1,100-year-old 'ceremonial' Viking shields were actually used in battle, study suggests

Live Science ^ | published 7 days ago | Tom Metcalfe

[SunkenCiv]

The Viking shields found on the Gokstad ship in 1880 were not strictly ceremonial and may have been used in hand-to-hand combat, according to a new analysis.

Dozens of Viking round shields from a famous ship burial unearthed in Norway were not strictly ceremonial as long thought; instead they may have protected warriors in battle, a new study finds.

A reanalysis of the wooden shields, which were unearthed in the Gokstad ship in southern Norway in 1880, suggests they may have once been covered with rawhide (untanned cattle skin) and used in hand-to-hand combat, according to a new study published on March 24 in the journal Arms and Armour...

A total of 64 shields — possibly one for each of the crew on board, Warming said — were tied along the top edge of the hull of the ship, just above its oar-holes.

The vessel was once used at sea, probably for warfare, trade and transportation. But about 900, it was dragged onto land and used for the burial of a Viking king.

Warming's reanalysis shows the shields consisted of tapered wooden boards or planks around an iron hemisphere known as a boss on one side and a wooden handle on the other, although only one handle has survived. This would have made the shields light and easy to maneuver.

The planks of each shield were painted either yellow or black, giving the overlapping shields the appearance of yellow and black crescent moons...

Viking ships had square sails; but they were also fitted with oars to use in ill-winds or when navigating rivers. These boats also had shallow and light clinker-built hulls, so seafaring Vikings could get close to land and pull their boats ashore when needed.

[Chode]

heh heh heh heh right?

[T. Rustin Noone]

Yes.

The headline does more than suggest that warriors had a number of shields and the best or “ceremonial” shields were miraculously sometimes used in battle. Looking at the details of the shields and their construction, a warrior would be lucky to have more than one shield and in battle, that defensive artifact would be beaten to splinters.

[T. Rustin Noone]

I think that they were too nomadic for sustained growth. the source of their wealth was the plunder of their immediate and sometimes far-flung neighbors. But while their light burned brightly for only a few hundred years, The Danes were able to take a huge swath of Europe, from Greenland and Iceland to the Baltics states and Russia. The results of their genetic experiments are still visible in the native populations of every nation and tribe they overran.