. They'll find the hidden traces
of a warlord city buried beneath modern streets, and
they'll examine the key piece of technology that
set the Vikings apart from all other forces. With these long
ships, the Vikings are able to redraw
the map of Europe. NARRATOR: Ships like these
took Viking explorers like Erik the Red and Leif Erikson
further than anyone had ever gone before. [thud] Using the latest research
and graphic technology, we will rebuild an
extraordinary civilization and bring back the lost
world of the Vikings. [dramatic music] [shouting] Killers, bandits,
barbarians, pagans. Though the Viking culture
died out more than a thousand years ago,
its reputation lives. [slash] Investigators Jonathan
Foyle and Helena Hamerow want to uncover the truth about
these extraordinary warriors and the world they came from. Helena Hamerow is
an archaeologist from the University
of Oxford and studies Europe's ancient cultures. One of the genuine great
mysteries about this period is why the Vikings
emerged when they did. What made them
suddenly want to raid and ultimately colonize
in the way that they did? NARRATOR: Jonathan Foyle is
an architectural historian. He decodes buildings as a way of
understanding the cultures that produced them. Part of the
Viking experience is living with the raw materials,
the earth, and the fire, and the wind, and the water. They're very much people
who live with the elements. NARRATOR: Historians
put a precise date on when the Viking campaign
of terror started, 793 AD. [shouting] They began with an act
of devastating sacrilege. [slashing] [digital sounds] Jonathan has traveled to
Lindisfarne on the coast of Northeastern England. A monastery stood here-- in its time, one
of Christianity's most sacred and
celebrated shrines. We've inherited a
picture of the Vikings as being bloodthirsty
savage pirates, and that reputation was
born here at Lindisfarne. NARRATOR: Word of what the
Vikings did here would spread quickly throughout Europe. Richard Oram explains. This is the first attack
on a major, major center. This is the place where
all hell is let loose for the first time. And psychologically, this was
the one that pushed people across the edge into believing
that apocalypse was on them. NARRATOR: The attack
was a surprise. The first anyone
knew of the Vikings was when their long ships
appeared on the horizon. And for the monks
of the monastery, the very idea that their
sanctuary should be attacked was beyond belief. Yet as Jonathan finds out,
it's clear the Vikings knew exactly what they were doing. JONATHAN FOYLE: So what's
in it for the Vikings? Loot. Movable wealth to start
with, and all the nice bits of blingy metalwork,
and things like that. But they're also after slaves. Slaves have great commodity. NARRATOR: The monastery
was famed for its relics and its treasures. Its only protection was faith,
the belief that no one would dare desecrate holy ground. But they don't have defenses. This is a monastery. So presumably there, they
have a wall or something around the-- the monastic enclosure,
something maybe like that. They've got, yes,
a boundary that runs around the whole place. And it marks out the sacred
space on the interior from the world outside. But it's really just a
sort of a demarcation line. NARRATOR: Climbing to the
highest point on the island, Jonathan and
Richard try to build a picture of the community
that the Vikings set about destroying. [orchestral music] What would the Vikings have
seen here well over a thousand years ago? Well, absolutely
nothing like this. None of the stone
buildings that you see know, nothing at
all of that kind. And, of course, there's
no other houses here. This is a monastic community. But where you've got the--
the parish church across there and the private
church here, this would have been the site of
the-- the monastery sacked by the Vikings. But instead of stone buildings,
think mainly of timber. NARRATOR: And this is how
the simple wooden structures of Lindisfarne would have
looked on that day in 793. [whoosh] A model of Christian simplicity,
these modest buildings nevertheless contained a
treasure trove of riches, making them a perfect target
for the heathen Vikings. It's a place that's
poorly defended, made of flammable material. And it wouldn't have taken much
effort for the Vikings, three, or four, or five
shiploads of men with axes to come and take apart
this entire monarchy. Absolutely not. There's nothing
here to resist them. And-- and if they had
a will to destroy, they could have
easily just erased it from the face of the earth. NARRATOR: Viking
attacks were fast. Approaching speed, then strike,
kill, plunder, and burn. [crackling] Lindisfarne was left in
flames, and the blueprint for a Viking raid was set. The monk Alcuin, who is on the
emperor's court over in Europe, is writing letters
of condolence. He's heard about the terrible
