Digging for Britain (2010) s02e02 Episode Script
Invaders
1
We might be a small island,
but we've got a big history.
Everywhere you stand, there
are worlds beneath your feet.
And so, every year, hundreds
of archeologists across Britain
go looking for more
clues into our story.
Who lived here, when, and how?
There was a blade in here, here.
So he's being attacked
from all angles.
Archeology is a
complex jigsaw puzzle
drawing everything together
from skeletons to swords,
temples to treasure.
He's biting his shield.
Biting his shield, yeah.
From Orkney to Devon,
we're joining this year's
quest on sea, land and air.
We share all of the questions,
and find some of the answers,
as we join the teams in the
field, "Digging For Britain."
Throughout its history,
Britain has been divided
and enriched by
invaders from overseas.
And none have gripped
our imaginations
quite as much as the Vikings.
But how much of what we think
we know about the Vikings
is just a stereotype?
Do they really live up to
their savage reputation?
And how much did they influence
and shape British culture?
This year's archeology
is enriching
and challenging our vision
of the Vikings, with digs,
artifacts and messages
they left behind.
Wow, that is a beautiful object!
Like the fortress of a Norwegian
Viking chief in Orkney.
This cup is absolutely
extraordinary, isn't it?
The magnificent hoard
of silver buried
in a time of bloodshed.
And the victims of a
vicious nationwide massacre.
But you're suddenly
kind of connecting
with this awful moment,
which is his death.
On the Isle of Harris,
in the Outer Hebrides,
archeologists are just
starting to bring evidence
of the earliest
Vikings to light.
A team from the University
of Birmingham is digging
at a site called Horgabost.
The name itself
has a Norse origin.
A strong hint that
the Vikings were here.
Just over these dunes is one
of this season's targets.
Now, archeologists have
been digging here before
and they discovered an
Iron Age settlement.
But there is some archeological
evidence that the Vikings
were here, too.
A couple of burials
threatened by erosion seem
to have been Norse,
and small Norse finds have
been discovered as well.
But the archeologists are
really hoping that they're going
to find evidence of a
settlement, and if they do that,
it'll be the first of
its kind on Harris.
Okay, then, Alice,
what we have here
is a very interesting
Iron Age site
with a bit of a
mysterious end to it,
which we're trying to come
to terms with at the moment.
If you step this way.
Some very striking layers
- in the ground there.
- Absolutely!
The team is
being led by Kevin Colls,
and I joined them right at the
start of the digging season.
The site may hold the
key to the first contacts
between incoming Vikings
and the Gaelic people
already living here.
Will it be a story
of destruction?
What's slightly more mysterious,
and slightly more
interesting for me,
is this deposit here that's
sealing everything else.
What is that?
It's a completely
different color as well.
Completely different color.
It's almost demolition debris,
full of very late
Iron Age pottery.
- Right.
- And lots of charcoal,
lots of sort of waste material.
Sometimes
archeology works this way.
They're finding subtle glimpses
within the soil at the
time of abandonment.
The important thing
is we need to find out
when this occurred.
And that's why
we're taking samples
for carbon dating and
see if, hopefully,
see if it can be
because of the Norse,
the Norse invasion, or when
the Vikings came to the island,
and whether it sort of clashes
with this site being abandoned.
Close by, a building is emerging
that seems to be
rectangular in shape,
a style that is Scandinavian,
and unlike the roundhouses
favored by Iron Age people.
So could this be evidence
of Vikings displacing
the original inhabitants?
Now, there's a nice corner here.
- Absolutely.
- Yeah.
And there's lots
of stones in this vicinity
which suggest that the feature
is running under the dunes.
I can see some here.
Yeah, so they carry on
going backwards, possibly
- in this direction.
- Absolutely.
- There's more here.
- Yeah.
Are you going to
extend the trench back?
We will extend back and see
if we can get the full plan,
and see if it is a
rectangular house,
which would be in-line
with a Norse long house.
But so far, perhaps
the strongest evidence
of the meeting of these cultures
comes from a scattering of
objects found across the site.
So we have, the
things on this side
are late Iron Age in date.
So you've got a storage jar
or a big cooking pot
there made from ceramic.
We've also got this very
strange, it looks like a rock,
but if you feel the coarseness
of the outside edge,
when compared to the flat edge,
it's been used, and
used constantly.
Yeah, so what's
that been used for?
We suspect it's
used for working animal hides.
And that fits so nicely
in your hand, doesn't it?
- You can
- It's very tactile, yeah.
So these finds are intriguing
because they could
be later Iron Age,
- they could be Norse.
- Absolutely.
You can't really
distinguish between them.
No, you can't.
But from their
early investigations
comes the first conclusive proof
of contact with the Vikings.
A tiny scrap of
steatite, or soapstone,
a material often
imported from Scandinavia
and found in great
quantities on Norse sites
right across Britain.
But what you can say from this
fragment of soapstone bowl
is that this is
typically Viking.
Either somebody who
was already here learnt
how to make such a
thing from a Viking,
or they got it from a Viking,
or it belonged to a Viking.
Exactly, so the
Vikings were here.
Yeah.
You can see why the Vikings
might have felt at home here.
This is a landscape
that's perfectly suited
to their seafaring way of life.
