[Northkeep] FW: Researchers zero in on 'new' Viking ship

[Niewoehner, Hugh]

>From another list: 


Researchers zero in on 'new' Viking ship
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=652358
<http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=652358> 

Pulse levels are rising among Norwegian researchers who think they may have
found the country's fourth intact Viking ship buried in a mound near
Toensberg. The site is just next to the spot where the famed Gokstad ship
was found in 1880.

Researchers from the University of Oslo have been using radar to examine the
Viking burial site. Photos have revealed an oval shape lying about a meter
under the pile of stones atop the mound, called a gravroeysa in Norwegian.
Newspaper VG reported Tuesday that the pictures may denote another Viking
longship buried with its owners' possessions in the traditional manner.
Researchers also think the ship may be intact. Clay in the area preserved
the Gokstad ship for more than a thousand years, so it's entirely possible
that conditions have allowed the perservation of another ship as well.
The Gokstad Ship, now the crown jewel in Oslo's Viking Ships Museum on the
Bygdoey peninsula, was found just a kilometer-and-a-half away. It measured
22 meters long by five meters wide and belonged to a powerful Viking queen
who died in 834.
Archaeologist Trude Aga Brun of Vestfold County wants to examine the site as
soon as possible. She said officials will try to undertake a focused
excavation this autumn. "If we're lucky, we'll find some woodwork," she told
VG.
Many Viking ship graves have been found in Norway over the years, but most
of the vessels had rotted away and graves also had been plundered in earlier
centuries.


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