things that have happened here. And so basically, it gets put
down in the written record, and that fixes it for all
time as the great event. And what's their opinion of
these fair-haired strangers that caused them so much damage? I mean, they-- they
must've been petrified. Basically, they're
just looking on them as the-- the hordes
of Antichrist. This is a pagan force. They're slaughtering God's men. They're totally barbaric. They are ruthless and
bloodthirsty killers. NARRATOR: The Lindisfarne
raid was the first of many. But where did the
Vikings come from? Where did they return
with their spoils? Archaeologist Helena Hamerow
is in the Swedish capital Stockholm on the trail of
the looted Christian relics that came from
Lindisfarne and elsewhere. She wants to find out about the
Viking homeland and the culture that produced their savagery. [dramatic music] At the National Museum,
she meets with curator Kent Andersson to see the
loot for herself. We have quite
a lot of objects, objects from the
Arabic world there, Western European objects. How did they get to Sweden? We have unique objects,
or if they come from a very special context, like a church,
or monastery, or something like that, then you would
think that it would be plunder. That is also a unique
object, and that must have been a result of plunder. HELENA HAMEROW: It looks
suspiciously like the top of the Bishop's crosier. KENT ANDERSSON Yeah, it is. So we have to imagine that
some poor Irish bishop was-- was mugged, and his
crosier taken from him. Yes, like some
sort of souvenir. NARRATOR: This secret symbol
of a Bishop's authority stands in stark contrast
to many of the other finds. Among the museum's
most prized possessions are numerous swords. The most prestigious of all
Viking weapons, the blade of a long sword could be worth
as many as 16 dairy cows. A sword-wielding warrior was
a man of the highest status. [thud] Behind the scenes
at the museum, Kent shows Helena more disturbing
archaeological remains, evidence of not just
animal, but human sacrifice. This is part of a skull and
skeletons, a grave containing three individuals, two of them
with their head chopped off. So they must have been
a human sacrifice. [slice] How do we know
they're a sacrifice-- You could see it. Yeah, you could see it
on the bones, actually. The cut marks, yeah. So we see cut marks
on the vertebrae. Good heavens. Human sacrifice
obviously it would have been quite a
shocking practice to-- to the Christian world. Yeah, it must have been. I mean, this is obviously
suggestive of quite a different kind of ideology
and-- and worldview. And-- and why did
they [inaudible]?? I mean, were these people
criminals or had-- you know, had they done something wrong? Were they being punished, or? No, I don't think so. That was the highest offering
you could give the gods. So if you wanted to go one
better than a horse or a cow, you would actually
sacrifice maybe a slave, or? Yeah, yes. NARRATOR: Human sacrifices
were part of the burial of a great warrior or chief. Much of what we know
about Viking culture comes from artifacts
found in burial sites, and it's these clues which
help our investigators complete their picture of
the Viking world. e the reputation of the Vikings as
bloodthirsty killers was born. They've seen plunder taken
from some of Europe's great Christian shrines. Now, Jonathan Foyle is in
the far north of Denmark unlocking the secrets of an
astonishing Viking burial ground. He's come to the site
of Lindholm Hoje. In the late 19th
century, archaeologists dug down through 14 feet of
sand to find graves that were extraordinarily well-preserved. Local expert Lars Christian
Norbach is his guide. So that an impressive
sight, isn't it? You feel it's on top of
a hill, the kind of place you'd want to be buried. The people here, they
are from a normal village. It survived because
of sand dunes. We have had up to four
meters of sand dunes here. So-- so double
my height is sand. Yes, yes, on top of it. NARRATOR: What Jonathan
finds most intriguing about the whole site is the
strange pattern in which the stones are laid out-- circles, triangles,
even ship shapes. These rocks look like
they're a jumble when you first see them. It's like-- it's like
Stonehenge's family. Yeah, yeah. But they're
ordered, aren't they? The triangle is-- is a male. The round shapes are a female. The ships are also males. And-- and of course we know that
from-- from the artifacts which they had with them
in the graves. Now, the ship shaped one,
this shape here is pretty big, isn't it? If I were buried
in here, I mean, I'm taking up not much space. No, you would remain in them
taking less space than you do now. NARRATOR: A classic
Viking funeral pyre was a four-posted timber
platform with the corpse laid on top. Beneath it, brushwood
and smaller timbers were sealed with planks. The structure was designed