You can just imagine
their longships coming in,
and then being pulled up on
these flat, wide beaches,
ready to start a
new life in a land
that's completely
surrounded by sea.
And the arrival of the Vikings
would mark the beginning
of a new phase in
this island's history,
and one that would leave
a lasting impression.
It's a history that
is still frustratingly
just below the
surface on Harris.
But I don't have to look too far
to find more
substantial evidence
of Norse culture.
Just up the road, on the
adjoining Isle of Lewis,
is perhaps the most famous and
iconic Scandinavian treasure
ever discovered in Scotland.
It was found in the 1800s, but
dates from the 12th Century,
a time when Lewis was controlled
by the kings of Norway.
Still shrouded in mystery,
it's a compendium of 93 ivory
chess and gaming pieces,
known to us as the
Lewis Chessmen.
A selection of the chessmen
has come back to Lewis
some 180 years after
they were first thought
to have been found.
They are such charismatic
little figures,
and I've been fascinated by
them since I was a child.
My grandparents had
a replica chess set.
Well, now, they're on tour,
following a new piece
of research looking
into their origins
and their story.
And it's so lovely to come
here to Stornaway to see them,
close to where they
were discovered.
The new research places the
chessmen firmly at the heart
of the once powerful but now
forgotten Kingdom of the Isles,
a hybrid Norse Gaelic
state controlled
by the kings of Norway.
The project has been led
by Dr. David Caldwell
from the National
Museum of Scotland.
So we've got all the
characters you'd expect,
we've got kings and queens
and bishops and knights,
and who's this character here?
Right, this is a
warrior or warder,
and nowadays he's normally
represented by a tower,
he's a rook, in
other words, yeah.
Although this particular one,
as you can just see there.
- He's biting his shield.
- Biting his shield, yeah.
This, in fact, I think, is one
of the key bits of evidence
that these pieces were made
in the Scandinavian world,
because that's a
reference to a cult
in the Scandinavian world,
the cult of the Berserkers.
The Berserkers were warriors
who got so high before
going into battle,
that they had to bite their
shields to hold themselves back.
Really?
And I don't think this
chessman is really a Berserker,
but I think it's the
carver, in a way,
just showing his cultural
roots, or perhaps,
gently poking fun at some
of his contemporaries
by showing that.
The finding of the chessmen
is shrouded in mystery.
Tradition has it they were
lost by a passing merchant.
But David thinks it's
possible they were owned
by an important person
living on Lewis.
Lewis was the center,
or one of the centers,
of a Scandinavian kingdom,
the Kingdom of the Isles,
which people have
now forgotten about,
but it was a very important
kingdom on a European model
which was here until 1266.
This was the year
in which the Vikings
handed the Hebrides
over to Scotland for
the sum of 4,000 marks,
ending four centuries
of Norwegian sovereignty
on the islands.
But who made these
beautiful figures?
Detailed study of their faces
has revealed that they fall
into five different types,
which suggests they were made
by five different craftsmen.
This face, this
face is beautiful.
Yeah, that's one
of my favorites.
The craftsman who made this
was exceptionally good,
and ivory is an amazingly
tough material to carve.
It must have taken
days to do this,
but just the subtlety
of the expression there.
Just the look,
and even when you move
away from the face
and you look at the
knuckles, the detail there,
you can almost
sense that the hand
is actually gripping that sword.
Those hands are
absolutely beautiful,
and the face, and the
contours of the face,
there's even a change in contour
when we go from the cheek,
down to the upper lip,
that crease between the
nose and the mouth is shown.
These figures may be stylized,
but there's every
reason to believe
they're based on
living Scandinavians.
The people who carved them
were paying attention
to authentic details.
So the clothes aren't just
figments of the imagination
of a carver, this is real attire
that is being represented.
Yes, they clearly have
a very good understanding
of what they're representing.
They understand the
different layers
of vestment a bishop is wearing,
the chasubles, the albs,
and everything else,
and they represent that
very carefully indeed.
These craftsmen probably worked
in a major center in Norway
where they could closely observe
high-status Scandinavians.
Where they may even have
had bishops or kings
as their patrons.
The Vikings came to
the Western Isles
and created a Scandinavian
state to rival
the kingdoms of
England and Scotland.
One that we've all
but forgotten about.
And we have potent
Viking legacies
in the form of amazing craftwork
that reminds us of our
shared Scandinavian genes.
But what lured the Vikings
here in the first place?
Back on Harris is another
site where the archeology
is reminding us that they
first came here to plunder.
It's a possible
medieval monastery,
the ultimate temptation
for a seafaring pirate.
History tells us that the riches
of these Christian monasteries
are what drew the
Vikings to our shores.
This site houses
a ruined chapel,
and there are traces
dating all the way back
to an Iron Age broch, or tower.
Professor John Hunter is
overseeing the excavations here.
Anyway if we get, stand here,
and we just look round here.
This is the outer
face of the broch.
- Huge stones.
- Oh, that's fantastic, yeah.
And you can see the collapse
- has just fallen in.
- Massive!
- Massively thick walls.
- The wall's
four meters thick, roughly.
If there was an
early monastery here,
you're directly on
the great sea routes,
that bring Norwegian Vikings
all the way down to Ireland,
and they would've seen this.
It would've been sweets for
the taking, it really would.
Just outside the boundary
of the possible
monastery are some graves
that might be Norse.
