Forget loot-hungry pirates and great sea expeditions.
Being a Viking did not entail a life of adventures.
Not necessarily, at least.
Before sailing to the British Isles or the cataracts of the Dnieper, clinker ships had to be built within the fjords.
Before crossing swords with the Franc or the Bulgarian, they had to have their weapons forged.
In other words, Danes and their ilk were first and foremost inhabitants of medieval Scandinavia.
This is what
The True Face of the Vikings intends to remind.
The prestigious tomb of a chief
The campaign of archaeological excavations of a prodigious 8th century ship-tomb serves as a red thread for the cameras of Alexis de Favitski for this dive into the daily life of the Scandinavians of yesteryear.
It has been more than a hundred years since a find of this caliber was unearthed - a major event in the world of archaeology.
The imposing funeral vessel discovered on a farm in Gjellestad, south of Oslo, amazes specialists: such an installation marked the prestigious tomb of a chief.
However, some frustrations arise on the site: the burial chamber of the remains has been looted.
Only a glass bead and another in amber remain of the precious treasure, which may have accompanied the deceased to the afterlife.
Whatever.
The eye of the Norwegian researchers still shines,
"Farm work"
The nails and rivets say a lot about the missing frame of the ship and about the importance of iron in the Viking world.
More than 6,000 of these small metal objects, weighing a total of 80 kg, were found in Gjellestad.
The elongated keel of these vessels, the real wooden backbone of the boat, also reveals the date of the start of its construction.
Archaeologists determine the time through the study of wood rings, dendrochronology.
In the brown earth of the site, a few crimson spots also indicate the presence of iron objects.
The phantom silhouette of battle ax heads also provides valuable clues.
They would testify to the martial activity of the occupant of this tomb.
Beware, however, of hasty conclusions!
The material of war no longer determines as definitively as in the past the attribution of a tomb to a deceased rather than a deceased.
“Among the Vikings, status was more important than gender: being from a good family was more important than being a man or a woman
,” explains Veronica Björkman, head of the archaeological site. Swedish from Birka.
There, a Norse warrior grave had been reassigned to a female warrior after examination of the bones.
Hunting for a priori
The hunt for a priori of the Scandinavian world is definitely a long-term job.
“Before being a warrior or a sailor, the Viking is above all a peasant.
His daily life is punctuated by the work of the farm”
, indicates the documentary while actors in costume stir up the earth of a field to plant radishes and carrots.
And, when it is a question, finally, of going far away, these expeditions, testify some runic stones, have for one and only goal to acquire richnesses.
By looting, therefore, but also by trade.
The taste for violence and blood would thus work much less for these great travelers than the lure of gain.