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00:13York. Founded by the Romans, by the 9th century AD, this was one of the great Christian cities
00:22of Anglo-Saxon England. But York had a shock coming, because in 866 AD, an entire army arrived here,
00:31turned the place Viking, and called it Jorvik. This city, and half of England besides, became part
00:37of Scandinavia. Today, even over a thousand years later, the image of the marauding Viking warrior
00:47is as strong as ever. Thank you. Especially up here. What we know, or think we know about the
00:56Vikings, is much more myth than reality. Even the famed horned helmets are a modern invention.
01:04So, just who were the Vikings?
01:12I'm going to find out the truth about the Vikings.
01:17Leaving Britain behind to enter their land.
01:21And their own mysterious world.
01:25Even now, this place feels like it's on the edge of everything.
01:31It's going to take me all over Scandinavia.
01:34Do you have a map?
01:36Let's see there! Let's see there!
01:38And far beyond.
01:40These are Arabic dirhams, minted in places like Baghdad.
01:47And, as an archaeologist, I'll be seeking out some of the most telling evidence of all.
01:54The remains of ancient people.
01:57This flamboyant hairstyle just adds to his allure.
02:04And the stunning treasures they left behind.
02:10Fear!
02:12All to get inside the heads of the Vikings themselves.
02:17Oh, wow.
02:18How can that be a thousand years old?
02:21The real Vikings, from their point of view.
02:44To start my investigation, I've come to Norway.
02:49Smoke salmon.
02:54In particular, Bergen.
02:57A port that faces the wild Atlantic Ocean.
03:04If I'm going to understand the origins of the Vikings, then this is the place to start.
03:08Because at the end of the 8th century, it's likely that the ships carrying those first raiders set out from
03:15this coastline.
03:19It's hard to imagine that it was from here, 1200 or so years ago, that so much terror was unleashed.
03:27But this is how I wanted to feel at the beginning of this journey.
03:32So that I could try and understand this seismic moment in European history from the Viking point of view.
03:44The Vikings weren't just savage pirates, but sophisticated traders who crisscrossed the known world, running silks and silver, as well
03:57as slaves and stolen booty.
04:01Epic adventurers who voyaged to the exotic cities of Asia, and the unknown mysteries of America.
04:13While much of dark age Europe had been shaped by the civilising influence of Rome, up here in Scandinavia, the
04:22Vikings had emerged from a distinctive, in fact, a unique culture.
04:26They were untainted by concepts like the written law and life in towns, far less by belief in a Christian
04:34God.
04:36The Vikings bequeathed to us a part of our cultural DNA that's wilder, darker, more mysterious than anything that was
04:47to be had from Rome.
04:48And it wasn't just what they did that made them dangerous, it was what they thought and what they believed.
05:03Right here, in Bergen, are some of the preserved remains of one of the very earliest Vikings ever found.
05:12Although, it has to be said, they're not exactly in the best of shape.
05:24These poor fragments are all that remains of the skeleton of a man.
05:29These are arm bones, and these are parts of one leg.
05:38Alongside him were grave goods, including his sword, so it's safe to say that he was a warrior.
05:51But what's remarkable about him, what's fascinating, is that this individual is the first that we know of to have
06:00been buried in true classic Viking style.
06:07He was buried inside a Viking ship that was intended to take him to the afterlife, to Valhalla, where he
06:15would feast and fight alongside the Norse gods themselves.
06:19He was a sea-born warrior.
06:22He would have been carrying the responsibility and the expectations of his family, who would be hoping that he would
06:28return richer, more famous, with a great reputation that would change not just his life, but theirs.
06:37A Viking wasn't only something you were, but something you did.
06:43To go a Viking was to head out into the open seas in search of adventure.
06:53Their transport was a technological miracle, the notorious Viking longboat.
06:59An icon of an entire age.
07:10From Bergen, it's just a short hop to Norway's capital, Oslo.
07:20Resting place of the finest Viking ship ever unearthed.
07:36Like our man, it dates from the very beginning of the Viking age.
07:42This stunning craft is the Ossoberg ship.
07:47It's certainly the most famous Viking ship we have, and to my eyes, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the
07:54most beautiful.
07:57This was once one of the most sophisticated ships in the world.
08:12The ship itself is the work of many craftsmen, but here in this carving is the imagination and the skill
08:22of just one artist, one person.
08:26It's this exciting, vivid depiction of a dragon or sea serpents twisted together, biting tails.
