What Type of Shipbuilding Method Did the Vikings Use to Build Their Ships?

This commodity is almost Nordic ships of the Viking Age. For ships named "Viking", meet Viking (disambiguation).

A mod replica of a Viking ship. This ship is of the snekkja longship blazon.

Viking ships were marine vessels of unique structure, used in Scandinavia from the Viking Age throughout the Middle Ages. The boat-types were quite varied, depending on what the ship was intended for,^[1] only they were mostly characterized as being slender and flexible boats, with symmetrical ends with true keel. They were clinker congenital, which is the overlapping of planks riveted together. Some might have had a dragon'due south head or other round object protruding from the bow and stern for blueprint, although this is only inferred from historical sources. Viking ships were used both for military purposes and for long-distance merchandise, exploration and colonization.^[2]

In the literature, Viking ships are usually seen divided into ii broad categories: merchant ships and warships, the latter resembling narrow "state of war canoes" with less load capacity, only higher speed. However, these categories are overlapping; some transport ships would also form part of state of war fleets. As a rule, ship lanes in Scandinavia followed coastal waters, hence a majority of vessels were of a lighter pattern, while a few types, such as the knarr, could navigate the open ocean. The Viking ships ranged from the Baltic Sea to far from the Scandinavian homelands, to Republic of iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Newfoundland, the Mediterranean, the Black Body of water and Africa.^[3]

1 detail advantage of the Viking ship is the comparatively depression weight, making land ship and portage routine, as in crossing Jutland instead of rounding Skagen to enter or exit the Baltic Ocean, and travel on the river networks of Eastern Europe.

Development [edit]

The send has been functioning every bit the centerpiece of Scandinavian culture for millennia, serving both businesslike and religious purposes, and its importance was already securely rooted in the Scandinavian culture when the Viking Age began. Scandinavia is a region with relatively loftier inland mountain ranges, dense forests and easy access to the sea with many natural ports. Consequently, trade routes were primarily operated via shipping, as inland travel was both more hazardous and cumbersome. Many stone engravings from the Nordic Stone Historic period and in particular the Nordic Bronze Age, draw ships in various situations and valuable ships were sacrificed as part of ceremonial votive offerings since at least the Nordic Fe Age, as evidenced by the Hjortspring and Nydam boats.

The Viking Age saw the showtime local developments of trading ports into forts and coastal towns, all of which were deeply dependent on the North Ocean and the Baltic Bounding main for survival and growth. Command of the waterways was of smashing economical and political importance, and consequently, ships were in high need. Considering of their overwhelming importance, ships became a mainstay of the Viking religion, equally they evolved into symbols of power and prowess. The Hedeby coins, amid the earliest known Danish currency, have impressions of ships as emblems, showing the importance of naval vessels in the expanse. Through such cultural and practical significance, the Viking ship progressed into the most powerful, advanced naval vessel in Viking Age Europe.

Faering [edit]

A faering is an open rowboat with two pairs of oars, commonly found in about gunkhole-edifice traditions in Western and Northern Scandinavia, dating dorsum to the Viking Age.^[four] Forerunners of the færing boat blazon were found both in the Gokstad and the Melody ship burials. As with the Viking ships, such auxiliary vessels are built so low-cal that the full complement of rowers is sufficient to transport the gunkhole over land.

Knarr [edit]

Knarr is the Norse term for ships that were built for cargo transport. A length of near 54 feet (16 m) and a beam of fifteen feet (4.6 grand) are not untypical, and the hull could exist capable of carrying up to 24 tons.^[v] Overall deportation: fifty tons. This is shorter than the Gokstad type of longships, but knarrs are sturdier past design and they depended more often than not on sail-power, only putting oars to use as auxiliaries if there was no wind on the open water. Because of this, the knarr was used for longer voyages, bounding main-going transports and more hazardous trips than the Gokstad blazon. It was capable of sailing 75 miles (121 km) in one twenty-four hours, and held a crew of about 20–30. Knarrs^[six] routinely crossed the North Atlantic in the Viking Age, carrying livestock and goods to and from Greenland and the Due north Atlantic islands. The pattern of the knarr afterward influenced the blueprint of the cog, used in the Baltic Ocean by the Hanseatic League. The best-preserved Viking Age knarr is the Äskekärr ship, which was constitute in Sweden in 1933, and is believed to be from about 930 Ad.^[7]

Longship [edit]

Longships were naval vessels made and used by the Vikings from Scandinavia and Iceland for merchandise, commerce, exploration, and warfare during the Viking Age. The longship's pattern evolved over many years, as seen in the Nydam and Kvalsund ships. The character and appearance of these ships have been reflected in Scandinavian boat-edifice traditions until today. The average speed of Viking ships varied from ship to ship but lay in the range of 5–10 knots, and the maximum speed of a longship under favorable conditions was around 15 knots.^[8]

The long-send is characterized as a svelte, long, narrow, light, wooden boat with a shallow draft hull designed for speed. The ship's shallow typhoon allowed navigation in waters just i meter deep and permitted embankment landings, while its calorie-free weight enabled it to exist carried over portages. Longships were also double-ended, the symmetrical bow and stern assuasive the send to contrary direction quickly without having to plough around. Longships were fitted with oars along almost the entire length of the gunkhole itself. Afterward versions sported a rectangular canvass on a single mast which was used to replace or augment the attempt of the rowers, particularly during long journeys.

