Archaeologists find huge Viking textile production site in Denmark
The sprawling site includes flax-processing areas, more than 80 pit houses and signs of centralized control, archaeologists said.
- Archaeologists from the Moesgaard Museum discovered a massive Viking Age textile production site in Denmark dating back more than 1,000 years, featuring more than 80 pit houses and an area for processing flax.
- Archaeologist Liv Stidsing Reher-Langberg led the 10-month dig after a trial excavation 1 1/2 years ago piqued interest, with the settlement's clear focus on textile production distinguishing it from other sites of this period.
- Moesgaard Museum historian Kasper Andersen said the discovery shows Vikings were not just "barbaric hordes," while experts found separate work areas and a residential home suggesting a powerful individual oversaw production.
- Textiles from the site entered a market much bigger than the local area, Andersen said, while Aarhus—then known as Aros—functioned as a Viking Age center for royalty and international trade.
- Reher-Langberg hopes future carbon dating might answer lingering questions about the specific textile production, while archaeologists last year discovered another Viking site in Lisbjerg, just 4 kilometers away, likely home to nobility.
46 Articles
46 Articles
1,000-year-old massive textile factory unearthed in Denmark—and it belonged to the Vikings
Archaeologists have discovered a huge Viking Age textile production site in Denmark that dates back more than 1,000 years and underlines the sophistication of Viking society. Experts from the Moesgaard Museum said this week that the sprawling 100,000-square-meter (more than 1 million-square-foot) site features an area for processing flax as well as more than 80 pit houses — semi-buried huts that were used as workshops and dwellings in Viking tim…
Were Vikings Really ‘Uncivilized’ Barbarians? Large Textile-Production Site Discovered in Denmark Challenges That Stereotype
The massive settlement, which spans more than a million square feet, likely dates to the late Iron Age or early Viking Age between 600 and 950 C.E.
Vast Viking factory unearthed in Denmark challenges myths of barbaric ancient society
Archaeologists say they have discovered a huge Viking Age textile production site in Denmark that dates back more than 1,000 years and underlines the sophistication of Viking society
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