08:40And while it's one thing to be handed an object that you can hold in your hand and be told,
08:49you know, this is a thousand or twelve hundred years old.
08:52It's of another order of magnitude to stand beneath something like this.
08:59This says that the Vikings were real people with huge ambition.
09:07This is just one of hundreds or thousands of ships built during the Viking age.
09:12This is what the Vikings were capable of.
09:25The Vikings may well have burst into our British history in a blizzard of flashing axes,
09:32but the culture that gave rise to them certainly didn't appear out of a clear blue sky.
09:37Instead, they were the product of thousands of years of cultural evolution.
09:43They were shaped by their land, by the sea, and by countless generations of Scandinavian proto-Vikings.
09:52And it's only by understanding the world of their most distant ancestors that we can hope to dig down to
10:00their real roots,
10:01to distill the very Viking essence, if you like, and to see why and how the terrifying phenomenon of the
10:11Vikings ever came to be.
10:22To discover the very earliest roots of the Vikings and leaving Oslo behind and heading east to the very heart
10:29of the Baltic.
10:35It's taking me 450 miles from Norway to a Swedish island called Gotland.
10:43To really get to grips with the Vikings, to have any chance of seeing who they were and where they
10:50came from,
10:51you have to dig down towards the roots of the world that bore them.
10:55And that means going all the way back to prehistoric Scandinavia.
11:00And I can tell you, there's some pretty strange stuff down there.
11:10The streamlined longboat was key to everything the Vikings achieved.
11:18And the very beginning of the longboat's story can be found here in the Baltic, on Gotland.
11:28Joachim Veilin is a local archaeologist, who's promised to help me find some ancient rock carvings.
11:35The only trouble is, they're submerged, and in winter, also stuck under a lot of ice.
11:43And to make matters even worse, it's getting dark.
11:54This is exactly what they tell you not to do in all the warning films.
12:01Oh, how frustrating. I mean, they're just, you can, I can see them, honestly.
12:12Yeah?
12:12I've got, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can.
12:14I can see it.
12:17You see there, the dark?
12:19There's the line of the boat.
12:21There it is.
12:21You can see that, you can see the curving hull.
12:23It's there.
12:24Amazing.
12:25Yeah, it is.
12:26It's really cool, actually.
12:28That's great.
12:29Effectively, what we've got is a sunken Bronze Age rock carving.
12:34It's great.
12:37Just amazing.
12:42I suppose the obvious question is, why is that rock art here?
12:46Because it feels like the middle of nowhere.
12:48Yeah, today it's the nowhere, but back in the Bronze Age,
12:50I think this is a meeting place.
12:53People gathering around here.
12:55You see the open landscape.
12:57You have high points all over here.
12:58In the Bronze Age, would the sea have been closer and therefore easier to see?
13:02Yeah, the sea would have been closer.
13:04And also there was a freshwater lake just next.
13:08You can see the remains just fine.
13:10So this is the only place for freshwater for at the time.
13:13And so if it was a place that mattered because people were accustomed to coming here to talk
13:20or to trade or whatever, then it would have made sense to make carvings in the rock here.
13:26Exactly.
13:26If you look at the rock arts that's made on the mid-eastern part of Sweden, it is the same
13:32kind of rock art.
13:37There's something symbolic about something from so long ago being trapped under the ice.
13:46Rock carvings have been found all over Scandinavia, going back thousands of years into the Iron Age and beyond.
13:55And there's a very definite recurring theme.
13:59I can see right away the ships with people in them, with a crew.
14:04Yes, people with weapons, swords and edsies.
14:09And the ships are actually really good.
14:11You know, there's quite a lot of detail.
14:14You know, this coming up at the bow.
14:16And then you've even got a serpent head at the bow of the ship.
14:20Yeah, and sometimes it looks almost like you can see the direction of it.
14:24Yeah, so the people who are making the carvings, you kind of get a sense of how familiar they are
14:30with ships.
14:31With the ships, yeah.
14:32Because there's detail and a real familiarity with the shape.
14:38The rock carvings are stunning.
14:41But they're not the only remains that testify to the Vikings' ancient seafaring routes.
14:46It's very evocative.
15:03Next morning, and still on Gotland, I'm searching out more evidence of the earliest maritime ancestors of the Vikings.
15:12What I've come to see here is much, much older than these trees.
15:17But the fact that it's partly concealed by a forest just adds another layer of mystery.
15:23It kind of sets you up for the expectation that you're about to see something magical.
15:46This vast monument is called the Stone Ship of Ansarvay.