to burn with an intense heat. After the cremation,
the charred remains of the corpse and
offerings to the gods were buried within the stones
that surrounded the burial plot. Back in Stockholm,
Helena examined some of the offerings
that have been found in the Viking graves. One among them is
truly unexpected. [dramatic music] What is it we've got here? Well, we have some broaches,
and then we have the Buddha. Buddha. I wasn't expecting to
see a Buddha in Sweden. What on earth is
that doing here? I No. It's-- it's a very,
very rare find. It's produced in
northern India, probably. Must have been traded. NARRATOR: Viking graves have
been found to include items from land as far apart as North
America and northern India. [orchestral music] And since there's no historical
evidence that the Vikings raided either, the belief is
that these objects reached Scandinavia by trade. It appears that the Viking
trade network crossed the globe, and it suggests that they
were far more sophisticated than many supposed. To find out more, Helena
Hamerow is traveling to the island of
Bjorko, once home to the Viking town of Birka. 1,200 years ago, it
was a bustling port on the Baltic coast. Helena joins Bjorn Ambrosiani,
director of the Birka Project and one of the world's
foremost Viking experts. This area has a wet climate. The wooden structures of
the town that stood here have long since rotted away. But once, they covered an area
equal to 30 football fields. Using what archaeological
evidence remains, Bjorn has rebuilt one of them. So this is the store
area or workshop area. And inside here, you have your
living space with the fireplace on the-- on the floor. And then the benches, where
people slept, and worked, and lived for once each
year during the winter. How many people would have
lived in a house like this? Six to eight individuals. NARRATOR: Although
modest in appearance, these houses were lined
in woolen fleeces, furs, and a cloth. It enabled their occupants to
withstand temperatures that often dropped below freezing. Artifacts found at Birka also
show another forgotten side of the Viking people,
their skill as craftsmen. [eerie music] What kind of evidence do
you have for the-- the bronze casting for [inaudible]. What king of stuff do you have? We have found
25,000 such pieces. OK. So I can see here we've got
a piece of hard-fired clay with some designs. So this would have been used
then to make just a nice bronze broach or a pair of broaches
that a woman would have worn, fairly everyday clothing. NARRATOR: The sheer number
of bronze molds and artifacts found at Birka suggest precious
jewelry was not only being made and worn locally, but
it was also being traded. Trade routes from the
pass east to Russia and throughout Europe. They went to the Middle East
and further to India and China. Birka was an international hub. [birds chirping] The level of success enjoyed
by the people of Birka brought its own problems. Clearly, they needed
to defend themselves. It looks like we've got some
pretty big earthworks here with a gap in the middle. What-- what is this
that we're looking at? Oh, it's the town rampart. And this is one of the gates. And on top of-- of it has
been a-- a wooden palisade. There are traces of that. So that is part of the
defenses of the town. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: It enclosed an
area in excess of 110 acres, and it's very existence points
to the major misconception that we have about the
Viking culture today, because Birka's walls
were built to keep out the people that its
inhabitants called Vikings. [clang] HELENA HAMEROW: Birka was
pretty heavily defended. BJORN AMBROSIANI: Oh, yeah. HELENA HAMEROW: But
why would Vikings need to be defended
against other Vikings? This is not a Viking town. It's a Viking age town. Vikings are sea pirates
going out and making plunder on Viking. NARRATOR: The name
Viking has long been given to a whole civilization. But in fact, the name
only really applies to the actions of a few. To go Viking was to go raiding. HELENA HAMEROW: So we-- we
shouldn't really be talking about the settlers
in Birka as Vikings, rather just traders
and-- and fairly-- a fairly peaceful lot. And really, it sounds
like the Vikings are just this kind of military elite. It's almost a little
bit like a mafia. BJORN AMBROSIANI: Correct. NARRATOR: As Scandinavia's
most important in wealthy trading center, Birka
was heavily defended and remained safe and
prosperous for 200 years. It saw off attack after attack. Its ultimate
decline came slowly. The sea level fell and the
harbor became unnavigable. The shipping that had made
it a major trade center could no longer reach it. Birka was abandoned. Our investigators
are in Scandinavia in search of the lost
world of the Vikings. They've been to the
trading town of Birka and discovered that the