And the team has discovered
the first fragments
of whoever was buried here.
But is it a long-dead Viking?
Oh, okay, so as well
as these bits of bone.
- A tooth, yeah.
- A tooth, all right.
Tell us about that, then.
Where's it from?
Well, it looks
like a lower incisor,
I think, and it's very worn,
so all of the enamel on
the top has been worn down.
It's somebody who's an adult
and who's been wearing that
tooth down for many years.
- Yeah.
- That's right.
Even if these are all
that remains of a Viking,
does it necessarily prove
that he or she lived here?
Or might this be the grave
of a passing seafarer,
whose remains were
brought to shore
before the ship
continued on its way?
It's very exciting being
here with archeologists
who are trying to work out
what Harris was to the Vikings.
As part of the Hebrides,
it's on that sea route
between Shetland and
Orkney in the north,
and Ireland, places that
were all firmly part
of the Viking world.
But what about Harris?
Was it just a
stopping-off point,
were the Vikings here
only transiently,
or did they actually settle here
and put down roots, as the
place names seem to suggest?
Well, they're finding what
look like Norse buildings,
and we have that piece
of steatite as well,
which suggests that the
archeologists are just on the brink
of finding the
first hard evidence
of Viking settlement
here on Harris.
In England, there's one city
that boasts more evidence
of Viking occupation than
anywhere else in Britain,
York, or Jorvik.
The first Viking to take the
city was Ivar the Boneless,
a Danish Viking leader
and reputed Berserker.
Jorvik became the capital
of his new Danish
territory in 866 AD.
For the next 20 years,
the Danes continued
with their aggressive expansion
until the English
king, Alfred the Great,
drew up a treaty with
the Viking king, Guthrum.
The country was sliced in two,
and the Danes were given
their own territory
in the north and east,
the Danelaw, with
York at its heart.
Even though they only
ruled here for 100 years,
York is very much still
associated with the Vikings.
And an excavation in the
'70s here at Coppergate,
dragged York's Viking
past into the present
in a very vivid way.
Now all of that archeology
is sealed beneath
these shops and cafes.
But there's a current
excavation going on
in another part of the
city not far from here,
and again we're starting
to see the buried
history of this city.
So I'm going to visit
the dig to find out
what more we can learn
about the Vikings of Jorvik.
Archeologists have been working
in an area called Hungate
in the center of the
city for 4 1/2 years.
It's a huge, multi-layered
excavation, but right now,
the archeologists are
almost three meters
below today's ground level,
and digging what I'm interested
in, the Viking layer.
And they're revealing
that they were not just
about looting and fighting.
The Vikings were traders
and builders of cities, too.
Once the Vikings had taken
York, they stayed here,
bringing up families
and blending
with the city's
previous inhabitants,
creating a unique culture
known as Anglo-Scandinavian.
And they remained even
after the last Viking king
had been expelled,
expanding their town
and putting up huge,
permanent buildings.
So are you into the
final phase, really?
Yeah, this is the
very final part.
Peter Connelly
is running excavations here
for the York
Archeological Trust.
It's landscape archeology,
it just happens to be
in an urban environment.
Yeah, most of
the buildings here sit
on an organized grid
layout, unexpected evidence
that the Vikings had a
talent for urban planning.
The land here slopes
gently down to the river,
making it an ideal loading
and unloading spot.
These buildings were
probably storage warehouses.
And right in the middle
of these structures,
the Vikings built something
that would have been
totally indispensable.
Now the stuff that I'm
digging through at the moment
is effectively human
waste, it's poo.
'Cause what I'm sat
in at the moment,
it's the remains of a
Viking toilet or cess pit.
All the bits of animal
bone that we're finding
in here as well,
it's been used as a general
rubbish pit as well.
Although the majority
of it is human waste,
you are getting other bits
and pieces in here as well.
But fortunately,
it's not just rubbish
that's come out of
the ground at Hungate.
Over the 4 1/2 years
that the archeologists
have been working here,
they've turned up
thousands of artifacts
from the Viking period.
Most of them are
pottery and bone,
and represent household waste.
But there is a handful
of intriguing small finds
which provide us
with additional clues
as to what the Vikings were
doing in this part of the city.
The finds researcher at
York Archeological Trust
is Nicky Rogers.
So, Nicky, this is a
collection of finds
that are all from the
excavation at Hungate?
They are, they're a
fraction of what we've found
over the five years that
we've been excavating there.
We've found over 12,000
individual artifacts.
What's this here?
Well, actually,
this is a jet pendant.
It's quite sweet, I think,
because the hole, well,
it's a bit off-center.
I like the shape of it.
- That's quite modern-looking.
- It's very, yes.
- Thing isn't it?
- Well, it is,
but that's a very typical
shape of the period in fact.
So where
would that have come from,
the jet for that, do you think?
Probably from Whitby,
yes, from the north coast.
Yeah, what about these beads,
are these amber?
This is all amber here.
So where would
that have come from,
that amber, do you think?
That's going to have
come from the Baltic area.
So the Vikings living
in Hungate imported
high-quality material.
Their trade routes stretched
hundreds of miles away
across the Scandinavian world.
But they also used
less exotic material
to turn out huge
numbers of an item,
that's a little more surprising.
Well, these are actually skates.
- Really?
- Yes.
