Oseberg ship

• 1. Introduction

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  The Oseberg ship was pulled from a burial mound on a farm near Tønsberg, in Vestfold county, Norway, and what archaeologists found inside would reshape how the world understood the Viking Age. Buried no earlier than 834, this oak longship carried two women, a trove of elaborately carved objects, fourteen horses, an ox, three dogs, and questions that still have not been fully answered. Who were these women? Why does a handle on a wooden bucket resemble a figure in the lotus posture, with ties to Irish gospel books? And how did a vessel so finely made end up underground, rather than at sea? The excavations of 1904 and 1905 recovered all of this and more. The story of what was found, and what it means, reaches from Viking-Age Norway to the shores of the ancient world.

• 2. The Ship Itself

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  Swedish archaeologist Gabriel Gustafson and Norwegian archaeologist Haakon Shetelig led the excavation between 1904 and 1905. What they uncovered was a karve, a clinker-built vessel constructed almost entirely of oak. Its length runs to 21.58 metres, its beam to 5.10 metres, and it has 15 pairs of oar openings, enough to seat 30 rowers. With a sail area of roughly 90 square metres, it could reach speeds of up to 10 knots. The bow and stern carry elaborate woodcarvings in what scholars call the gripping beast style, also known as the Oseberg style. This style of intertwined animal ornament is among the most distinctive visual languages of the Viking Age. Although certain structural elements date from as early as 800, and others may be older still, dendrochronological dating of the grave chamber's timbers pins the burial itself to the autumn of 834.

• 3. Two Women in One Bed

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  The two female skeletons were found together in one bed. One of the women was probably around 80 years old and suffered badly from arthritis. She also had Morgagni's syndrome, a condition that would have given her a masculine appearance, including a beard. The second woman was initially estimated at 25-30 years old, but later analysis of tooth-root translucency pushed that estimate to somewhere between 50 and 55. The younger woman had a broken collarbone that was once read as evidence of human sacrifice. Closer examination showed the bone had been healing for several weeks before death, which complicates that reading. Both women ate a diet composed mainly of meat, a notable luxury at a time when most people in the region subsisted on fish. The younger woman's teeth bore signs of a metal toothpick, a rare luxury for the 9th century. One woman wore a fine red wool dress with a lozenge twill pattern, alongside a white linen veil in a gauze weave. The other wore a plainer blue wool dress. Neither wore anything made entirely of silk, though small silk strips were appliqued onto a tunic worn beneath the red dress.

• 4. Identity and Speculation

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  Dendrochronological dating places the burial in the autumn of 834, but the identity of the higher-ranking woman remains unknown. One theory holds that she is Queen Asa of the Yngling clan, mother of Halfdan the Black and grandmother of Harald Fairhair. Recent analysis of the women's remains suggested they had lived in Agder, in Norway, which is consistent with what is known about Queen Asa. That identification has been challenged, however. Some researchers propose that one of the women was a shaman rather than a queen. Per Holck of the University of Oslo found that the younger woman's mitochondrial haplogroup was U7, pointing to direct maternal ancestors from the Pontic littoral, probably Iran. Three subsequent studies failed to confirm those results, and it is now considered likely that the bone samples were contaminated through handling or contain little original DNA. What the burial goods do make clear is that at least one of these women held very high status in life.

• 5. Grave Goods and the Buddha Bucket

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  The grave had been disturbed in antiquity, and objects made of precious metals were gone by the time archaeologists arrived. What remained was still extraordinary. Four elaborately decorated sleighs, a richly carved four-wheel wooden cart, bed-posts, wooden chests, agricultural and household tools, woolen garments, imported silks, and narrow tapestries came out of the mound. The wooden cart is the only complete Viking Age cart found so far. Among the more puzzling objects was something that excavators called the Buddha bucket, or Buddha-bøtte in Norwegian. It is a pail made from yew wood, held together with brass strips, with a handle attached to two small figures sitting with crossed legs, comparable to depictions of the Buddha in the lotus posture. Scholars are cautious about any direct Buddhist connection. More convincing is a link between the patterned enamel torso on the handle and similar human figures in the Insular art tradition of Ireland, specifically the Gospel books, including the Book of Durrow. A bedpost from the burial also carries one of the very few surviving period uses of the symbol now called the valknut. The Oseberg burial stands as one of the few sources anywhere for Viking Age textiles.

• 6. Replicas and What They Proved

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  An earlier attempt to build a replica of the Oseberg ship ended in disaster. The vessel, called the Dronningen, sank. When a new attempt was launched in 2004, a collective of Norwegian and Danish professional builders, scientists, and volunteers worked from the highly detailed photographic and laser scans that had been made during the debate over moving the original ship. In the course of that project, builders discovered that the initial restoration of the ship had inadvertently introduced a breach in some of the beams, altering the original structure in ways no one had previously noticed. That unintentional change likely explained why the Dronningen had failed. In 2010, a second reconstruction project named Saga Oseberg began. Using timber from Denmark and Norway and following traditional Viking Age building methods, the new ship was completed and launched from Tønsberg on the 20th of June 2012. In March 2014, it was sailed on the open sea toward Faerder and achieved 10 knots under full sail. The successful voyage confirmed that the Oseberg ship was genuinely seaworthy and had not been built purely as a burial object. On the 3rd of May 2011, Norwegian Minister of Education Kristin Halvorsen formally announced that the original ship will not be moved from Bygdoy, where it has been displayed at the Viking Ship Museum on the western side of Oslo.