Vikings in America - edited by D. L. Ashliman University of Pittsburgh

Fuente:

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/vinland.html

Información:

Vikings in America edited by D. L. Ashliman University of Pittsburgh

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According to Icelandic sagas written in the 12th and 13th centuries (but based on much earlier oral tradition), in about 985 Bjarni Herjolfsson, a Norse settler in Greenland, was blown off course and sighted a continent west of Greenland, but he did not go ashore. About 15 years later Leif Eriksson (son of Erik the Red) explored the new continent. For the next ten years a number of voyages were made from Greenland to the new land, which the Norsemen called "Vinland" because of the profusion of grapes that grew there.

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Return to

• Germanic Myths, Legends, and Sagas.

• Index of folklore and mythology electronic texts.

• The Viking Ship Home Page.

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The Way Station at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland

The following photographs are all courtesy of the Canadian National Parks Service.

General View of the Site

Artifacts Discovered at L'Anse aux Meadows

• A copper alloy ring headed pin of Norse design. Greatly magnified. Pins such as these were used to close the outer garments of both men and women.

• A soapstone spindle whorl of Norse design. These common household items, typically carved from soapstone, served as small flywheels on the spindles used for spinning yarn and thread.

• A simple stone lamp. The carved indentation would hold animal fat and a wick.

• Carved wooden pieces of unknown use. These pieces were likely some sort of ship fittings. There is evidence that a substantial amount of woodworking and carpentry was conducted at L'Anse aux Meadows during the Viking era.

• A ship repair piece made from wood. Identical repair patches have been found in excavations of Norse Dublin.

Excavations and Reconstructed Buildings

• Aerial view of three reconstructed buildings, surrounded by a fence. In the tradition of Iceland, buildings were constructed of sod over a wooden frame.

• Another view of the above scene, showing the settlement as it would have appeared during the Viking era.

• A close-up view of the fence, showing its woven construction (a technique still used in Scandinavia), with sod buildings in the background.

• Another view of the above scene.

• Excavation of the smithy. The existence of a smithy or furnace pit at L'Anse aux Meadows suggests that the location's most important function was that of a way station where Viking travelers could repair their ships and restock their supplies.

• Reconstructed smithy, showing the facility as it would have appeared during the Viking era.

• Interior of a reconstructed longhouse of Icelandic design.

• Another view, showing a central fireplace, of the above longhouse interior. Norse longhouses were heated by central, open fires. The smoke escaped through one or more vents in the roof.

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Poetry about Vikings in America

• "The Skeleton in Armor" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In this well known ballad, Longfellow creates a tale of ancient love and adventure around two New England artifacts of his day: a skeleton clad in corroded armor and the ruin of the Round Tower at Newport, then thought to have been built by the Vikings, a view not shared by twentieth-century scholars.

• "The Norsemen" by John Greenleaf Whittier. A ballad prompted by the discovery, in the early nineteenth century, of the fragment of a statue held to be a relic from the Norsemen in New England.

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The Vinland Map

• Vinlanda: The Vinland Map on the Web. Tim Spalding's excellent study and collection of sites dealing with a document purporting to be a 15th-century map depicting North America. Despite intensive scrutiny, scholars are not united as to whether this map is a genuine pre-Columbian document, or a very clever forgery.

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North American Runestones

Examine the following sites, then decide for yourself: Are the North American runestones authentic artifacts from Viking explorers, or are they elaborate frauds by Scandinavian-Americans?

• The Kennsington [Minnesota] Runestone.

• The Mystery of the Heavener [Oklahoma] Runestone.

• Heavener Runestone State Park in Heavener Oklahoma.

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Additional Links

• L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site. Information provided by Parks Canada.

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Revised August 27, 2002.