15:53And it's around 3,000 years old.
16:01Anyone coming here couldn't help but be struck by its sheer scale.
16:09I've walked into lots of stone circles in my time, but nothing like this.
16:15In a stone circle, you never quite know how to feel.
16:18You don't really know for sure what you're being told.
16:20But you come in here, and without anyone saying a word, you know exactly what this is.
16:29Like Britain's stone circles, the purpose of ancient ship monuments is mysterious.
16:43Many are graves, but not all.
16:49Every one of them, though, testifies to the symbolic importance of the sea,
16:54to the people who lived on Gotland long before the Viking Age.
17:02It's such a Baltic thing to do.
17:04You don't get ship settings in France or in Britain.
17:08But you get them here.
17:10Lots and lots of them.
17:20The prehistory of Scandinavia was dominated by the sea.
17:25With its rugged coastline of fjords and inlets,
17:28it was often much easier to travel by sea than over land.
17:35In the Baltic Sea alone, there are over 50,000 islands, convenient stopping-off points,
17:43service stations or lay-bys, if you like, along an ancient maritime motorway.
17:51It was these ancient maritime skills that evolved into the seagoing prowess of the Vikings,
17:58their daring raids and their great, epic voyages.
18:06The ancestors of the Vikings had the salt of the sea running through their veins.
18:13But they were also a people who were shaped by their land.
18:21When you travel through Scandinavia,
18:23you begin to realise just how huge and varied a land the Vikings inhabited.
18:31From the cold northern mountains of Norway,
18:33where arable land was scarce,
18:38all the way down to the fertile plains of Denmark and the south.
18:46Travel in prehistoric Scandinavia might have been dominated by the sea,
18:50but survival depended on the land.
18:55How successfully you could tend animals and grow crops.
19:06The geography of Scandinavia provides for many different landscapes and many different climates,
19:12and people living in different parks are affected in different ways.
19:15In the far north, where the soils are thin and the winters are long and dark,
19:20it's very difficult to grow crops.
19:22It's even a challenge to keep animals.
19:24But in the south, especially during the Bronze Age,
19:28the time when people were making those ship carvings,
19:30there was actually an economic surplus.
19:33There was plenty of good grazing,
19:34and the land was good for many crops.
19:44Having visited the coasts of Norway and Sweden,
19:47I'm now heading for Denmark, and its capital, Copenhagen.
19:53Because just a hundred miles from here,
19:56there's a remarkable sight that reveals how Bronze Age people thrived off the fertile land of the south.
20:09Three and a half thousand years ago,
20:11this place was an important settlement of wealthy farmers.
20:16These are the burial mounds of Borum Eshoy,
20:19and they were built between 1,400 and 1,300 years BC.
20:28At that time, there were more than 40 mounds in this area alone,
20:34and 45,000 dotted right across Denmark.
20:40One of the many extraordinary things about these mounds is the effort,
20:45the colossal effort it takes to build them.
20:48And it's estimated that when this was first completed,
20:50it was eight times as big.
20:59To build one of these,
21:00you need 150 people working flat out for three or four months.
21:06So whoever commissioned it had to have resources
21:09to organise those people, to feed those people,
21:12and to give them the tools for the job.
21:14But all of this is and was rich farming land.
21:18It provides surplus grain and surplus animals.
21:22So the families who were buried in mounds like these
21:25weren't just trying to survive off the land.
21:28They had control over it.
21:33These mounds suggest that the people here enjoyed a relatively good life,
21:37especially compared to the tougher conditions of the north.
21:42But wherever you lived, north or south,
21:45surviving a Scandinavian winter wasn't easy.
21:57Experimental archaeologists working here
22:00have created an exact replica of the houses
22:03these Bronze Age farmers would have lived in.
22:08And since I've come here in February,
22:10it's just the right time to get a taste for the winter food
22:13their lives depended on.
22:18My guide is food expert Bea Scarrop.
22:26You know, it's all very well for us in the 21st century,
22:28but what kind of challenges faced Bronze Age farmers
22:32as the long, dark nights of winter set in?
22:36The most important thing was to get enough provisions
22:40to get you through the winter.
22:42If you were completely starved in the spring,
22:47you couldn't, you know, start working with the land.
22:49And that was very important.
22:51And is there anything interesting to drink in the Bronze Age?
22:53Yes, definitely.
22:55And I've made some for you.
22:56I was hoping you'd say that.
22:57Yeah.
23:02The residue of this drink was found in a bark bucket
23:06in a burial mine.
