Vikings: Life and Legend

Three 12th century walrus ivory Lewis Chessmen gnash their
shields in berserkr fury.  But how vicious were the Vikings?

When I was at uni, my Scandinavian History lecturer was so sick of undergrads asserting that 'Vikings were traders as well as raiders' and thinking that they were the first to come up with that neat little rhyme, that he banned the phrase from our essays. Yet this dichotomy still lies very much at the heart of our image of the Vikings - on one hand we have the blood-and-guts stereotype of marauding monk-murderers, setting out in their longships in search of plunder and cheerfully blood-eagling their rivals, while the archaeological record provides evidence of skilled craftsmen capable of creating works of stunning delicacy, and imaginative individuals who dreamed up myths full of dark imagery and earthy humour, and bleak, ringing poetry.

Copper alloy longship brooch, AD 800-
1050, found in Tjørnehøj, Denmark.
Photo: National Museum of Denmark 

To be fair, there is some truth in the violent stereotype; the Old Norse word vikingr means 'raider' - but it's a specific job description, not a synonym for 'Early Medieval Scandinavian'. The British Museum's new exhibition, Vikings: Life and Legend sets out to balance this picture, by drawing together artefacts from all aspects of life, both domestic and martial.

They have a broad palate to work from - the Vikings ventured as far as North America and served as mercenaries in Constantinople, while Swedish warriors known as Rus settled in Kiev and gave their name to modern Russia - and have exploited this to full effect, assembling a simply stunning collection of objects.

Displays include the poignantly domestic - toy boats and ivory ironing boards - to impressively elaborate jewellery and staggering hoards of plundered booty, chopped up into 'hack silver' and stashed for safekeeping in the ground. These latter finds reinforce the image of the ferocious Viking warrior, though of course the fact that the owners of these caches were unable to return to reclaim them might suggest that their battle-luck had ultimately run out.

Housed within a metal shell, the remains of 37m-long Roskilde
6 represent the largest Viking vessel yet excavated.

More dramatic evidence of what happened when a raid went awry can be found in a low glass case nestled against the great steel flank of a reconstructed longship housing the fragmentary remains of Roskilde 6 - at 37m, the largest Viking vessel yet excavated. Sprawled beneath the glass are a number of human skeletons, arranged as they were found in an old quarry pit up on Ridgeway Hill, Dorset. The chaotic arrangement of their bones testify to their bodies being thrown into the grave, while the men themselves had evidently met a violent end: they have all been decapitated, their heads piled in a heap to one side.

These are some of the roughly 50 individuals, dated to the 10th or 11th century, who were excavated from this pit during the construction of the Weymouth Relief Road. With an average age of 18-25, and isotopic signatures suggesting they grew up in the Viking world (albeit with disparate origins across Scandinavia, the Baltic regions, and Russia), it is thought that this was the crew of an ill-fated raiding expedition, who were captured and executed by local Anglo-Saxons.

Silver Odin figure, from Lejre, Zealand, Denmark.
Dated c.AD 800-1050. Photo: Roskilde Museum.

Equally arresting are the religious items, not least a fabulous silver model of a one-eyed man, seated on a throne with two ravens beside him - surely the god Odin - and a beautiful set of silver figures depicting armed women, perhaps the Valkyries, 'choosers of the slain' who fetched doomed warriors from the battlefield to join Odin's ranks in Valhalla. I was delighted to see that among these is a very recently-discovered example: an unusual 3D version of the motif, with adorably big eyes and a long plait of hair. I understand the exhibition had to be reworked several times to incorporate new finds, and it's wonderful to see so much up-to-date material.

Speaking of new, this is also the first exhibition to be held in the BM's new purpose-built facility. It's certainly bigger than the Reading Room, where exhibitions used to be held, and doubtlessly it is easier to design displays for a big open space than a circular room, but it is also a lot less atmospheric. There is something of the aircraft hanger about this new building, not helped by the fact that the decor is so overwhelmingly grey - though perhaps this is not helped by the fact that so many of the objects on display are also varying shades of black, grey, or brown. The next exhibition to inhabit this space will be Ming China - perhaps a more colourful range of artefacts will dilute this effect somewhat.

Gorgeous little Valkyrie figurine.
Photo: Asger Kjærgaard, Odense City Museums

I also felt that Vikings would have benefitted from a clearer narrative structure - I would be hard-pressed to say which themes the various areas were arranged around - and the labelling in many of the cases is minimalist at best, and absent at worst, but if the design merits only a B+, the contents are definitely A* material. And yes, for those of you worried that the revisionism has gone too far, there are swords and axes on display too.

Vikings: Life and Legend runs until 22 June 2014. Visit the exhibition website for more information.

All photos copyright of the Trustees of the British Museum, unless otherwise stated.