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A section of Dublin's 900-year-old Viking city wall has been put on public view for the first time at the city council's civic offices on the Southside. When the Viking settlement site -- built in the 10th century AD near Christchurch Cathedral -- was first excavated over 30 years ago it caused huge controversy. The city wall at the time was earmarked for demolition and storage at another site but thousands of people demanded that the historically important area be preserved from a development that was designed to house the Dublin City civic offices. Measuring just under 20 metres in...

One of two people who transported a spray-painted goat that had Brett Favre's number shaved into its sides admitted Monday she tied the animal up and locked it in the trunk of her car, according to the Winona Daily News. Janelle Dorothy Riopel, 21, of St. Paul pleaded guilty to misdemeanor cruelty to animals in transportation. She was placed on unsupervised probation for a year and ordered by Judge Mary Leahy to pay a $200 fine.

An impressive Viking hoard of jewellery has made a father and son metal-detector team £1m, after being bought by two British museums. The find, which is the 'largest and most important' since 1840, was found in a field in Harrogate, North Yorkshire in January 2007. It had been buried there for more than 1,000 years. Valued at £1,082,000, the hoard was purchased by the British Museum and the York Museum Trust after two years of fundraising. The highlight of the collection is an intricately carved silver cup, estimated to be worth more than £200,000. It contains 617coins and various silver...

A man dressed as a Viking reportedly exposed his warhammer to two women at the Marriott hotel bar Saturday night. According to police reports, the two women were drinking at the bar at about 9:30 p.m. when they saw a 63-year-old Mashpee man dressed as a Viking sitting next to them. The man “lifted his skirt up exposing his genitals,” according to the report.

How to tell if you've been FReeping too longIf some, many or all of the following apply to you, you probably have been FReeping too long. You remember when you had to know basic HTML in order to form a decent post.  You remember when the entire thread had to be 86’d in order to remove a single post.  You remember when if someone forgot to close their italics, bold tags, the entire thread after that point was in bold or italics.  You remember when if a disruptor made a mess of things during the wee hours of the night,...

From the moment that they ransacked a remote priory at Lindisfarne in 793, the Vikings have had a bad press. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s entry for the year says that the raiders made “lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter”, fixing the popular image of the Vikings for the next 1,200 years. New evidence suggests that many of the Norse invaders were in fact model immigrants. Historians will try to redress the balance today at a conference at the University of Cambridge and show that the Vikings who settled in Britain and Ireland were technologically...

Editor’s note: This is the second of two parts. There are many stories of “Qalunaat,” white-skinned strangers who were encountered in Inuit occupied lands in times of old. Much of the traditional life had changed by the 1840s when Hinrich Johannes Rink went to Greenland to study geology and later became the governor of Greenland. Johannes was soon drawn to a new interest in the Inuit language and folklore, which he viewed as national treasures. He published old stories collected in 1866 “Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo” in which he included some early contact stories with the Qalunaat. In...

There are many stories of ‘Qavlunaat,’ white-skinned strangers who were encountered in Inuit-occupied lands in times of old. Stories of contact between these foreign people and Inuit were passed down the generations and used mostly to scare children to behave “or the Qavlunaat will get them.” This sparked my curiosity to explore both sides of the encounters from written records and Inuit oral legends to see if some of these events can be correlated. One must recall that these legends were passed down orally in the Inupiaq language. Inuit myths and legends of contact with other people were passed from...

THE remains of a Viking home have been discovered in York by archaeologists. York Archaeological Trust archaeologists have exposed what they believe to be a timber-lined cellar of a two-storey house, during excavations at the site of the new Hungate development, which is being built near Stonebow. The archaeologists say the home, which was uncovered about three metres below street level, would have been built in the mid to late tenth century. It appears that ships’ timbers used in the building’s construction – the first discovery of its kind in York. Hungate excavations project director Peter Connelly said: “To find...

An ancient solid silver ingot found in Stagsden is stealing the limelight at Bedford Museum. The Viking coin is the first of its kind discovered in the county and dates from AD 850-1000. It was found by treasure hunters in the north Bedfordshire village last year, but has only just been bought by the museum following lengthy examination and valuation at the British Museum in London. Jim Inglis, keeper of archaeology at Bedford Museum, said: "This is the only one to be found in Bedfordshire, and in terms of looking for Viking material in Bedford, which used to be a...

TREASURE dating back to the time of the Vikings has been found in a Bridlington field. The Viking finger ring has a silver content of 98% which, combined with its age, meets the criteria for it to be officially classed as treasure. The ring, found by Paul Rennoldson, has been sent to the British Museum in London where it will be valued. Alan Worth, chairman of the Bridlington Metal Detecting Society, said finding any items dating back to the Viking age was very rare. "The Vikings were around in about 700AD which is an incredibly long time ago," said Mr...