23:07OK.
23:08So it's malted wheat, honey,
23:11a bark myrtle to give a bit of bitterness,
23:14and cranberries.
23:17Slange water.
23:18Skull.
23:25That's fantastic.
23:26That really is.
23:27Mmm.
23:28It just tastes like fruit juice.
23:30Yes.
23:31But that's a fermented...
23:32It is, yes.
23:33..drink, and so that would last.
23:35It would.
23:36Yeah, that would see you through a winter's night, wouldn't it?
23:38Yes.
23:40Fermented drinks may have kept the cold at bay,
23:43but more of a problem was keeping food through the winter,
23:48especially meat.
23:50I brought some meat, marinated in whey.
23:54What sort of meat is that?
23:55It's pork.
23:56Right.
23:57And that is edible now, just having been soaked or sat in quay.
24:05Now, you're not just having me on, are you?
24:06No, I'm not.
24:07OK.
24:13It's got all the texture, but it only tastes very faintly of meat.
24:16Mm-hm.
24:17But, you know...
24:20But then I do like raw meat.
24:22I've always been drawn that way.
24:27Preparing for winter.
24:29Surviving it.
24:30Together.
24:32It's such a shared human experience for anyone in Northern Europe.
24:38I remember speaking to a woman on Shetland once
24:40and asking her how she coped with the winter,
24:43and she said she enjoyed it and looked forward to it
24:46and asked her why.
24:47And she said the satisfaction was preparing for it
24:50and feeling proof against the winter.
24:54And so the people here in the Bronze Age,
24:56they would have been making plans for the winter,
25:00laying down supplies.
25:01And as well as making sure they had the basics of life,
25:06they were finding time to prepare, you know,
25:09a few barrels of fermented drinks so that, as well as surviving,
25:12they could also take the edge off and enjoy themselves as well.
25:16So they'd been here with their extended families,
25:19with the animals for extra warmth.
25:22And if they had got their plans right and they pulled together,
25:25then they would survive.
25:27And having survived a winter like that,
25:29then I'm sure it would make the spring and the summer that followed
25:33that bit sweeter.
25:36Having eaten like a Viking ancestor,
25:39I'm going to spend the night like one
25:41in the moonlit shadow of those ancient mounds.
25:48Now, you can read all the books you want,
25:51but the only way to even get close to having a Bronze Age experience
26:01is to do it.
26:04And hopefully these sheepskins will make all the difference.
26:14I don't suppose there were many occasions
26:16when a Bronze Age person had a knight to him or herself
26:20inside a house like this.
26:21They would have been with their family almost all of the time.
26:28In Britain, Bronze Age people lived in round houses.
26:34But over here, the rectangular timber houses
26:38of Borum Eshoi were the direct ancestors of the Viking longhouses
26:43that would appear 2,000 years later.
26:56Well, there we go.
26:59I have to report, first of all, that despite all my best intentions to report throughout the night,
27:07I fell asleep.
27:11All I can really say is that it was warm enough and here I am.
27:19I've survived by Bronze Age winter's night.
27:24It was quite good, really.
27:27It was quite good, really.
27:35Incredibly, it's even possible to get a glimpse of the very inhabitants of Borum Eshoi themselves.
27:46In Copenhagen, an entire 3,000-year-old family from the settlement
27:52has been carefully preserved.
28:08This is the mum.
28:10What's most moving of all to me is the preservation of the clothing that she was put into after she
28:17died.
28:19She's wearing a short-sleeved wool and blouse.
28:22The lower half of her body is covered by this perfectly preserved folded blanket or skirt also of wool.
28:29And you can't resist the possibility that if you could somehow bring someone back
28:36who was there that day, they could look at this and recognise her and know who she was.
28:48And this splendid individual is the sun.
28:56The fact that his hair has been preserved, this flamboyant hairstyle,
29:02just adds to his allure.
29:05And you get this sense, looking at how he's styled himself,
29:11that there is just a trace of his personality in there as well.
29:21But it's the husband and father whose remains are the most telling of all.
29:29Everything about this guy says big man.
29:34The size of him, his musculature, the mass of his bones.
29:39All of his life he had access to a good diet.
29:42That in itself suggests wealth.
29:45His fingernails were neatly manicured so that he was the kind of man who had the time to take care
29:51of his appearance.
29:52He lived to be around 60 years old, which is a good age really by any standards.
29:59In life and in death, he was the centre of the family.
30:08It's clear that in Denmark and the south, the Bronze Age ancestors of the Vikings lived a good life.