real Vikings were gangs of mafia-like raiders. [shouting] They made up only a small part
of the Scandinavian population. The actions of a few defined
how history would remember an entire population. Now, our investigators
examine the technology that made the Viking age
possible, the long boat. [ominous music] These revolutionary ships
took Viking explorers further west than any
Europeans had ever gone before. [shouting] [chanting] Closer to the Viking homeland,
they were a weapon, the bringer of death and destruction. [battle cry] [digital sounds] Jonathan Foyle is in Norway at
the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo. He's come to see the
Oseberg Ship discovered beneath a burial mound in 1903. [somber music] It's 1,100 years old
and is over 90% intact. Crucially for
archaeologists, it's the oldest surviving
Viking ship with a mast. By adding a mast and sail
to what were originally just rowing boats, the Vikings
doubled their average speed from about five nautical miles
per hour to more than 10. They also opened
up the possibility of long sea voyages. To find out precisely how
the mast was constructed, Jonathan meets Bjarte Aarseth
in the museum workshop. Bjarte is one of Norway's
leading specialists in Viking wood carving. He's been trying to understand
the technology of the mast and why it was so revolutionary. [orchestral music] JONATHAN FOYLE: And what's that? Is that a bit of
structure over there? Yes. There, you have the mask fish. Mast fish? Yes. JONATHAN FOYLE: That was
a mast for the sails. Yes. Yeah. That-- that's a model of one. Yes, that's a model of
one, scale one to four. JONATHAN FOYLE: And what,
that comes in the top? Yes. And down, and then you
have this one as a lock. [thud] I see. So you slot that in. That's not-- that's not
going anywhere, is it? No. NARRATOR: The mast fish,
so-called because of its shape, held the mast in place. Its purpose was to help
distribute wind thrust evenly along the length of the ship. This would prevent the mast
from snapping in high winds. Because it was easily removable,
it also allowed long ships to go under low bridges and
other obstacles that would block ships with fixed masts. But piloting these ships
required immense skill. At Oseberg Ship, Knut Paasche,
a leading long ship expert, explains. Where would the
level of the water be on the side of the boat here? Yeah. You can see that's about where
we have a 90 degrees angle there. That area, that's it. So if we took the more-- more
than 90 degrees, actually. Then, you will sink at once. It's a very fine, delicate
balancing act, this boat. KNUT PAASCHE: Yeah. NARRATOR: Even
after 1,100 years, the ship builder's
skill is still visible. KNUT PAASCHE: It's extremely
well-preserved, as you can see. And this island doesn't
actually-- it doesn't rust. So these are the actual,
the original rivets. They are. It is. [ominous music] NARRATOR: These rivets were
made from naturally occurring bog iron that doesn't rust. But clearly, the most
important material was the wood of the ship's hull. KNUT PAASCHE: Well, it's
made of oak, 100% oak. JONATHAN FOYLE:
How many oak trees would you need for
a ship this size? KNUT PAASCHE: A good guess
could be 80, at least 80. JONATHAN FOYLE: 80 trees.
KNUT PAASCHE: Yeah. These are major
investments, aren't they? Yeah, they must
have been expensive. And how many in a fleet? We do have written sources
that tell us there was about 50 and even a hundred
ships at the same time. So 80 trees times a hundred,
you're talking 8,000 trees. This is-- this is deforestation. NARRATOR: Using oaks that could
take up to 150 years to grow, Viking ships changed
the appearance of the local landscape and
the face of seafaring forever. There's an essence of
Vikingness that's in the ships. That's where you imagine
Vikings being on the high seas. But when you come face to face
with a thousand-year-old Viking ship, you get a real
respect for their industry, and cunning, and
sheer determination. NARRATOR: The skill
and determination of the Viking shipbuilders is
readily apparent in Denmark at the Roskilde Museum. [orchestral music] Helena has come here to find
out how the revolutionary design of the long ships
changed the Viking world. She's with Ture Moller,
a shipwright who builds using authentic Viking
techniques and technologies. So the tools
you're using, they're pretty similar to
the ones they would have used in the Viking age. We try to get as
close as possible. We-- we can see it from
those excavated parts. Sometimes, we can't
find all the tools that we can see
marks of on the ship. [hammering] The systems of
measurement that they use, do we know what they used in
the Viking age to measure? No, we don't know. There are pretty many theories. But in traditional
boat building, you do it over and over again. HELENA HAMEROW: Yeah. So they use certain
standards, then. Yeah.