Every nation could be described as a manifestation of a unique trait of character and most countries furthermore nurture, give emphasize to and celebrate this national identity of theirs. Some examples of such key national characters (please DO comment if you feel inclined to); USA: Liberty Italy: Creativity France: Refinement India: Spirituality Germany: Self-discipline Finland: "Sisu" (a Finnish term meaning "To have guts") Britain: Elevatedness Denmark: "Hygge" (a Danish word meaning "Good-naturedness", of mind as well as of deed) Spain: Passion China: Cultivation Russia: Chaos - just joking, I would actually say "Heart" (in the sense of having a big...

Although “Viking” literally means “pirate,” recent research has indicated that the Vikings were also traders to the fishmongers of Europe. Stereotypically, these Norsemen are usually pictured wearing a horned helmet but in a new study published in the journal PLoS ONE this week, Jørgen Dissing and colleagues from the University of Copenhagen, investigated what went under the helmet; the scientists were able to extract authentic DNA from ancient Viking skeletons, avoiding many of the problems of contamination faced by past researchers. Analysis of DNA from the remains of ancient humans provides valuable insights into such important questions as the origin...

Newfoundland Viking site remarkableL'Anse aux Meadows likely marks the first European contact with New World -- 500 years before Columbus Jeff Lukovich , Special to The Sun More than 1,200 years ago, Vikings from Norway set out on a series of daring voyages that would eventually result in their being the first Europeans to explore the east coast of North America. In stages they established settlements in the Shetland Islands, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and finally Newfoundland and Labrador. Though we passed through an area around the capital of Nuuk, that would have been near the former Viking "Western Settlement,"...

Irish Viking trade centre unearthed Almost 6,000 artefacts and a Viking chieftain's grave have been discovered One of the Vikings' most important trading centres has been discovered in Ireland. The settlement at Woodstown in County Waterford is estimated to be about 1,200 years old. It was discovered during archaeological excavations for a road by-pass for Waterford city, which was founded by the Vikings. The Irish government said the settlement was one of the most important early Viking age trading centres discovered in the country. Its working group, which includes archaeologists from Ireland's museum and monuments service, said it was of...

Vikings acquitted in 100-year-old murder mystery By Alister Doyle Fri Apr 25, 10:06 AM ETReuters Photo: Archaeological conservationist Brynjar Sandvoll and his co-worker Ragnar Lochen (R) study the bones of a... OSLO (Reuters) - Tests of the bones of two Viking women found in a buried longboat have dispelled 100-year-old suspicions that one was a maid sacrificed to accompany her queen into the afterlife, experts said on Friday. The bones indicated that a broken collarbone on the younger woman had been healing for several weeks -- meaning the break was not part of a ritual execution as suspected since the...

Swedes find Viking-era Arab coinsThe Arab coins reveal where they were minted and the date Swedish archaeologists have discovered a rare hoard of Viking-age silver Arab coins near Stockholm's Arlanda airport. About 470 coins were found on 1 April at an early Iron Age burial site. They date from the 7th to 9th Century, when Viking traders travelled widely. There has been no similar find in that part of Sweden since the 1880s. Most of the coins were minted in Baghdad and Damascus, but some came from Persia and North Africa, said archaeologist Karin Beckman-Thoor. The team from the Swedish...

Viking treasure found on Silloth beach By Sarah NewsteadLast updated 11:28, Thursday, 27 March 2008 TREASURE has been unearthed on a Silloth beach by a man out with a metal detector. Rare find: The silver Viking handle found at SillothCarlisle Coroners’ Court heard that a silver Viking jug handle discovered at Beckfoot could be over 2,000 years old. The court heard the handle, dating back from between the first and fourth centuries by the British Museum, is made mainly from silver and is in the form of a stylised snake’s head. North and West Cumbria Coroner, John Taylor, ruled yesterday...

Viking women had sexy style Published: 11 Feb 08 17:54 CET Online: http://www.thelocal.se/9950/ Women who lived in the major Viking settlement called Birka in the 9th and 10th centuries dressed in a much more provocative manner than previously believed. When the area around Lake Mälaren was Christianized about a century later, women’s dress style became more modest, according to archaeologist Annika Larsson. Previously, it was thought that Viking ladies wore a long garment held up by braces, made of square pieces of wool whose front and back sides were contained with a belt. The characteristic decorative circular buckles, a common...

Unravelling the North West’s Viking past08 February 2008 The blood of the Vikings is still coursing through the veins of men living in the North West of England — according to a new study which has been just published. Focusing on the Wirral in Merseyside and West Lancashire the study of 100 men, whose surnames were in existence as far back as medieval times, has revealed that 50 per cent of their DNA is specifically linked to Scandinavian ancestry. The collaborative study, by The University of Nottingham, the University of Leicester and University College London, reveals that the population in...