FW: [gdh] (Fwd) [EK] remains of Viking warships discovered

Jerry Herring therring at viagrafix.com
Wed Jul 23 11:40:55 PDT 1997



-----Original Message-----
From:	lubrecht at epix.net [SMTP:lubrecht at epix.net]
Sent:	Tuesday, July 22, 1997 2:54 PM
To:	gdh at hwcn.org
Subject:	[gdh] (Fwd) [EK] remains of Viking warships discovered


	Thought others might enjoy hearing about this.
Kelandra

(reproduce at will)

COPENHAGEN -- Danish archaeologists dredging a fjord near
Copenhagen have uncovered a thousand-year-old Viking warship and
the remains of seven medieval trading vessels, the biggest such
find here for 35 years.    Dating from the 11th to the 14th
centuries, the vessels were unearthed last autumn and this spring
from the muddy bottom of Roskilde Fjord near Denmark's Viking
Ship Museum.    Workers were digging out an island site for a new
visitors' leisure center when they found the wrecks.  

In 1962, five 11th-century Viking vessels  two warships, two
trading vessels and a fishing boat  were raised from Roskilde
Fjord, west of Copenhagen.   They were pieced together and put on
permanent display at the Viking Ship Museum in the cathedral town
of Roskilde.  

Although two of the 12th-century trading ships are the best
preserved of the shipwrecks, the most exciting of the finds is
the 11th-century Viking vessel. It is a typical, elegantly
shaped, masted longship, with long, low hull and upper planking,
three meters (10 ft) broad and with a 20-meter-long (66 ft) keel.
  The distance between the ribs of the warship, of which about 40
percent remains, indicates that the vessel was propelled by 36
oarsman and had space for a 50-man crew in all.   The other
wrecks are in various states of repair but at least a third of
most of the ships remains for the archaeologists to study.    To
date, five of the wrecks have been partially excavated and
visitors to the museum can follow the dig in progress and watch
reconstruction work in a workshop.    The rest of the large
trading vessel and parts of some of the lesser traders are to be
raised from the fjord bed this year.    Scholars had thought that
Roskilde, its cathedral the traditional burial place of Danish
monarchs, was superseded by Copenhagen as Denmark's capital in
the late 12th century in part due to its better harbor facilities
for big ships.  (Excerpts from an article in Reuters, Monday,
July 21, 2:45 PM EDT)  

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