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Raiders Or Traders? (Vikings)
Smithsonian Magazine ^ | July 2008 | Andrew Curry

Posted on 06/25/2008 5:33:36 PM PDT by blam

Raiders or Traders?

A replica Viking vessel plying the North Sea this month is part of an effort to learn more about what the Norsemen were really up to

By Andrew Curry
Photographs by Carsten Snejbjerg
Smithsonian magazine, July 2008

Werner Karrasch / The Viking Ship Museum, Denmark

From his bench toward the stern of the Sea Stallion From Glendalough, Erik Nielsen could see his crewmates' stricken faces peeping out of bright-red survival suits. A few feet behind him, the leather straps holding the ship's rudder to its side had snapped. The 98-foot vessel, a nearly $2.5 million replica of a thousand-year-old Viking ship, was rolling helplessly atop waves 15 feet high.

With the wind gusting past 50 miles an hour and the Irish Sea just inches from the gunwales, "I thought we'd be in the drink for sure," says Nielsen, 61, a retired geologist from Toronto.

It was August 6, 2007, and the Sea Stallion's crew of 63 had been underway for five weeks, sailing from Denmark to Dublin on a voyage that would culminate 35 years' research—"the best living-archaeology experiment ever conducted anywhere," Pat Wallace, director of the National Museum of Ireland, calls it.

As Nielsen and some crewmates struggled to keep the Sea Stallion upright, four others went to work at the stern. Kneeling on the ship's heaving, rain-slicked deck, they hauled the 11-foot rudder out of the water, traded the broken leather straps for jury-rigged replacements made of nylon and reattached the new assembly.

Reducing the sail to a minimum, the crew sailed on at nine knots. As the ship plowed from wave to wave, a full third of the Sea Stallion's hull was often out of the water. Ahead lay the Isle of Man, 15 hours away.

(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: ancientnavigation; godsgravesglyphs; norsemen; raiders; thevikings; traders; viking; vikings
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To: ThomasThomas
The old AFC West was Denver, Oakland, Chargers, Seattle. The new AFC West doesn't have the Seahawks who switched to the NFC West along with the Cardinals (from the NFC East)

As for the thread, I guess they began as raiders but once you own everything and have more to lose, traders makes sense.

21 posted on 06/25/2008 6:06:19 PM PDT by normy (Don't take it personally, just take it seriously.)
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To: normy
Great grandfather was full blood Norwegian.

No such thing as a 'full blood' Norwegian. Norwegian blood is at least 25% coffee.

22 posted on 06/25/2008 6:08:20 PM PDT by Grut
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To: Grut
Is that because 90% of them live in Ballard Washington now?
23 posted on 06/25/2008 6:11:12 PM PDT by normy (Don't take it personally, just take it seriously.)
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To: Grut
by the way, I wondered where my coffee fetish came from.
24 posted on 06/25/2008 6:12:05 PM PDT by normy (Don't take it personally, just take it seriously.)
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To: blam

Damn, She is a beeYOOTful vessel!


25 posted on 06/25/2008 6:23:21 PM PDT by Mad Dawg (Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.)
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To: normy
Ah...perfect time for a football reference...

MY WHOLE FAMILY HAS BEEN VIKINGS FOR YEARS! ;-)

26 posted on 06/25/2008 7:27:39 PM PDT by NordP (Barry HUSSEIN Obama says he's for change...well AMERICANS LIKE DOLLAR BILLS!)
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To: blam
The Teaching Company offers a course on the Vikings:

Vikings

Professor Harl has a different explanation (as opposed to "the best iron") for the success of the Vikings:

"But culture only takes us so far. The Viking Age would have been impossible had the Scandinavians not possessed superiority in shipbuilding and warfare, and Professor Harl devotes two in-depth lectures to this achievement.

You will explore in detail how the design features of Viking ships allowed them to ride the waters rather than fight the waves, to be dragged across land from river to river, and to be beached in any port and sail almost anywhere. Many Viking victories resulted from the fact that their ships could sail several times faster than opposing armies could move on foot.

Contrary to the stereotype of slashing homicidal maniacs in horned helmets, Professor Harl discusses a precise, organized, battle-hardened army of men trained in warfare since boyhood. Vikings were extraordinarily fit, skilled in boarding ships, in leaping and jumping, archery, swordsmanship, and the wielding of axes. Even more frightful, they were fearless, regarding battle as a state of ecstatic joy and expecting thrill in victory or glory in Valhalla as they rushed at their foes."


The Vikings in effect founded Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Greenland, Normandy and Russia. (The Swedish Vikings were known as "Russ" (Rooss)). They forced the consolidation of England and ruled England for a while.

I thoroughly enjoyed the audio download version of the course (36 lectures for $49.95).
27 posted on 06/25/2008 8:44:12 PM PDT by Ragnar54
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To: blam

Trade with the strong & wealthy; take from the weak. Why couldn’t they be both?


28 posted on 06/25/2008 9:35:10 PM PDT by Tallguy (Tagline is offline till something better comes along...)
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To: NordP

“MY ANCESTORS RULE! “

They did for a while.


29 posted on 06/26/2008 6:55:24 AM PDT by RoadTest ( Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. But he spake of the temple of his body.)
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To: RoadTest
Okay, so they pillaged a bit, were rude and disgusting (being diplomatic here and I don't know why) when it came to women, and certainly didn't wash up for anyone or anything, but....men were men and every other being was scared ;-)

OH, AND LEIF ERIKSON DISCOVERED AMERICA!

Actually, they are just a part of my "mutt-dom." I'm Norwegian, Swiss, German, English, Dutch, and a very beautiful eyelash, Italian.

30 posted on 06/26/2008 7:04:04 AM PDT by NordP (Barry HUSSEIN Obama says he's for change...well AMERICANS LIKE DOLLAR BILLS!)
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To: normy
by the way, I wondered where my coffee fetish came from.

Put it like this: in the Norwegian my father's family spoke, when a visitor departed the formally correct thing for the host to say was "tak fur sitten" ('thanks for visiting'), to which the formally correct reply was "tak fur caffien" ('thanks for the coffee').

31 posted on 06/26/2008 8:52:18 AM PDT by Grut
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To: blam
Just inserting the requisite picture (hubba hubba) from "The Thirteenth Warrior" - Vladimir Kulich


32 posted on 06/29/2008 8:05:11 PM PDT by Alkhin (Hope looks beyond the bounds of time...)
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