- Yeah, yeah. So how long does it take to--
to build a boat like this long ship here that you've
been working on? It took 4 and 1/2
years, something like that for five men. What they would probably
prefer to-- to build it with much more men. Oh, so a bigger team. Yeah. NARRATOR: Each vessel
was a major deployment of men and resources. Inside the museum are
several Viking ships discovered in the 1960s
in the local fjord. They allow us to see
more of the design that defined the Viking World. Together with Anton Englert,
curator of the museum, Helena examines a cross
section of Viking-age ships. The culmination of this building
tradition was the long ship. Decades of experimentation
and experience have produced a
near-perfect form. So this was a true Viking long
ship used to enforce the law. Yeah, a large
Scandinavian Man of War. OK. NARRATOR: Old Viking ships,
including the Man of War, share key characteristics. First, the keel and
cross beams were attached to the stem and stern posts. Strengthening ribs
supported a deck at the center of which
set the mast fish. The planks of the ship called
streaks, overlapped vertically. They were held
together with rivets. Only 12 feet wide, this
ship was 100 feet long. The final phase added the shield
hooks, ores, rudder, mast, rigging, and sail. The Man of War carried 70
to 80 Vikings, 60 of which rode at any one time. Its shallow draft meant that
it could go almost anywhere. This vessel had a draft not
more than three foot or one meter. And this would make it possible
to sail up any river in Europe. So these were incredibly
flexible vessels in the sense that you could cross
an ocean in them. You could go up
and down the coast, and-- and you could actually
sail quite far inland. Yeah. You could call them
amphibious vessels. NARRATOR: This flexibility
was the key to their success. It enabled them to strike
far upriver from the coast. Helena wants to find
out what life was like aboard a Viking long ship. Anton shows her around one of
the replicas in the boat yard. I can't help but notice that
it seems that she doesn't seem to be built for comfort. There's very little space
and no private sphere here for the 60, 70, or 80 people
who could have been on board. Well, what about food
and drink, provisions? Where would you
actually keep your food? As you can see, there's very
little space down in the boat. Most of it is filled by ballast. So if you wanted to carry a
sufficient amount of weaponry, you could only carry very
little food and water. Within two weeks,
you would run out. So every couple
of weeks, you'd have to make sure you'd be
able to land and replenish your supplies. Yeah. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: Despite
the lack of space, these ships were
ideal for exploration. And Viking leaders like Erik
the Red and Leif Erikson harnessed their power to
travel immense distances. The range, speed,
and maneuverability of the long ships gave the
Viking crews a clear edge over their enemies. And by the ninth
century, the Vikings were changing from
raiders to invaders. In 866, Ivar the Boneless
led his army to England, where his bloodlust and
cruelty became legendary. [orchestral music] Our investigators have explored
the Viking town of Birka, which thrived on the trade
routes of the Baltic. And they've seen how the unique
design of the Viking long ship gave them an edge over
the rest of Europe. Now, Jonathan Foyle is
in the British Isles, where the raiders became
invaders of settlers. This dramatic shift would
influence the Viking way of life across all of Europe. [shouting] In 865 AD, the Viking war
leader Ivar the Boneless began marshaling his forces. His target was York, rich
capital of Northumbria, a kingdom in
Northeastern England. [dramatic music] Jonathan is in the city trying
to get an idea of what it would have been like to know that
the great army was approaching. In 866 AD, a whole
fleet of Viking ships were spotted on the river Ouse. This is 70 years after their
first attack on Lindisfarne. And they were here in number
because the rules of the game had now changed. This fleet hadn't just come
to mount a raid on the city. It had come to conquer it. [orchestral music] [shouting] NARRATOR: The onslaught
was ferocious. York fell, and many
of the inhabitants were butchered in the streets. But the cruelty
didn't end there. Aella was one of the
rival kings of Northumbria, and his capital was York. So of course, he opposed the
conquest of Ivar the Boneless. And his dubious
reward when caught was to be given the blood eagle. And that meant ripping
open his rib cage, pulling out his organs,
and then having those exposed ribs displayed like
the bloodied wings of an eagle. Now, what kind of a message