Longships can exist classified into a number of different types, depending on size, structure details, and prestige. The most common style to classify longships is by the number of rowing positions on board. Types ranged from the Karvi, with 13 rowing benches, to the Busse, one of which has been found with an estimated 34 rowing positions.

Longships were the image of Scandinavian naval power at the time and were highly valued possessions. They were owned by coastal farmers and assembled by the king to form the leidang in times of disharmonize, in order to take a powerful naval force at his disposal. While longships were deployed by the Norse in warfare, there are no descriptions of naval tactics such every bit ramming, etc. Instead, the ships would sometimes exist lashed together in battle to form a steady platform for infantry warfare. Longships were called dragonships (drakuskippan) by the Franks because they had a dragon-shaped prow.^[9]

Karve [edit]

The Karve was a small type of Viking longship, with a broad hull somewhat like to the knarr. They were used for both war and ordinary send, carrying people, cargo or livestock. Because they were able to navigate in very shallow h2o, they were also used for coasting. Karves had broad beams of approximately 17 feet (5.ii 1000).

Send construction [edit]

Viking ships varied from other contemporary ships, beingness mostly more seaworthy and lighter. This was achieved through utilize of clinker (lapstrake) construction. The planks on Viking vessels were rived (carve up) from large, old-growth copse — especially oak. A ship'due south hull could be as thin as one inch (2.5 cm), as a rived plank is stronger than a sawed plank institute in later arts and crafts, resulting in a strong withal supple hull.^[10]

Working upwardly from a stout oaken keel and ribs, the shipwrights would rivet on the planks using wrought iron rivets and roves, reinforced with added back up ribs and thwarts. Each tier of planks overlapped the 1 below, and a caulking of tarred cow'southward pilus was used betwixt planks to create a waterproof hull.

Remarkably large vessels could be constructed using traditional clinker construction. Dragon-ships carrying 100 warriors were non uncommon.^[11]

Furthermore, during the early on Viking Age, oar ports replaced rowlocks, allowing oars to exist stored while the transport was at sail and to provide improve angles for rowing. The largest ships of the era could travel 5 to six knots using oar power and upward to ten knots nether sail.^[12]

Navigation [edit]

With such technological improvements, the Vikings began to make more and more bounding main voyages, as their ships were more seaworthy. However, in club to sail in ocean waters, the Vikings needed to develop methods of relatively precise navigation. Most usually, a transport'due south airplane pilot drew on traditional knowledge to set the ship's course. Essentially, the Vikings but used prior familiarity with tides, sailing times, and landmarks in order to road courses. For case, scholars fence that the sighting of a whale immune the Vikings to determine the direction of a ship. Because whales feed in highly nutritious waters, unremarkably found in regions where landmasses have pushed deep-h2o currents towards shallower areas, the sighting of a whale functioned as a signal that land was near.

On the other hand, some academics have proposed that the Vikings besides developed more than avant-garde aids to navigation, such every bit the employ of a lord's day compass. A wooden half-disc found on the shores of Narsarsuaq, Greenland initially seemed to back up this hypothesis. However, further investigation of the object revealed that the slits inscribed in the disc are disproportionately spaced, and so the object could not in fact office as an accurate compass. Rather it has been suggested that the musical instrument is instead a "confession disc" used by priests to count the number of confessions in their parish.^[thirteen] Similarly, researchers and historians continually debate the utilize of the sunstone in Viking navigation. Because a sunstone is able to polarize low-cal, it is a plausible method for determining direction. By showing which management calorie-free waves are oscillating, the sunstone has the potential to show the sun's position even when the lord's day is obscured by clouds. The stone changes to a certain colour, based on the management of the waves, but only when the object is held in an surface area with direct sunlight. Thus, most scholars debate the reliability and the plausibility of using a navigational tool that tin only determine management in such express conditions.^[14]

Viking sagas routinely tell of voyages where Vikings suffered from existence "hafvilla" (bewildered)—voyages aggress by fog or bad weather, where they completely lost their sense of direction. This clarification suggests they did not utilize a sunstone when the sunday was obscured. Moreover, the fact that this same bewilderment could arise when the winds died suggests that the Vikings relied on prevailing winds to navigate, equally expected if their skills depended principally on traditional knowledge.^[xv]

Send burying [edit]

Prominent men or women in Norse society sometimes received a ship burying. The body of the deceased would exist prepared and dressed in fine clothes and then exist transported to the burying-identify in a wagon drawn by horses. The deceased would be placed on the ship, along with many prized possessions. Horses, dogs and occasionally thralls and households might also exist sacrificially killed and cached with the deceased. The origin and meaning of these customs remain unknown. Several examples of Viking ship burials have been excavated, eastward.one thousand. the Oseberg ship, containing the remains of two women, the Gokstad ship, and ane about the Danish village of Ladby, where information technology tin be found on display.