30:17But the further north you lived, the progressively tougher things must have become for anyone trying to farm the land.
30:30For the Vikings themselves, 2,000 years later, the varied geography of their lands would shape very different destinies.
30:42Scandinavia was always a land divided.
30:45In the south, there was plentiful farmland and relative affluence.
30:50But the north was always a different, a tougher prospect.
30:55There was land available, but it was limited.
30:58A lot of it around the sides of and at the necks of the fjords.
31:02So perhaps it's no surprise that of all the Vikings, it was the Norwegians who ventured furthest in search of,
31:10quite literally, pastures new,
31:13where a man wasn't just wedged in between the mountains and the sea.
31:21But of course, we know that the Vikings weren't just expert sailors and skilled shipbuilders.
31:30They were also warriors.
31:34Even by the standards of the Dark Ages, the Vikings were especially adept when it came to the messy business
31:40of killing.
31:42And again, it was something deeply rooted in their Scandinavian past.
31:53To discover the origins of the Vikings' natural talent for bloody combat.
31:59And moving on from the peaceful farmers of Bronze Age Jutland to later and much more violent times.
32:09The Iron Age.
32:23This is the Hurt Spring boat.
32:25And it's one of the most famous seagoing vessels that you will ever lay eyes on.
32:32I've seen lots of photographs of this over the years, but they can't do it justice.
32:37It's a bit like if you've only ever seen a Hollywood star in movies and magazines,
32:41and then one day you find yourself standing next to them.
32:44And all at once you have to deal with their physical presence as well.
32:48So it's like that in here for me.
33:02The Hurt Spring boat dates to around 350 BC.
33:07That's around 1000 years after our Bronze Age family.
33:14But still 1000 years before the first Viking raids.
33:22About a third of it was recovered, enough to allow its shape to be recreated as a metal frame.
33:29Cradling its precious timbers and revealing a form that was perfect for war.
33:37One of the most important things to notice about the Hurt Spring boat is that it's beautifully symmetrical.
33:43It has an up-thrusting prow at this end and exactly the same at the other.
33:51There's room for about two dozen men, each using paddles like these.
33:57These are made from maple wood.
33:59And they could fairly get it skipping along through the water.
34:04Now, because it's got the prow at each end, it means as soon as you beach it, you're already in
34:11position to go back out into the water as soon as you want.
34:14Why is that important?
34:15Because the Hurt Spring boat is designed for a quick getaway.
34:27We know that this very boat experienced bloody battle.
34:32When it was discovered, it was packed with shields, swords and spears.
34:40All the weapons of a small army.
34:44Men like these were well practiced in war and seaborne raiding, a thousand years before the first true Viking raid.
34:51And so the Vikings didn't just spring out of nowhere, fully formed.
34:56Instead, they were the product, the evolution of a dynamic and often violent history.
35:03All across Scandinavia, there were tribes with their own identities and territories and allegiances.
35:09And they learned to fight, first of all, by fighting each other.
35:14Warriors like those who paddled the Hurt Spring boat were the forefathers of the true Vikings.
35:19They were the seeds from which the Vikings grew.
35:26The Iron Age was a violent time right across Europe.
35:33And Scandinavia was no exception, as local tribes 2,000 years ago tussled for power.
35:42But as they did so, another force was on the move.
35:47The Romans.
35:51The southern edge of Denmark is as close as the Scandinavian world ever came to the might of Rome.
36:00And the presence of the Roman Empire would play its own part in how the Vikings came to be.
36:07Rome had seemed unstoppable.
36:09But in 9 AD, an event occurred that was to send shockwaves throughout Europe.
36:14And it even had implications for the far north and Scandinavia.
36:19About 250 miles to the south of modern day Denmark, in the dense woodland of northern Germany,
36:26Rome's northern army was brought to an abrupt halt by an alliance of local Germanic tribes.
36:33Three legions of Roman soldiers, around 32,000 men, were lured deep into the Tutenberg forest.
36:41And there, annihilated.
36:46It marked the end of Roman expansion into northern Europe.
36:50Scandinavia was, and would always remain, outside the empire.
37:02The halting of Rome brought another level of division between the north and the south.
37:09Now, as well as their different geographies, you could add a divergent economic landscape as well.
37:17This land, Denmark, and the rest of Scandinavia, was never ruled by Rome.
37:22But the Roman Empire had an insatiable appetite for exotic goods from the north.
37:28Animal furs, oils, and this stuff, amber.
