Viking Ship Found Buried In a Norwegian farm

The remains of the Viking ship have been discovered on a farm near a medieval church in Edøy, on the island Smøla, Norway.

“The boat, which is approximately 17 meters long, appears to be part of a burial mound, suggesting that it was used to bury someone important,” said the authors of the finding Manuel Gabler and Dag-Øyvind Engtrø Solem, both belonging to the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU).

For now, it is not known if there are one or more skeletons inside the ship.

The discovery was made fortuitously when archaeologists used a high-resolution geo radar mounted on a car. “We had already finished scanning the agreed area and we had plenty of time, so we decided to do a quick survey of a nearby field … In the end, it turned out to be a good decision!” Gabler explained.

According to Knut Paasche, head of the Department of Digital Archeology at NIKU and an expert on the subject, the buried Viking ship would be more than 1,000 years old

Radar images have sufficient resolution to visualize what remains of the bow and stern, which on previous occasions have been destroyed by the plow on the farms. The helmet seems to be in excellent condition, according to a report by Ars Technica. Also, the radar revealed the remains of two houses, probably part of a Viking settlement, although archaeologists are not sure of the age of these structures.

Local authorities hope to do a major investigation of the area around the funeral ship. “If the land on the ship is going to be excavated, it will surely not be in the near future,” said a NIKU spokesman.

The survey in Edøy was done as a collaboration between Møre and Romsdal counties, the municipality of Smøla and NIKU. The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospects and Virtual Archeology helped develop the georradar technology used.

Source: Live Science