was that to the people of York? At the least, it was
that Vikings were not people to be crossed. NARRATOR: Ivar named
his new conquest Jorvik. [whoosh] Standing at the point
where two rivers meet and with access to trading
networks across the British Isles and Europe, the Vikings
saw York as a great prize. They left their mark here. Jonathan wants to explore
the links to the Vikings that survive in the modern city. Modern New York still has
many of the street names that the Vikings sent
here a thousand years ago. There's Nessgate, the
street to the headlands, which records the
geography they knew. There's Micklegate,
the big street. So that's their experience
of the size of the roads that they set down. And then there's Coppergate, the
place where they made the cups. So from the geography through
to the places they lived and their industry, Viking York
is still very much here today. NARRATOR: It was beneath the
modern-day street of Coppergate that archaeologists made
an extraordinary find. Amazingly, preserved deep
in the waterlogged soil, they found evidence of eight
Viking-age houses dating back to the 10th century. Jonathan is at the Jorvik
Center which was literally built around the remains. Here, archaeologist Richard Hall
explains their significance. So Richard, suddenly from
no known Viking houses, you had eight on your hands. Yeah, it was very exciting. And most importantly, to find
them so very well-preserved. Nobody had ever seen
anything like it before. Archaeologists were used to
finding ghosts of buildings, and here they were
sprouting in 3D around us. In some places, buildings
standing 1.8 meters tall, best preserved timber buildings from
anywhere in the Viking world. NARRATOR: Timbers
preserved in the ground provide answers to how
this structure was built. [dramatic music] First, a cellar was dug to a
depth of approximately seven feet and lined throughout
with horizontal oak points. Then, massive oak uprights
were set into the ground at regular intervals. These supported the
great steel beams, which were the first part
of the superstructure. JONATHAN FOYLE: But Richard, I
don't see any joints, or pegs, or anything. How does it fit together? Pressure was keeping
this building together. No nails, no pegs,
just the pressure of one timber on another. No-- no metal fixings at all. That's right. We sometimes see the tool marks. We could see bits of woodworm
even on some of them. And if you go up to
the top just up there, you can perhaps see there's a
little hole right in the middle of the beam. And we think that's where
there was a matching beam on the other side, and
there would have been some sort of horizontal holding the two
apart and supporting the floor above. It's a well-known building form. It's very clever. It's very simple. NARRATOR: This sunken
lower level was ingenious. It required fewer
building materials and it gave the structure
greater strength. From the ground up,
oak uprights were slotted into the sill beam. And finally, the thatched roof
and plank walls were added. Using the remains
of the houses, we can now reveal how
Coppergate would have looked during the Viking period. The house plots were carefully
laid out along the street. Beneath them,
cellar-based workshops provided trade for this thriving
new marketplace and center of commerce. The unusual waterlogged
conditions at Coppergate also reveal thousands of
artifacts, each one providing a unique window into the
world of the Vikings. JONATHAN FOYLE: So Richard,
these are your star exhibits. Well, these are representative
of some of the nicest and most complete things that we've
got, like this, for example, which is a Viking-age shoe. Beautifully made. And you can see there, is
it-- am I looking at the-- the indent or the wear on
people's individual toes? You can work out
what corns they had and what bunions
they suffered from. NARRATOR: It looks to be
a walking stick handle. Well, this is-- if you eat, this is what
comes out at the other end. So strange things
that archaeologists collect, but it's full of
information that tells us what they ate, so we learn
about Viking age diet. And we found wooden
bowls like this. And Coppergate is the
street of the cup makers. This is what they're
eating their food from. They're very adept
at choosing the best word for the particular job. Again, masses of
wood, weren't they? Uh-huh. This is antler. Antler was, I suppose, the
plastic of the Viking age. So they didn't waste
anything, did they? No, you made sure that
you used your raw materials to the very best possible way
and got the most out of it. NARRATOR: Jonathan has been
to the Scandinavian homelands, building up a picture of the