They're effectively
very easy to make
because the bone is already
that size, that shape.
Very little has to be done
to it to turn it into
So what is the
bone, this is a metapodial,
- isn't it, or something?
- Yes, it is.
They're usually horse
or cattle metapodials.
Right, okay.
All that's been
done to this one,
if you look at it is, well,
on the bottom it's been
flattened and smoothed,
so that's a very
smooth, flat surface.
And that's
been deliberately done.
That has been deliberately done.
Your foot would
have sat on here,
your heel there, your toe there.
You weren't able to take
your foot off the ice,
so you were pulled
yourself along with poles.
So they're not ice dancing,
they're not pirouetting round,
they're keeping their
feet on the ground,
using them like
cross-country skis.
That's it.
These simple bone
objects connect us
to customs imported from
the frozen Norse homelands.
The archeology of Hungate,
the buried evidence of
people who lived here
in Jorvik 1,000 years ago,
is not about monumental remains.
We're not looking at
the elite of society,
but we're getting
an insight instead
into the lives of
ordinary people,
as they started to
plan their town.
And we see how they adapted
their buildings to suit the land
and the specific purpose
they wanted them for.
These people lived in York
but they kept a connection
with their
Scandinavian homeland,
through the objects that
they bought, used and wore.
And, in a very real
way, 1,000 years ago,
they were laying the foundations
of the York that we see today.
While in York, the Vikings
and Anglo-Saxons learnt
to get along, throughout
the rest of England,
their relationship
remained uneasy.
Although pockets of Danes
lived and traded here,
they hadn't gained
a permanent foothold
and full-scale Danish raids
continued along the coast.
The English king,
Aethelred the Unready,
was repeatedly forced
to pay them off
with huge sums of money
known as danegeld.
And the growing tension
between these clashing nations
led to a horrific act, the
St. Brice's Day massacre.
But the perpetrators of this
slaughter were not Vikings,
they were Anglo-Saxon.
And what's more, the
murder was sanctioned
by King Aethelred.
He decreed that.
"All the Danes who had sprung up
in this island, sprouting
like cockle amongst the wheat,
"were to be destroyed by a
most just extermination."
Some of the victims
of this extermination
may now have been
discovered by archeologists
in a pit in Oxford.
The skeletons of at least 35
people lay in a mass grave,
where they'd been dumped
1,000 years before.
It is very rare that
archeologists get the chance
to examine evidence from a
particular historical event,
and one that the scholars
agree did actually happen.
But I'm interested in the
analysis of these bones.
Do the bones show
evidence of violence,
could they indeed represent
the victims of this massacre?
Osteologist Ceri Falys has
been examining their remains
for signs of trauma.
This was actually the
first skeleton we found,
but it wasn't until we placed
his skull back together,
'cause it was in
hundreds of fragments,
that we actually saw the trauma.
- There's at least 10.
- Oh, my goodness.
10 blade wounds.
So there's a blade wound here,
here, there, so that's three.
There's a glancing wound here.
And what about these
little triangular holes?
They're puncture
wounds, made by maybe a spear,
or something like that.
It is awful, isn't it?
You hold these bones and these
are the bones of somebody
who died a very long time ago,
but you're suddenly
kind of connecting
with this awful moment,
which is his death.
Radiocarbon dating has
shown that these people died
between 998 and 1019 AD,
which means it's
possible they were killed
on St. Brice's Day, 1002,
the day the Anglo-Saxons
turned on the Danes.
And he also has two
puncture wounds to his back.
There's one there and
one a bit farther down.
So these are
quite tiny puncture wounds
into the spine.
What do you think they
could have been caused by?
Possibly by a spear,
something being thrust
rather than thrown.
Yeah, so just the tip of
a spear being pushed in.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
Again, a young man, hacked
to death, horrendous.
Most of these men were
between 16 and 25 years old
when they died.
Incredibly, the next skeleton
I'm shown is that of a man
whose murder was even more
vicious than the last.
His ear, just behind his
ear has been sheared off.
Oh, yeah, so straight through
that mastoid process, that
chunk of bone behind the ear.
The side of his mandible
has been sheared off.
So there's evidence
of blade injury here as well.
Yeah, there's two
definite blade wounds
on that side of the jaw.
He's got four wounds
to his upper neck.
So that's been chopped through.
- As you can see, yeah.
- Yeah.
And the dens itself.
So chopping through
just underneath the ear,
taking off the angle
of the mandible
and the blade carrying on
through and cutting into
- Into the neck.
- The vertebrae of the neck.
Yeah.
Other parts
of this man's skeleton
show further signs of the
frenzied nature of the attack.
He has three
punctures to his pelvis.
There's two small wounds there.
But they've actually
come in from the back.
You can see these very
square-shaped puncture wounds,
which have gone all the
way through the bone.
So these are the
tips of a weapon of some kind,
which are pushing all
the way through to here.
Yeah.
So he was attacked
from the back there,
so on the left side,
somebody stabbed him just
above the hip, from the back,
and then he's also been speared
or stabbed through
from the front,
as well, from about
here, going in
and then hitting his pelvis
as it passes backwards.
So he's being attacked
from all angles.
All angles.
And if the multiple stab wounds
weren't enough to
finish this man off,
for good measure,
he was set on fire.
His forehead has been burnt,
which accounts for the missing
bone in the middle, and also
- his hand has been charred.
