The Craziest Shelters Used By Vikings

Grass roofs, secret tunnels, a lava cave, an ancient tower: each one hid Vikings from something. In this video: Why Vikings put grass on their roofs, and why the real waterproofing was birch bark Secret tunnels from the sleeping bench to the stream, and the outlaw Gisli who went underground Hundreds of hand-dug caves in Iceland and a mountain hut with a hearth full of bones Surtshellir, the lava cave with a stone wall, smashed bones and beads from as far as Iraq A 2,000-year-old stone tower in Shetland and a church turned into a gatehouse at Repton Torksey, a winter camp the size of a town with no walls at all Grettir's rock island, Greenland barns for 160 cows and three men's rune stone in the Arctic Sources: Kevin P. Smith, Gudmundur Olafsson, Albina Hulda Palsdottir (2021), Ritual responses to catastrophic volcanism in Viking Age Iceland, Journal of Archaeological Science 126 Archaeology magazine (May/June 2017), on the Surtshellir cave excavations Dawn Hadley and Julian Richards (2016), The Winter Camp of the Viking Great Army, AD 872-3, Torksey, Lincolnshire, The Antiquaries Journal 96 Jarman, Biddle, Higham, Bronk Ramsey (2018), The Viking Great Army in England: new dates from the Repton charnel, Antiquity 92 Ledger, Edwards, Schofield (2013), Shieling activity in the Norse Eastern Settlement, The Holocene 23 Ian Russell (2014), Woodstown: A Viking-Age Settlement in Co. Waterford, Four Courts Press Steffen Stummann Hansen (2005), Toftanes: a Viking Age Farmstead in Leirvik, Faroe Islands Archaeology magazine (2024), on the Viking Age overnight shelter at Holmetjonn, Norway Historic Environment Scotland, Mousa Broch: history (Egil's saga and the saga of the Orkney earls) The Saga of Grettir the Strong, trans. William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson #Vikings #VikingHistory #VikingAge