lost world of the Vikings. But now in York, he has finally
found one of its inhabitants. Richard, I'm finally
face-to-face with a Viking. Face-to-face with an
inhabitant of Jorvik a thousand years ago, but someone who
came to a bit of a sticky end. Because if you look very
carefully at the skeleton, you can see that there are all
sorts of little nicks and marks caused by what are
known as blade injuries. [shouting] And so all in all, we think he
might be a victim of a battle. But York was a prize
that was contended for by many different
would-be rulers. And so people in York were used
to having to fight to maintain their independence. NARRATOR: Large
numbers of skeletons have been discovered with
clear signs of battle wounds. The used corporate
was the battle ax. [whoosh] Under Viking rule, Jorvik
became a bustling port that was a trade hub of
international importance and a stepping stone
for further conquest. By the time of his
death in 873, Ivar was King of the north bend
of all Ireland and Britain and ruled vast tracts of land. But as Viking conquests were
redrawing the map of Europe, in their homelands,
a massive upheaval was changing the face
of Viking society. explored the Viking homelandse and uncovered vast
trading networks across Europe and beyond. They've revealed evidence of
the Vikings' extraordinary skill in shipbuilding and seafaring. Now, they're in the
heart of Denmark. [dramatic music] In Roskilde, Helena is on the
trail of Harald the Bluetooth, a tenth-century Viking chieftain
who United Denmark and later became King of Norway. [shouting] Harald was a stereotypical
Viking, tall, tough, and battle-hardened. But he was also a man
with an inner conflict. Although his roots
were pagan, Harold converted to Christianity. To enforce his vision of
united in Christian Denmark, he ordered the construction of a
series of circular encampments, known as ring
fortresses, to subdue the warring Viking tribes. [chanting] Four of these sites built
with geometrical precision have now been firmly
identified by archaeologists. Helena has come to one of
these sites at Trelleborg to try and piece together
how they were constructed. With her is
[inaudible],, an expert on how the ring
fortresses were built. The construction
was started in 975. All of this was a part of a
huge military mobilization in Denmark at this point. HELENA HAMEROW: So even though
Harald never actually wrote down why he built
all these fortresses, it gives us a pretty
good idea of what must have motivated him.
- Exactly. Good. Let's have a look inside. Yeah, sure. NARRATOR: They move on
to one of the ramparts to get a better
view of the site. On top of the earthworks you
have a sort of wooden fence, essentially. --yeah structure. Yeah, exactly. We have a road here
on the top of the ramp as well, so it was
easy to get around. And across the gates have,
of course, been bridges. So you can move your
forces very quickly around the entire fortresses
in case of a battle. NARRATOR: We can now reveal what
this impressive fortification would have looked
like from the outside. Surrounded by a 22-foot-tall
wooden palisade of oak, it was guarded by the
king's elite warriors. [interposing voices] We believe that there lived
about 400 or 500 warriors in here. And for-- for the families
of some of the warriors, have probably been
put out there. It ended up not just
being a military base, but some kind of
a local society. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: The ring fortresses
served as regional centers of control, as places where
taxes could be collected, and as symbols of the
power of Harald Bluetooth. HELENA HAMEROW: There must
mean farmers provisioning the soldiers with food. NARRATOR: Yeah, yeah. The idea was that the
king with all his men traveled from stronghold
to stronghold. When they'd run
out of-- of stuff they continue to the next point. So the king was
literally processing around the countryside consuming
his taxes, just literally eating his taxes. Yes, exactly. NARRATOR: Building these
fortresses was a massive drain on resources. Trelleborg alone would have
taken hundreds of laborers over six years to build. And he used more than 9,000
oak trees in its construction. Enormous amounts of-- of
work at [inaudible] here. There must've been a thousand
people working here, at least. NARRATOR: The fourth wall
was a 440-foot diameter ring of earth. 58 feet thick by 23 feet high,
it had a 13-foot deep ditch filled with sharpened stakes. On top of this set a
palisade and roadway. Four entrance gates
led into the fort and converged at
its center, creating a bold architectural symbol
of Harald's Christianity, a gigantic cross. There were only one