- Oh, yeah!
Is this the only skeleton
who has signs of burning?
No, quite a few of
them have got charring.
- Yeah.
- It's mostly to their heads,
their pelvises and their hands.
Ceri, were
you shocked when you got
these bones cleaned up
and into the laboratory
at how much violence there
was represented on them?
Very shocked, I've never
seen anything like this before.
Yeah.
And just to have so many
different weapons used
on one individual.
These skeletons bore none
of the wounds you'd
expect to find
on people who tried
to defend themselves,
so it's likely that they were
murdered whilst running away.
But were they Vikings?
Isotope analysis
was not conclusive,
but did show their diet
was rich in seafood,
suggesting they did at least
live a Viking way of life.
And then they may have been
hunted down and killed for it.
So what can we say for certain?
We have over 30 skeletons,
all of them men,
all showing signs
of extreme violence.
Whilst we can't be sure
that they were the victims
of the St. Brice's Day massacre,
the types of injury and
the date of the skeletons
makes it at least possible.
These young men were cut down,
were hacked to death in
a frenzy of violence.
And 1,000 years on, this mass
murder is still shocking.
Through trauma analysis,
archeology has allowed us to
explore the awful possibility
of the Vikings as victims.
But a different kind of
archeological discovery
has opened a window onto life
for a Viking whose
luck had run out.
Every now and then,
metal detectorists turn
up interesting objects,
which have been
lost, or abandoned,
or even deliberately
buried by their owners,
and then they've laid
hidden in the ground
for hundreds of years.
But it's extremely unusual to
find a collection as diverse,
and which illustrates as
many different aspects
of a past society,
as the hoard I'm
about to see now.
It's one of the most
important Viking finds
of the last 150 years, and
it's so rich in content
that experts are still
writing up their findings.
It's currently on display
at the Yorkshire Museum.
So this is it, this is
the Vale of York Hoard.
It was found four years ago
by a father and son
metal-detecting team.
And it really is an astonishing
collection of silver objects
with one piece of gold.
But what's really
amazing is that most
of those objects were
found inside that cup.
It really is spectacular
and beautiful,
but what I want to know
is can we learn anything
of any real archeological
significance from these objects?
And, given what we know
about this period of history
in this area, might we be able
to get an idea of the person
who had this sort of
wealth in their possession?
The hoard comprises 617 coins
and 67 pieces of silver,
including items of jewelry.
All objects which have
a great deal to tell us
about the Scandinavian world
at the time of their burial.
This cup is absolutely
extraordinary, isn't it?
Yeah, it's, I think, it's
probably the finest thing
in the hoard all on its own.
It's a gilt silver cup,
so it's silver and it's
been gilded with gold.
It was also decorated
with niello,
which is a kind of
alloy that's black.
So when this was first
made it would have been,
if you think of a wasp,
but kind of quite gaudy
yellow and black contrast.
So the detail would have
showed up amazingly well.
- Would you like to hold it?
- I'd love to hold it.
If you sit it in your hand,
it kind of gives you
a real good impression
of what this might've
been used for
when it was originally made.
It feels like a cup which wants
to be passed on
to somebody else.
What do you think
it was used for?
Given the way that you
hold it in both hands,
the fact that it's been gilded
and it may have had a lid,
we think it could be an
ecclesiastical vessel,
something that was
used in a monastery.
So it's possible that this cup,
which experts believe came
from the Frankish Empire,
fell into Viking hands as
loot or in payment of tribute.
It was made in the
mid-9th Century,
predating the rest of the
objects in this collection
in this collection.
But it presumably had a
lot of special significance
and meaning because it
lasted another 100 years,
so I presume it was passed
down through the family,
and then came to hold the
contents of this hoard.
This object gives
us a rare insight
into the mind-set of a Viking.
As an heirloom, it
connects him back
to his adventuring ancestors
and their ill-gotten gains.
But not all of the items
in this hoard had
sentimental value.
So what about these objects
that were inside it?
Are these pieces of jewelry
typically Viking in nature?
They are, yes.
This is by far the
most spectacular.
That's the only
gold piece, isn't it?
This is the only gold
piece in the hoard.
If you'd like to hold it.
Gosh, that's heavy!
It is, it's
quite a chunky thing.
This single piece is a
marker of extreme wealth.
Finding gold in Viking
hoards is exceptionally rare.
Only someone of the
highest social standing
would have had access to it.
And there are some
complete items of jewelry,
but then there seem
to be lot of pieces.
This bit in particular.
That just looks like
a brooch or something
- that's been cut in half.
- It does.
And this is very typical of
the way the Vikings did things.
They had a lot of what
we call hack silver.
The Viking economy
was based on the barter
and exchange of silver.
It was highly prized by
the Vikings and valued
by its weight and purity.
Before being chopped up
and used as currency,
silver could be worn and
transported as jewelry.
This is what we call
a penannular brooch.
If you think of this as
the terminal at one end.
- Yeah.
- It would thin out,
come in a big spiral,
and then fatten out again
- at the other end.
- Right.
And you would have a huge
pin through the middle.
And that would sit on your cloak
to keep your cloak together.
And this is a particularly
beautiful example.
It's got these lovely
little roundels
and this really delicate,
interlaced pattern.