37:33It's relatively common in Denmark and Norway, but it's extremely rare in the Mediterranean.
37:38And the Romans loved it for making jewellery.
37:41All of this meant trade, and trade meant new wealth for a few people.
37:46And a desire for luxury goods from the empire.
37:49The sort of stuff that only Rome could provide.
37:53And that only the rich and powerful could afford.
38:08Many Roman discoveries in Scandinavia are of simple pottery, or occasionally coins.
38:19But some finds have been spectacular.
38:26This is the Hobie burial hoard.
38:29It was found in the grave of a chieftain.
38:32A man aged somewhere between 40 and 60 years old.
38:37We don't know how he died, but this collection that went into the ground with him tells us a lot
38:45about what he had achieved in life.
38:48It's the kind of banqueting set that you would normally expect a high-ranking Roman official to have.
38:56It's a wonder to behold.
38:58It's so rich and elegant.
39:02But the piece de resistance are two solid silver cups, each weighing about a kilogram.
39:09Now the originals are a way being conserved and analysed, but what I have here, what I'm allowed to handle,
39:16are two replicas.
39:19What they show are various scenes from Homer's Iliad.
39:25This lavish collection was handed over to a man who could appreciate Roman finery,
39:31who was schooled enough in Roman ways to understand classical stories from the classical world.
39:42It's telling that nothing of this magnificence has ever been found in the far north.
39:57Scandinavia always remained outwith the Roman Empire,
40:01and it's important to remember that when thinking about how the countries here developed.
40:06We take it for granted, in the English part of Britain at least, that Rome brought more than the legions.
40:14It brought towns and roads, public entertainments.
40:19Towards the end of the period, it brought Christianity as well.
40:22But more than that, Rome brought literacy and the rule of law.
40:27You can quite justifiably argue that the Romans brought the time of our prehistory to an end.
40:33But none of that happened here.
40:35There were no towns, there was no literacy, there were no new religions.
40:41Right through the Roman period and the Viking Age itself, an extra thousand years of being left alone.
40:47And that made all the difference.
40:50Because here was a culture that was left to do what it wanted.
40:55People who were left to do what they wanted to do, their own way of being.
40:59They had their own leaders, their own gods.
41:01And so, in that light, perhaps it comes as no surprise that when those first Viking raiders attacked a remote
41:08Northumbrian monastery,
41:10they felt they had nothing to fear from a Christian god.
41:13Because he was obviously no match for Odin and Thor.
41:24Shipbuilding skills and warrior prowess gave the Vikings the means to terrorise the Christian world.
41:35But it was the Norse gods that defined their Viking spirit.
41:42Sagas written in the 13th century give us a unique insight into beliefs that can be traced right back to
41:50the Vikings prehistoric ancestors.
41:54They believe in a pantheon of gods, but the main god was Thor.
42:04Which means Thor is the strongest of all the gods.
42:07Because I remember, as a little boy, from the comics I was reading, knowing about Thor, is it true?
42:14He had the hammer, he had the belt of power.
42:17Is all that in the old versions?
42:19Yes, yes.
42:20Thor of three cost gripi.
42:23Eitner hammer in Mjölnir.
42:26Which means Thor has three special objects.
42:29One is the hammer, Mjölnir.
42:31I remember mighty Mjölnir.
42:33Does Mjölnir mean anything?
42:34As a name, does it have a sense of something powerful in the name?
42:38Yes, it means, it designates the crushing power that he has.
42:43It says that the giants are well familiar with the hammer, because Thor is always crushing, crushing their skulls with
42:49it.
42:50There's the girdle of might, obviously.
42:52That's not quite so catchy, is it?
42:54Yes.
42:55And then, when he puts on this girdle, his strength doubles.
43:05And he gets a much neater waist.
43:08Probably as well.
43:10Is Thor top of the tree, top god?
43:15Well, he's among the top gods, but probably the highest one is Odin.
43:20And as it says here, he is the highest and most glorious of the gods that we know of.
43:27And so he's the one who is worshipped by chieftains and kings.
43:36Unlike Christianity, Viking belief wasn't so much about an immortal soul, but an immortal reputation.
43:45They didn't really care about the afterlife.
43:49They wanted glory and honour in this life.
43:53And then it says in Havamar, the sayings of Odin,
44:02Your cattle will die, your friends will die, you'll die.
44:06And Odin, they are always good and good.
44:10Your reputation will never die if you get a good one.
44:14That's why they weren't afraid of dying in battle with courage and honour.
