It is a jaw-dropping exception to the rule that wooden things dug up from the ground after a 1000 years are going to be in a bad state. Most Viking ships that have been excavated turn up a few scraps of timber and enough rusty nails to fill a bucket. And that’s it!

The survival of the Oseberg Ship and its artefacts is quite simply miraculous. Its survival – so far. For the fight is on to try and stop the ship dissolving into a pile of powder. 

This is the story of the flat-pack challenge from the 9th century that makes a TORNVIKEN kitchen island from IKEA seem like child’s play!

CONTACT

Twitter: @northbynorway

Mail: [email protected]

PHOTO

Archaeologist Gabriel Gustavson and his excavation team standing in the Oseberg burial mound, 1904. 

An artist is making drawings of the broken prow of the ship.

Photographer : Olaf Væring. Owner: Universitetsmuseenes fotoportal. (Licence:CC BY-SA 4.0)

LINKS

https://www.khm.uio.no/english/research/previous-projects/saving-oseberg/

https://www.khm.uio.no/english/visit-us/viking-ship-museum/exhibitions/oseberg/index.html

https://osebergvikingarv.no/eng/

https://www.visitnorway.com/listings/the-viking-ship-saga-oseberg/201556/?lang=uk

MUSIC

00:00  North by Norway 

written on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle, using the Norwegian folksong ‘I Ola-dalom, i Ola-tjønn’

03:12  Dronningen 

written on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle

09:55  Oseberg 

written on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle

14:05  Ja vel elsker dette landet 

Norwegian national anthem, music by Richard Nordraak

retrieved from Wikimedia Commons 

For more details, visit the episode website at

www.andrewjboyle.com

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