Yeah, and actually,
it's made of little,
it looks like little beasts,
which are kind of chasing
their tails around.
Absolutely, very popular
in Viking iconography,
these little beasties.
The Vikings traveled
thousands of miles
across vast, sweeping trade
routes to get their silver.
And some pieces
within this hoard
connect the Vikings
here in Britain
with trading centers as far
away as the Islamic world.
Well, that looks like
Arabic script on there.
It does, this is called a dirham
and it's Islamic coin.
- It really is?
- It is,
and it comes from Afghanistan.
Wow, so this is evidence
of Vikings trading
all the way over
to the Middle East.
Absolutely, yeah.
One other coin here sheds light
on the moment this
hoard was buried.
It's a coin of the
English king, Aethelstan,
minted in 927 AD, just
after he captured York
from the Vikings.
And judging by the lack
of wear on its surface,
it was placed in the
ground almost immediately.
And if you look very closely,
you'll be able to
see that this coin
actually has the
words "Rex To Brie,"
so R-E-X, T-O, B-R-I-E.
Oh, yeah, yeah, I can see that.
And that basically
means king of all Britain.
So this coin
proclaims Aethelstan
as the king of all Britain.
So he used this coin to say
that he'd got rid
of all the Vikings,
and he'd unified the country
and made it into one kingdom.
But although the English
king stamped his identity
on his coins,
the name of the person who owned
these riches is lost to us.
All we have are the
clues passed down
by his cherished possessions.
This hoard of beautiful objects
raises the tantalizing
possibility
that what we're looking
at is the treasure,
the life savings
of a man whose days
amongst the ruling classes
in Northern England
are numbered.
And the hoard dates
from precisely the time
when there's this
changeover of power
between the Vikings
and the Anglo-Saxons.
So are we looking at
a Viking running away
and burying his
wealth for safety?
All that we can be sure about
is that he never
returned to dig it up.
Govan in Glasgow might
seem like an unlikely place
to come looking for
Viking archeology,
but I'm here to
see what is perhaps
the most extensive
collection of Norse artifacts
from any Viking site
anywhere in rural Britain.
Now, these objects
are not treasure,
they are domestic items,
things that Viking men and women
would have used every
day of their lives,
and they're also at the
beginning of their story
because they've been excavated,
but the examination, the
interpretation of them
is very much still
a work in progress.
So what I want to find out
is the potential
of this collection
for helping us understand
Viking everyday life.
The actual material is fine,
but as you see
from the packaging.
Beverley Ballin Smith
has a huge archeological
task ahead of her.
The processing and recording
of all the small finds
from a site called the
Udal in North Uist,
the largest Norse
settlement ever
to have been excavated
in the Western Isles.
It was a monumental project,
which involved a dedicated
group of volunteers
who returned to
dig again and again
over a 30-year period,
starting in 1963.
But the significance of the site
is still only
partially understood.
I don't think I have ever
seen so many bone needles
and I imagine we're
just starting.
So you wanted to have a look at.
That little poppy one.
- Yeah, sure.
- Can we take it out?
Yeah, want to?
Ooh, look at
that, that's really lovely.
What are these made of?
I think that's a bird bone,
it's pretty, isn't it?
It's really lovely, yeah.
There are hundreds of
decorated bone pins here,
perhaps a reflection of
their value in everyday life
as something to fix a
Viking's hair in place,
or to fasten his cloak.
That's fantastic.
In a sense, all
these are lost objects.
Yes, things that have
just dropped off people.
Dropped off people
- and not been recovered.
- And they go,
"Where did that go?"
And they've trotted into the mud
and then archeologists
found centuries later, wow!
It's not unusual to find
combs in a Viking settlement.
They're commonplace
personal objects.
What's surprising
about this collection,
though, is the sheer number
of them found on one site.
Oh, that's fantastic, it's
got a little animal on it!
It's a little
horse's head, I think.
And I love these roundels,
which are obviously kind
of drilled into the bone.
I think you look
at things like this
and you have this
immediate contact
with somebody who
lived centuries ago,
and this was their
comb and you also know
that you have the same
kind of sensibilities
that I quite like to have
things that are nice.
I like to have objects which
aren't just functional,
but actually which are
quite attractive as well.
Yes,
The massive task of
excavating this site
and all the finds buried there
was effectively the life's work,
of historian and
archeologist, lain Crawford.
But unable to continue
with his task,
due to ill health, it's
now fallen to Beverley.
But he ended up amassing
a huge collection of finds
that you're still
looking through now.
So he obviously, what happened?
Did he become overwhelmed with
the amount he was finding?
I've been there myself.
When you work on a massive site
with complicated stratigraphy.
So he carried on digging,
he produced interim reports
for every year that he dug,
but then there's the next
stage of actually writing up
and getting the information
out to the public.
And I think he was
simply overwhelmed.
Even since my visit,
fresh research has suggested
the volume of beautiful combs
may be proof of a Viking
comb-making industry here.
It reinforces just how
important the research
into the Udal will
be in years to come.
It's great to see
just a small part
of this massive collection
of everyday objects.
They seem mundane in some
ways but they also show that,
just like us, the Vikings
liked to have nice things.
And it's fantastic that this
collection is being revisited.
Archeologically speaking,
there's still an enormous amount
to be learned about this site
and all the artifacts
it contained.