44:19The worst thing that could happen to a Viking was to be said, erm, a coward.
44:30The end of the Roman Empire, early in the 5th century,
44:33saw Scandinavia standing on the brink of the Viking Age.
44:40A final piece of the jigsaw was the emergence of bigger regional leaders.
44:49Heading back to Sweden, 40 miles north of Stockholm,
44:53there's evidence of a consolidation of power across ever greater areas of land.
45:06Stretching away ahead of me are the burial mounds of Gamla Uppsala.
45:12They were built sometime between around 550 AD and 700 AD.
45:19That's a time after the Romans, but before the coming of the Vikings.
45:28These mounds seemed truly vast, even compared to those of Bronze Age Denmark 2,000 years earlier.
45:36And, crucially, these were only built for a very select few.
45:43We'll never know exactly who was buried here.
45:46The pyres, the funeral bonfires that raged here,
45:50and that these mounds were built on top of, burned so intensely
45:53that nothing survived to be buried except some charred human bone
45:57and some melted grave goods.
45:59But whoever they were, the people who could command this kind of burial
46:03were certainly amongst the wealthiest and the most powerful in all of Scandinavia.
46:07And they wielded power all across the land.
46:25The mounds were built one after the other, during a period lasting 100 years, maybe more.
46:32So it's tempting to think about a dynasty, a royal lineage.
46:36One family retaining control generation after generation.
46:40So the people buried in these mounds might be the very first kings and queens.
46:51In the shadow of these mounds, evidence has even been found of an ancient royal palace.
47:03Archaeologist John Younquist has found some remarkable remains that reveal just how lavish a palace it once was.
47:17Here we've got two of the spirals that we find on the doors of the hall.
47:25Oh, look at that.
47:28Oh, fantastic.
47:30I mean, there would have been a longer bit as well, extending.
47:33Yeah, but we would have had a tang going like this.
47:37Ah, okay.
47:38Unfortunately, it's broken on this one.
47:40Take it away.
47:41Take it from me.
47:43And what else?
47:47Oh, so that would have been, that would have been all as one?
47:51Yeah, absolutely.
47:52It's amazing.
47:53You get that sense that it's not just a functional building, it's been decorated to be stunning.
48:01It's when you see these beautifully crafted, beautifully wrought finishing touches that you realise it wasn't just a big hall.
48:08It was the best hall, finished to the highest standards.
48:13Absolutely.
48:13It is a fantastic house.
48:15I've never seen anything similar.
48:18The fine ironwork adorned huge timber doors to an interior that would have both impressed and intimidated visitors.
48:28The inside would be huge.
48:31It's like a living room, 200 square metres big.
48:34And the walls have been whitewashed.
48:37So it's not like a smoky, really dark age.
48:41It's really a very nice palace with white, shiny, nice walls.
48:46I wonder how they maintained it, because there would have been big fires inside as well.
48:50Yeah.
48:50So they'd have to be constantly whitewashing the inside.
48:54Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
48:54Yeah, absolutely.
48:57This was the royal's person's, the princess's reception room, sort of reception area.
49:05And it's the lofty position that it has in the landscape, you know, down to those fields, is way below
49:12us.
49:13You know, so the working people are literally beneath us.
49:16Yeah.
49:17And we are above everybody else.
49:19Just over there, of course, they've got the presence of their ancestors.
49:24Yeah.
49:25Buried in these mounds, they've got people.
49:27Yeah.
49:27So that they can say, this is ours, and I can prove that because my father was here and his
49:33father was here.
49:34Yeah.
49:39Gamla Uppsala is one of the most important pre-Viking sites in all of Scandinavia.
49:47It reveals a new centralisation of power in the east.
49:51The first people who are not just chiefs, but regional kings and queens.
49:58But it's important for another reason too, because this place was also a centre of a very violent religion.
50:06A reminder that this world was very different to the emerging Christian kingdoms beyond the borders of the Viking world.
50:16There are disturbing reports of ritual sacrifice, of nine males, of every living creature, dogs, horses, even men, being taken
50:29to a nearby grove.
50:30And their dead bodies hung up on the branches where they were left to rot together.
50:41Archaeologists working hereabouts are tempted to think that this might be the location where it all went on.
50:48Now, all over the trees here, there are little runes, little offerings of little bits of jewellery and ribbons.
50:56Here, someone's even made and brought in a plaster cast of Thor's hammer.
51:02So, even after all this time, this place matters on some level to all sorts of people.
51:14Evidence of exactly what went on here has been lost.