There are literary sources such as the Norse Skjoldunga Saga and the Ynglinga Saga which depict more literal "send burials" in which the deceased and goods are placed on a boat in the water and the vessel is launched into the sea, sometimes being shot with burning arrows and vanishing into the night, afire. Nothcotte Toller, still, states:

Whether such fiery funerals ever actually took place is incommunicable to know; simply it is much more hard to imagine that a king's body and accompanying treasures would take been simply pushed out to sea, where they would accept been in danger of returning, or of falling into the hands of strangers or fifty-fifty enemies who might maltreat the i and plunder the other.^[16]

Burial of ships is an ancient tradition in Scandinavia, stretching dorsum to at least the Nordic Iron Age, as evidenced by the Hjortspring boat (400–300 BC) or the Nydam boats (200–450 Advertizement), for example. Ships and bodies of water have held major spiritual importance in the Norse cultures since at least the Nordic Bronze Age.

Preserved ships [edit]

Several original Viking ships have been found through the ages, but just a few accept been relatively intact and subsequently preserved. The near notable of these few ships include:

• Gokstad ship: overall length – approximately 23.iii metres (76 ft)
• Oseberg ship: overall length – approximately 21.5 metres (71 ft)
• Melody send: may have been upwardly to xviii.seven metres (61 ft) long
• Skuldelev ships
• Gjellestad ship burial: estimated length 20 metres (excavation ongoing as of June 2020)

Replicas [edit]

Viking ship replicas are ane of the more common types of ship replica. Viking, the very first Viking send replica, was built by the Rødsverven shipyard in Sandefjord, Norway. In 1893 it sailed across the Atlantic Bounding main to Chicago for the World's Columbian Exposition. In that location are a considerable number of modern reconstructions of Viking Historic period ships in service around Northern Europe and Northward America. The Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark, has been particularly prolific in edifice accurate reconstructions of archaeological finds in its collection.

See also [edit]

• Birlinn
• Galley
• Salme ships

References [edit]

1. ^ "Eldar Heide (2014). The early Viking Ship types (Sjøfartshistorisk årbok 2050. 81–153.)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on November 23, 2015. Retrieved May 24, 2020.
2. ^ Jones, Gwyn, A history of the Vikings (Oxford 2001).
3. ^ Were as well seen in the Arab republic of egypt Red Sea
4. ^ What is a norse færing? (Vikingskip.com) Archived February 22, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
5. ^ Peter Sawyer, (1975) The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings. Oxford Academy Press ISBN 978-0-xix-285434-vi ISBN 0-19-285434-8
6. ^ Plural of knarr is knerrir.
7. ^ "Discovered: A Viking Ship!" (PDF). www.lodose.eu. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 October 2019. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
8. ^ "Fejl: Siden blev ikke fundet / adgang er ikke tilladt". Vikingeskibsmuseet Roskilde. Archived from the original on 2011-07-18. Retrieved 2011-04-06 .
9. ^ Ervan G. Garrison (1998). History of Engineering and Engineering: Aesthetic Methods. CRC Printing. p. 111. ISBN978-0-8493-9810-0.
10. ^ Lapstrake hull schematic Archived July 17, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
11. ^ Stephen Batchelor (30 April 2010). Medieval History For Dummies . John Wiley & Sons. p. 101. ISBN978-0-470-66460-five.
12. ^ Richard Hall, The World of the Vikings (New York, 2007), 55.
13. ^ Hall, The World of the Vikings, 54.
14. ^ Oscar Noel and Sue Ann Bowling (21 March 1988). "Polar Navigation and the Heaven Compass: Commodity #865". Alaska Science Forum. Archived from the original on 27 April 2012. Retrieved 24 Nov 2010.
15. ^ Hafvilla: A Note on Norse Navigation, Thousand. J. Marcus, Speculum, Vol. xxx, No. 4 (October., 1955), pp. 601–05, Published past: Medieval Academy of America, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2849616 (accessed November 2, 2011).
16. ^ Thomas Nothcotte Toller (2003). Textual and Material Civilization in Anglo-Saxon England. D.Southward. Brewer. p. 43.

External links [edit]

• Recreating a Viking voyage – BBC
• The Viking send Museum in Roskilde, Denmark
• Spider web page about the Gokstad send excavation
• The Oslo Viking Transport Museum
• Gaia, the Gokstad Ship copy
• Munin, a Gokstad replica in Vancouver, BC
• Comparison between Viking and Egyptian Ships
• Dreknor Projection, Normandy
• Leif Ericson Viking Ship
• Rebuilding and sailing a Viking Knarr ship
• History of vikings
• Francis Miltoun: Ships & aircraft, London, Alexander Moring Ltd., 1903
• The Mariner'southward Museum: Age of exploration
• New Oseberg Send Foundation
• Video: Viking ship replica Saga Oseberg tacking
• Video: Viking send replica Saga Oseberg wearing
• Video: Viking transport replica Saga Oseberg sailing shut hauled

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_ships

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