Posted on 08/02/2014 9:51:03 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
A massive research project, 15 years in the making, has revealed that beneath Dublin’s modern streets lies a trove of buried Viking warriors and artifacts.
Archaeologists say the number of Viking warrior burials in Dublin is astounding. A project cataloguing these burials was began in 1999. Now nearing its conclusion, the project will result in the publication of an 800-page tome titled ‘Viking Graves and Grave Goods in Ireland.’
...the National Museum of Ireland... houses a Viking exhibition, which includes a ninth century Viking skeleton with sword and spearhead, found in the War Memorial Park, Islandbridge in 1934.
Between the late 18th century and 1934, at least 59 graves were discovered in the Kilmainham-Islandbridge area. Some are still turning up.
The vast quantities of artifacts, dating from between AD 841 and AD 902, found indicate the importance and wealth of Dublin at the time.
Says Harrison: “Not every Viking was buried with artefacts. These are aristocratic burials.”
“There is something phenomenal happening in Dublin,” archaeologist Linzi Simpson told the Irish Times. “The annals record these vast numbers of warriors coming to Dublin, and recent work is now matching that with the archaeology. We used to think the annals were prone to exaggeration, and maybe the Vikings weren’t so bad. But now there is a swing towards, ‘Jeepers, they were fairly catastrophic.’”
The bodies were buried on both sides of the Liffey and along the Poddle. In 2003, Simpson excavated four Viking warriors in South Great George’s Street, with three believed to have been buried from about AD 670-AD 882 and the other sometime later.
Vikings were first spotted off the coast of Ireland in AD 792.
(Excerpt) Read more at irishcentral.com ...
Dang, the photo is Getty.
Things that make you go hmmm?
Maybe they wiped up after themselves.
Maybe they carried off the women and children they’d fathered.
Maybe their fairly small numbers resulted in the usual power of two reduction erasing most traces.
Maybe they carried off the women,only the good looking ones.
This makes me remember a tour I took of Ireland in 2001. Everytime a car came at us, threatening to force our large bus off one of the narrow Irish roads, our tour guide would mutter, “D***d Vikings!?
They couldn’t handle the Guinness either.
Perhaps Dublin just wants to cash in like York (old York that is, not New York...:^)
http://jorvik-viking-centre.co.uk/
I was on a visit to York (late 70’s) when they first discovered artifacts while digging for a new office building foundation.
York has certainly turned it into a money maker. Dublin could do well to copy.
Perhaps their were rules, something akin to those against miscegenation, that were more scrupulously obeyed than we moderns believe.
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Could be very interesting. I wonder how much disruption of the city’s usual business will occur, though.
On a side note: This phrase jumped out at me— “was began”. The Irish were once well-educated. ~sigh~
Maybe they should be looking for Irish DNA in Norway, or in the Faroe Islands or Iceland then.
Perhaps he was just remembering their four failed Super Bowl attempts, rotten coaching, and poor draft choices.
But what explains the dearth of viking clerk-typist burials?
"Ancient DNA analysis of the Icelandic settlers
Analysis of contemporary DNA shows that the mitrocondrial DNA (mtDNA) is primarily of Scottish/Irish decent while Y chromosomes are primarily Scandinavian. You can probably draw your own conclusions from that."
They scratched their runes into rock using whatever weapon was handy. :’)
My impression is the Vikings made much less of an impact on Ireland than Britain. Less land occupied for a much shorter time. I suppose Britain was much more lucrative looting.
It was a shorter boat trip to Yorkshire - their capital when they ruled N. England...:^)
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