person who could see it, and that's actually God in-- of the sky. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: At one of Trelleborg's
sister fortresses at Fyrkat, Jonathan Foyle investigates
what it was like to live within these giant structures. I'm at the Fyrkat
ring fort, and it's identical to the Trelleborg one. You've got the same circular
earthwork with north, south, east, west entrances. It's like they've been turned
out with a giant pastry cutter on the landscape. NARRATOR: Jonathan wants to
uncover what these structures and artifacts
discovered within them tell us about the lost
world of Harald Bluetooth. With him is a Viking
expert Else Roesdahl You must have learned
from the objects, actually the human dimension, how
those buildings were used. ELSE ROESDAHL: That was-- What-- what did they tell you? This uniformity
of plan suggested that it was purely
military use or all of it. But through the distribution
of the objects found, you could see that even if
the houses were all the same in layout, then they had
very different functions. These were strange structures
which appeared in a very particular political situation. And they were built, and there's
nothing like it anywhere. We have looked at it
all over the world. NARRATOR: From the
discoveries at Fyrkat, archaeologists have
been able to reconstruct what the long houses that once
stood here it looked like. A hundred feet long
by 26 feet wide and supported by more
than 50 slanted bow posts, the long houses were
the focal point of life. By building a reconstruction
here at Fyrkat, archaeologists have realized
that long houses required just as much effort and
expertise to construct as the Viking long ships. But questions still
remain about the reasons for their unique design. I'm tantalizingly on the
edge of this Viking world. And the overwhelming sense is-- is this, the wood,
it surrounds you. It's like a wooden tent, almost. And all you can see
is wood or darkness. It is solid oak, all of it. All the posts are
dug into the ground. They were masters and
everything concerned with-- with wood, as we also
know from the ships. Why is the wall curved? Yeah, there are
many suggestions. And one of them is, of
course, the ship idea, which is not very likely. But then it could have been
that it would provide more space around the fireplace. [creaking] NARRATOR: Inside it, Jonathan
gets a flavor of what life was like in these great homes. I don't know if it's just
me, but I felt drawn to-- to be as close to
the fire as possible. Does that reflect how
it was used in the past? One of the great
things in the great halls was performances of poetry. There were also all sorts
of acrobats and things. NARRATOR: Reconstructing
the design of the fortress as it would have been during
Harald Bluetooth's reign, we can see Fyrkat as a unique
monumental structure designed for war. But it was also a centerpiece
for the working community and a focus for Viking
society during peacetime. Yet, the fortresses didn't last,
barely outliving the man who ordered their construction. Rebellious pagan Vikings
led by his own son rose up against
Harald and laid siege to his holding fortresses. [gentle music] There was a revolt led
by his son Sweyn Forkbeard, and he was killed. After that revolt, the new
regime wouldn't have anything to do with it. They were abandoned. So it's, in fact, failures,
but splendid failures. You are the last
person I'd expect to call this a failure,
with your deep involvement and love for it. [whoosh] NARRATOR: Jonathan's
discoveries at Fyrkat reveal not only
a picture of life within these fortified
outposts, but also a picture of the Viking world
as it changed from pagan tribes to Christian kingdoms. In just over 2
and 1/2 centuries, Viking civilization
had come a long way. They were uniquely
successful in their ability, first of all, to raid and then
to colonize and settle right across the North Atlantic. NARRATOR: This success meant
Harald's descendants ruled an empire that included
England, Norway, and Denmark. And Vikings would eventually
conquer and settle all over Europe and far beyond. Our investigators
have discovered that the Viking influence
began with the violence of the raiding parties and
strengthened by trade was only made possible by the Viking's
skill and mastery of the sea. Following a trail of clues, they
revealed that the Viking World did not disappear. Instead, the Viking
ability to adapt and evolve meant that they eventually
molded themselves into a new and
versatile culture. Theirs was a
civilization constantly on the move, powered by
revolutionary technology, governed by wealth. And for 300 years, by the
expansion of an empire which is still visible in
many cities of today, this was the lost
world of the Vikings.