51:19But one extremely rare pagan find has been unearthed nearby.
51:29The object is a clue as to why the people of Scandinavia were so different from those living in the
51:37rest of Europe.
51:39It's a bronze pendant.
51:41Once upon a time, it would have been worn around the neck of a woman who lived sometime towards the
51:47end of the 7th century.
51:50It's quite obviously a horse.
51:52But this is no ordinary horse.
51:55This is the mount of Odin himself.
51:58One of the most important and powerful of the old pagan gods.
52:03This is Old Norse.
52:05The woman who wore this didn't believe in one god.
52:08She believed in many.
52:20After a journey that's taken me all over Scandinavia, I'm coming back to Oslo.
52:30And to the Osseberg ship that also played its part in Viking belief.
52:39Because this vessel wasn't only to be used to ferry the living, but also the dead.
52:48Viking funerals, at least for the high and mighty, were massive, elaborate affairs with rituals lasting maybe weeks at a
52:57time.
52:59Of course, the dead had to be placed aboard because it was them who were making the journey.
53:04And then around them would be heaped all of the things that they might need and want in the next
53:09life.
53:10So, sumptuous clothes, jewelry for display, food and drink.
53:15And also, and importantly, there was usually an element of sacrifice.
53:21And so, dogs, maybe hunting dogs and also lap dogs and pets would be killed and put beside their owners.
53:30In this instance, as many as 15 horses were slaughtered and laid out for use in the next world.
53:38And you have to imagine the impact that that would have had on the people who were watching.
53:45For one thing, it was a display of wealth beyond their reach.
53:49This only happened to the few.
53:52And they would see all the valuables going in, then the animals being killed and put alongside.
53:59It would have stayed with those spectators for a lifetime.
54:03And they, in turn, would have passed stories about what they had seen down through the generations.
54:09So, whoever went into the next life aboard this ship would never be forgotten.
54:24When I look out into the Atlantic from here, I feel a great deal of respect, if not downright admiration,
54:31for the people who embarked on their journeys.
54:34I don't think they were driven by greed, far less bloodlust.
54:39Instead, I think the motivations were ambition and opportunity.
54:43They were living at a time when the populations of Europe were expanding.
54:47But here in Norway, beautiful though it is, space is finite.
54:52There's a limit to how much good land there is available to expand into.
54:56So, who could blame some of them when they knew that out there was plenty of land, as well as
55:02gold and silver, that might be acquired?
55:13I've seen how, over thousands of years, a strange and unique Scandinavian culture gave rise to the Viking Age.
55:24But when the magnificent Osseburgh ship burial was unearthed, it contained an unexpected twist in the tale.
55:38As an archaeologist, I tend to spend a lot of my time talking about powerful men.
55:44But when the Osseburgh ship was excavated, the big surprise was that it contained two women.
55:53And these are the remains of one of them.
55:56In fact, the older of the two.
56:03We can tell that this venerable lady was perhaps as much as 80 years old when she died.
56:11And it was cancer of some sort that finally claimed her.
56:16But beyond those two certainties, we know very little about this woman or about the other woman that she was
56:26buried alongside.
56:29The remains of a high-status woman is another reminder that the Vikings weren't all about warrior men.
56:37And analysis of the second woman makes things even more complicated.
56:43While there's every reason to believe that the older woman was Scandinavian born and bred,
56:49analysis of DNA taken from the younger woman's skeleton at least allows for the possibility that she was from as
56:56far away as the Middle East.
56:58So that by as early as the end of the 8th century, the Vikings were doing much more than just
57:04cause trouble for their neighbours, like the people in the British Isles.
57:07They had contacts into the East, into Eastern Europe.
57:17I started out on the Atlantic coast wanting to discover how the Vikings came to be.
57:25But even the possibility that the younger Osseberg woman came from so far away is the beginning of a whole
57:32new story.
57:37After thousands of years, the age of Vikings had begun.
57:41No borders or boundaries could contain them.
57:44And the oceans and rivers gave them unlimited access throughout the known world and beyond.
57:53Next time, the Vikings go East.
57:58Building a vast trade network of luxuries.
58:03Silk was so valuable, it made the perilous river journeys to get here more than worthwhile.
58:10And slaves.
58:13These are slave callers.
58:15You can imagine the humiliation of having something like this placed around your neck.
58:21And beginning a process of colonisation that was the beginning of a Viking Empire.
58:28By marrying the locals, their blood mixed with our blood.
58:32And they're still here with us today.
58:51IN Divine
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