And there must be
people on North Uist
who remember digging at
that site in the dunes.
And I imagine it's
important to them
to know that the last
chapters in the story of Udal
are finally being written.
Off the northeastern shore
of Scotland lie the
islands of Orkney,
colonized by the Vikings
in the 9th century.
Sailing from their
Norwegian homelands,
it would have taken
the Norse longships
about a day to get here.
And when they settled for good,
the islands became the center
of Norse power in Scotland,
right up until 1469,
the last bastion of Scandinavian
authority in Britain.
Today, these islands are home
to a classic Norse
archeological find,
and also to new excavations
that are offering
tantalizing glimpses
of the Vikings in Scotland.
My first destination is the
dig currently taking place
in the east of
Orkney's mainland,
near its ancient
capital, Kirkwall.
It sits on top of a 30-meter-high
stack of sheer rock,
the Brough of Deerness,
which, even today,
is challenging to access.
This is such a wild place.
There's nothing here but
cliffs, sea and birds.
I'm walking up a path
that I can't imagine
was here 1,000 years
ago, so I do wonder
how people got across from
the land there, to the Brough.
This is such an exposed
place, it's a lovely day today
but imagine this on a
rainy, windswept day.
The Brough is totally exposed
to the legendary Orcadian winds.
What an extreme place
to choose as your home.
Whether coming from the mainland
or from ships secured
in a nearby bay,
getting here can't have
been straightforward.
The old path up the Brough
has disappeared into the sea.
So we're now coming up
through the original
- entrance to the site?
- That's right, exactly.
Can we go and have a look at
- Yeah, of course, we can.
- Some of the archeology
that you're exploring?
There was once a settlement
of around 30 Viking
houses up here,
and Dr. James
Barrett and his team
are excavating one
of them this season.
So would this have been
the original doorway?
This is the original
doorway of the phase
that we're excavating right now.
So there was a settlement
here before the Vikings came,
and the ground
level, at that point,
was at the top of that layer.
And then the Viking Age
houses were literally dug
into the ground and
lined with stonewalls,
what you see here, and then
above that, at ground level,
the rest of the house
would've been built
in turf and timber.
It's likely that
the Vikings dug their homes
so deep into the ground
to withstand the extreme
winds that often blow here.
And evidence of life inside
one of those homes came
to light during my visit.
Oh, wow, oh, my goodness!
Right, so we're just going
to come in here and do a bit.
That's just beautiful.
It's moments like these that
make archeology so rewarding,
discovering an unexpected find,
a forgotten part
of somebody's life.
If we start cleaning off
most of this loose around it.
- That's it, fantastic.
- That's fantastic.
This is just brilliant.
This is a Viking gaming
board that was thrown away,
that was thrown into this
rubbish pit, this midden,
that we've just found in
the corner of the trench.
And t's wonderful
to hold something
that was obviously a very
personal object to somebody,
something that they would
have enjoyed using 1,000 ago.
It looks like a board
for playing the popular
Viking game, Hnefatafl.
It's something that might
have kept people occupied
in place of looking after
crops or farming animals.
A task that would have
been impossible up here.
So their food must have been
brought in from other farms
or settlements nearby
and only someone
of the highest status
could have demanded
this of their neighbors,
perhaps a Viking
chief and his retinue.
But it does beg the question,
why live in such
a difficult spot?
The way it works
is what you see.
It's a site that is all
about seeing and being seen.
When people ask me
"Why were they here,"
when I want to give a glib
answer, it's, "To make a point."
It gives extraordinary control
of the maritime vantage
and in addition to
that, you will be seen.
So if you imagine
a large hall here
then if you're coming
into the archipelago,
you immediately know who
you have to go and talk to,
you know who's boss.
I am quite taken by this
ancient cliff-top settlement.
It seems such an
extraordinary place to live,
so wild and windy,
with these crashing
waves all around.
The men and women
who lived up here
must have been very
isolated in some ways,
but on the other hand,
they can't have survived
here on their own,
they depended on support
from people living
on mainland Orkney.
But who were they?
One of the reasons the
Vikings seem so mysterious
is that they left few
written records in Britain,
but it's wrong to think they
didn't write, they used runes.
And last year, James
found a tiny bronze strip
with a mysterious message
etched into its surface.
Professor John Hines examined
it to see if he could make
some sense of it.
It takes quite a while
getting used to it,
but once you get your
eye into these things,
you start seeing certain letters
that we're familiar with.
So if you look on it here,
we've got, see that letter,
like that, that's fairly clear.
Then there's very clearly
what we call an I, ih,
and another ka, then we've
got an ooh at the end of that.
Some letters in the
Scandinavian runic alphabet
resemble our own, and
others are more cryptic.
To make it even more difficult,
they changed over time,
and experts continue to discover
new letters and symbols.
Unfortunately, going
across all of the bits
that I can read, I just
cannot put enough together
to form coherent words
and coherent strings of words.
Interestingly, practically every
mark that we've got on that
we can identify as
being the sort of things
they were using as runes.
They've abbreviated what
they're writing rather like,
the people who are
younger than me do
when they send text messages,
- and I try and work out what.
- Viking texting.
They're actually saying there.
It's frustrating to be so
close and yet so far away
from knowing what's been
written down by this Viking,
living on the
Brough of Deerness.
