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Viking Museum Haithabu
Hedeby has one of the largest and most modern harbours in Northern Europe. It is the heart of the city, as the trade in goods on the landing stages ensures prosperity. The piers are not only docking facilities but also marketplaces and meeting places for various ethnic, religious, and professional groups. Large merchant and warships from the royal fleet are moored alongside small vessels and rowboats.
The dumping of waste in the harbour is becoming an increasing problem. From time to time, the piers must be extended to reach deeper water. In the 11th century, shortly before the city’s decline, the harbour was a single large platform of gangways connected to one another and stretching far out into the inlet.
Text above: Wikinger Museum Haithabu
Scale model of a Knarr, a traditional Norse merchant and cargo ship from the Viking Age.
Exhibited at the Viking Museum Haithabu (Wikingermuseum Haithabu) near Schleswig, Germany, which highlights the history of the important Viking trading settlement of Hedeby.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2018
Source: Wikingermuseum Haithabu
Key Features of the Knarr:
Unlike longships built primarily for speed and warfare, knarrs were wider, deeper, and shorter, designed to haul heavy trade goods like timber, wool, furs, wheat, and livestock. They used the classic Viking clinker-built method (overlapping wooden planks) and relied heavily on a single large square sail, supplemented by a few oars when needed.
Knarrs were used for trade, cargo transport, and colonisation. They were used to carry livestock, wool, timber, and supplies over long ocean routes. The hull shape was short, wide, and deep, and featured a high freeboard (sides) to withstand rough, open-ocean waves and a broad beam for maximum stability.
They were primarily sail-driven, and relied on a single massive square sail. Oars were only used for manoeuvring in harbours or during dead calms. They were half-decked with an open cargo hold (halfrými) in the centre. Crew and passengers sat on small decks at the bow and stern.
They had a deep draft, requiring deeper water to float, they could not easily sail up shallow rivers or land directly on any beach, and had a small crew (typically 10 to 30 people), minimising the food and water needed for long oceanic voyages.
Text above: Various sources
A model of a Viking longship with a red-and-yellow striped sail displayed inside the Wikinger Museum Haithabu (Viking Museum at Hedeby) near Schleswig, Germany.
Longships were used for warfare, raiding, troop transport, and speed. They were designed to move warriors quickly and strike without warning. The hull Shape was long, narrow, and shallow, built sleek to slice through water quickly and maximise hull flexibility in waves.
They were designed to be of dual-propulsion, and were equipped with a large sail but they were heavily reliant on continuous oar power. Oar ports ran down nearly the entire length of the hull.
Longships were fully open or low-decked across the whole length to maximise rowing benches and space for warriors. They were of ultra-shallow draft, making them capable of navigating shallow rivers deep inland and landing directly on beaches for sudden amphibious raids. They had a large crew (ranging from 30 to over 80 warriors/rowers), packed tightly together to form a highly concentrated fighting force.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2018
Text: Various sources
Source: Wikinger Museum Haithabu
Barrels made of fir served as containers for the transport of goods. They were produced in the Upper Rhine region, where the silver firs (Abies alba) required for their manufacture grow.
The presence of silver fir barrels in Viking-age settlements is one of the most compelling archaeological proofs of early medieval long-distance trade. While the Vikings are famously known for their maritime expansion, their connection to these specific barrels tells a fascinating story of continental supply chains, natural resource limitations, and clever recycling.
The silver fir (Abies alba) is a massive conifer native to the mountainous regions of Central Europe, flourishing particularly in the Black Forest and the Vosges mountains flanking the Upper Rhine region.
Silver fir wood is ideal for cooperage (barrel-making) because it grows with a exceptionally long, straight bole. The wood has a straight grain, lacks resin canals (meaning it won't impart a heavy resinous taste to liquids), and is relatively easy to split into staves.
The Upper Rhine served as a natural transport superhighway. Cooperages in this region manufactured the barrels, filled them with local goods, and floated them down the Rhine River toward major Carolingian emporiums like Dorestad (in the modern-day Netherlands).
The Vikings did not travel to the Upper Rhine to buy empty barrels; rather, the barrels were the high-quality packaging for a highly sought-after luxury asset: Frankish wine.
Elite Norsemen developed a strong taste for continental wines, which were used to display status and wealth at feasts. Through a combination of trade at Frisian market hubs, diplomacy, and raiding along the Frankish coasts, massive quantities of these wine-filled fir barrels made their way into Scandinavian hands. Cargo vessels like the Norse Knarr were specifically designed with wide beams to handle bulk goods like these heavy, bulging cylinders, which could be easily rolled up gangways.
What makes these barrels an archaeological sensation is dendrochronology (tree-ring dating) and dendro-provenancing. Silver fir does not grow naturally in Scandinavia or northern Germany; the climate is too cold and dry in the winter. When archaeologists excavated the major Viking trading hub of Hedeby they uncovered extensive remains of silver fir wood. By matching the tree-ring patterns of this wood against historical chronologies, scientists definitively traced the timber back to the forests of the Upper Rhine, proving it had traveled over 800 kilometres north.
The reason these fir barrels survived for over a millennium to be studied today comes down to Norse resourcefulness. Wood was a precious commodity, and a well-crafted barrel was too valuable to throw away once the wine was finished. Once empty, the Vikings repurposed these large barrels as linings for water wells. They would stack the barrels vertically and sink them deep into the earth until they reached the groundwater level. Because the silver fir wood remained completely submerged in waterlogged, oxygen-depleted soil, it was perfectly preserved from decay, allowing modern archaeologists to unearth them and reconstruct the vast boundaries of the Viking trade network.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2018
Source and text: Wikinger Museum Haithabu and various other sources, including https://www.conifers.org/pi/Abies_alba.php and Bledý et al. (2024)
The dragon head prow on a Viking longship, known in Old Norse as a dreki (plural drekar, or "dragonships") - was a prominent carved figurehead mounted at the front of large warships owned by kings and chieftains.
• Apotropaic Protection: Vikings believed the fierce wooden head warded off evil sea monsters, stormy elements, and malevolent spirits.
• Intimidation: The menacing appearance was designed to frighten enemies and strike fear into coastal settlements before a raid.
• Status and Wealth: Elaborately carved and sometimes gilded heads signaled the high rank, power, and wealth of the ship's owner.
• Removing the Head Near Home: According to medieval Norse law and tradition, sailors were required to remove the dragon head when approaching friendly or domestic shores. Leaving it up could frighten or anger the friendly land spirits (landvættir) who protected their own homeland.
These figureheads were not permanently attached, they were slotted into place for voyages, battles, or formal displays.
Not all Viking ships had dragon heads. Smaller or utilitarian vessels (like the karve or standard snekke) often featured simpler post-heads or plain wooden finials rather than full-scale dragons.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2018
Source and text: Wikinger Museum Haithabu and various other sources, including https://avaldsnes.info/en/viking/drakeskip/ and Wikipedia
References
- Bledý M. et al. , 2024: Silver Fir (Abies alba Mill.): Review of Ecological Insights, Forest Management Strategies, and Climate Change Impact on European Forests ResearchGate, DOI:10.20944/preprints202404.1584.v1 License CC BY 4.0.
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