Interesting facts about the Vikings

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Interesting facts about the Vikings
Who are the Vikings, and what do we know about them? Viking age was roughly from the 790's until the Norman conquest of England in 1066. The Vikings were a sea faring people they made use of the Norwegian Sea, and the Baltic Sea when traveling southern sea routes.
The Vikings are known for their wooden long ships. These ships were wide with shallow hulls, this allowed for good navigation on rough seas and in shallow rivers. Not to mention, these ships were great for landing on beaches and since they were light in weight they were easy to carry. These were very versatile ships that allowed the Vikings to travel a very long way. It seems they made it as far as Constantinople and the Volga River in Russia, Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland. These were an amazing sea faring people.
There are many popular ideas about the Vikings, but they do not coincide with what we have learned from archaeology and written sources. We typically see them as a violent and brutal , but in reality they were at times brutal and violent but more often they were adventurers. They were a complex group of people who were able to read and write. They also established an alphabet, non-standardized, but an alphabet none the less.
The alphabet they used was called runor, and this led to the rune stones. There is very little of Viking writing on paper, but you will find thousands of stones that they left messages on. These stones were usually left in memory of the dead, however; they were rarely left at the grave site. Most of the rune stones have been found in Sweden and they date from the 11th century.
The Vikings have been known by different names to the Germans they were known as Ascomanni, to the Anglo Saxons they were known as Lochlanach. The Arabs, the Slavs and the Byzantines knew them as the Rus' we think this is in association with the word meaning "related to rowing".
Since archaeological advancements in the 20th century, we have been able to build a more complete and fair picture of the Vikings. Archaeology has revealed a complex and interesting culture that is varied in many ways. Archaeology has uncovered burial sites and the items that were buried with them. This gives us a better understanding of what was important to the Vikings and what they felt needed to be taken on to the afterlife.


The Vikings were a sea faring people they made use of the Norwegian Sea, and the Baltic Sea when traveling southern sea routes.
The Vikings are known for their wooden long ships. These ships were wide with shallow hulls, this allowed for good navigation on rough seas and in shallow rivers. These were an amazing sea faring people.