Archaeology, features and articles | Educational Science

Jan 6, 2022

Horned 'Viking' helmets were actually from a different civilization, archaeologists say

Two spectacular bronze helmets decorated with bull-like, curved horns may have inspired the idea that more than 1,500 years later, Vikings wore bulls' horns on their helmets, although there is no evidence they ever did. Rather, the two helmets were likely emblems of the growing power of leaders in Bronze...

Jan 27, 2022

Vikings' 'blood eagle' torture was horrific — and may have actually happened

A brutal, ritualized method of torture and execution that was allegedly practiced by Nordic people during the Viking Age was so gruesome that some scholars questioned whether it was even possible to perform on a human body. However, researchers recently found that the act known as blóðǫrn, or blood eagle,...

Mar 30, 2022

Drought helped push the Vikings out of Greenland, new study finds

Scientists may have found an important factor behind why the Norse mysteriously abandoned their largest settlement on Greenland. And it wasn't cold weather, as some had long thought. Rather, drought might have played a major role in the abandonment of the Eastern Settlement of Vikings around 1450, new research suggests....

Apr 27, 2022

Viking boat burial discovered in Norway may hold the remains of royal figures

Archaeologists have uncovered a Viking boat that likely holds the remains of royalty or another elite figure dating to between 500 and 1,000 years ago near the town of Kvinesdal in southwest Norway. The deceased's boat burial dates to a time period when the Vikings were thriving – conducting raids,...

Jun 9, 2022

Broken pieces of rare Viking sword reunited after 1,200 years apart

Two pieces of an ornate Viking sword that had been separated for about 1,200 years have been reunited and still fit together like a puzzle. The pieces were discovered a year apart by amateur treasure hunters in Norway. The first finding occurred last year, when a metal detectorist in Stavanger,...

Jul 21, 2022

Gold Viking ring unexpectedly found in stash of 'cheap jewelry' from online auction

A large, gold Viking ring crafted from twisted metal strands turned up in a very unexpected place: a heap of cheap jewelry a woman in Norway purchased at an online auction. Archaeologists think the ring may be more than 1,000 years old and once belonged to a powerful Viking chief....

Aug 30, 2022

3-bladed arrowhead 'last touched by Vikings' revealed by melting ice patch

A melting ice patch in the mountains of Norway has revealed an archaeological surprise: a rare, three-bladed arrowhead used by Vikings more than a millennium ago. The researchers unearthed the metal weapon while surveying a new site in the Jotunheimen Mountains, a millennium-old Viking hotspot for reindeer hunting located high...

Oct 31, 2022

2 Viking swords buried upright might have connected the dead to Odin and Valhalla

Archaeologists in Sweden have unearthed two Viking swords in neighboring graves that were buried upright, as if they were standing on their points. Whoever installed the iron swords perpendicular to the surface about 1,200 years ago clearly did so on purpose, as it would have taken a lot of effort...

Nov 2, 2022

Metal detectorist stumbles across Viking treasure hoard in Norway

Many people dream of finding buried treasure, but very few people actually do. For one man in central Norway that dream became a reality just before Christmas last year, when he took his metal detector for a stroll in a field near his home and unearthed a hoard of silver...

Jan 10, 2023

Rare, 'high-status' Viking burial unearthed in a garden in Oslo

Archaeologists in Oslo, Norway, have uncovered a rare Viking grave dating back around 1,100 years — a time when the Vikings were venturing throughout Europe and the North Atlantic. The grave holds the remains of a cremated individual who archaeologists believe was likely a male. He was buried with a...

Jan 10, 2023

Giant Viking hall, possibly connected to Harald Bluetooth, unearthed in Denmark

Archaeologists in Denmark have unearthed a portion of a massive Viking hall that may be connected to King Harald Bluetooth Gormsson, who reigned from A.D. 958 to 986, during the Viking Age. The structure, which is located in North Jutland, a region that encompasses Denmark's northernmost tip, is the largest...

Feb 1, 2023

Viking warriors sailed the seas with their pets, bone analysis finds

When the Vikings sailed west to England more than a millennium ago, they brought their animal companions with them and even cremated their bodies alongside human ones in a blazing pyre before burying them together, a new study finds. These animal and human remains were found in a unique cremation...

Mar 6, 2023

Who were the Vikings, the warriors who raided Europe and explored the New World?

The Vikings explored, raided and traded across a vast area stretching from North America to the Middle East between roughly the late eighth and mid-11th centuries. In Old Norse, the language the Vikings spoke, a Viking was a sea-borne raider, and to go-a-viking was to undertake sea-borne raiding, Angus Somerville...

Mar 11, 2023

Earliest mention of Odin, 'king of the gods,' found in treasure hoard from Denmark

A gold pendant recently unearthed in Denmark bears the earliest known inscription featuring the Norse god Odin. Archaeologists think the pendant — which is technically known as a bracteate and made of thin, stamped gold — dates to the fifth century A.D., making it 150 years older than the previous...

Apr 4, 2023

1,100-year-old 'ceremonial' Viking shields were actually used in battle, study suggests

Dozens of Viking round shields from a famous ship burial unearthed in Norway were not strictly ceremonial as long thought; instead they may have protected warriors in battle, a new study finds. A reanalysis of the wooden shields, which were unearthed in the Gokstad ship in southern Norway in 1880,...