A message from
Scandinavian Orkney
that we'll probably
never decipher.
The Norse archeology
that I've seen in Orkney
has shown me some of the purest
evidence of that culture,
because when the
Vikings came here,
they transplanted their entire
way of life from Norway.
And this year's research has
unearthed unexpected evidence
of this Viking lifestyle,
of how they settled and
shaped our landscape,
as well as raiding here.
Evidence like the
ivory chessmen,
carved in a Norwegian workshop.
Tangible proof of a
wealthy, forgotten kingdom.
The buried life savings
of a powerful Viking,
whose wealth connects us
to vast trading empires.
And the horrific St.
Brice's Day massacre,
when men may have been killed
just for being Scandinavian.
Through its invaders, Britain
became firmly connected
with the continent and beyond,
and archeology
helps us understand
how these outsiders came
and enriched our culture,
and ended up becoming British.
And so the digging continues.
We might be a small island,
but we've got a big history.
Everywhere you stand, there
are worlds beneath your feet.
And so, every year, hundreds
of archeologists across Britain
go looking for more
clues into our story.
Who lived here, when, and how?
There was a blade in here, here.
So he's being attacked
from all angles.
Archeology is a
complex jigsaw puzzle
drawing everything together
from skeletons to swords,
temples to treasure.
He's biting his shield.
Biting his shield, yeah.
From Orkney to Devon,
we're joining this year's
quest on sea, land and air.
We share all of the questions,
and find some of the answers,
as we join the teams in the
field, "Digging For Britain."
Throughout its history,
Britain has been divided
and enriched by
invaders from overseas.
And none have gripped
our imaginations
quite as much as the Vikings.
But how much of what we think
we know about the Vikings
is just a stereotype?
Do they really live up to
their savage reputation?
And how much did they influence
and shape British culture?
This year's archeology
is enriching
and challenging our vision
of the Vikings, with digs,
artifacts and messages
they left behind.
Wow, that is a beautiful object!
Like the fortress of a Norwegian
Viking chief in Orkney.
This cup is absolutely
extraordinary, isn't it?
The magnificent hoard
of silver buried
in a time of bloodshed.
And the victims of a
vicious nationwide massacre.
But you're suddenly
kind of connecting
with this awful moment,
which is his death.
On the Isle of Harris,
in the Outer Hebrides,
archeologists are just
starting to bring evidence
of the earliest
Vikings to light.
A team from the University
of Birmingham is digging
at a site called Horgabost.
The name itself
has a Norse origin.
A strong hint that
the Vikings were here.
Just over these dunes is one
of this season's targets.
Now, archeologists have
been digging here before
and they discovered an
Iron Age settlement.
But there is some archeological
evidence that the Vikings
were here, too.
A couple of burials
threatened by erosion seem
to have been Norse,
and small Norse finds have
been discovered as well.
But the archeologists are
really hoping that they're going
to find evidence of a
settlement, and if they do that,
it'll be the first of
its kind on Harris.
Okay, then, Alice,
what we have here
is a very interesting
Iron Age site
with a bit of a
mysterious end to it,
which we're trying to come
to terms with at the moment.
If you step this way.
Some very striking layers
- in the ground there.
- Absolutely!
The team is
being led by Kevin Colls,
and I joined them right at the
start of the digging season.
The site may hold the
key to the first contacts
between incoming Vikings
and the Gaelic people
already living here.
Will it be a story
of destruction?
What's slightly more mysterious,
and slightly more
interesting for me,
is this deposit here that's
sealing everything else.
What is that?
It's a completely
different color as well.
Completely different color.
It's almost demolition debris,
full of very late
Iron Age pottery.
- Right.
- And lots of charcoal,
lots of sort of waste material.
Sometimes
archeology works this way.
They're finding subtle glimpses
within the soil at the
time of abandonment.
The important thing
is we need to find out
when this occurred.
And that's why
we're taking samples
for carbon dating and
see if, hopefully,
see if it can be
because of the Norse,
the Norse invasion, or when
the Vikings came to the island,
and whether it sort of clashes
with this site being abandoned.
Close by, a building is emerging
that seems to be
rectangular in shape,
a style that is Scandinavian,
and unlike the roundhouses
favored by Iron Age people.
So could this be evidence
of Vikings displacing
the original inhabitants?
Now, there's a nice corner here.
- Absolutely.
- Yeah.
And there's lots
of stones in this vicinity
which suggest that the feature
is running under the dunes.
I can see some here.
Yeah, so they carry on
going backwards, possibly
- in this direction.
- Absolutely.
- There's more here.
- Yeah.
Are you going to
extend the trench back?
We will extend back and see
if we can get the full plan,
and see if it is a
rectangular house,
which would be in-line
with a Norse long house.
But so far, perhaps
the strongest evidence
of the meeting of these cultures
comes from a scattering of
objects found across the site.
So we have, the
things on this side
are late Iron Age in date.
So you've got a storage jar
or a big cooking pot
there made from ceramic.
We've also got this very
strange, it looks like a rock,
but if you feel the coarseness
of the outside edge,
when compared to the flat edge,
it's been used, and
used constantly.
Yeah, so what's
that been used for?
We suspect it's
used for working animal hides.
And that fits so nicely
in your hand, doesn't it?
- You can
- It's very tactile, yeah.
So these finds are intriguing
because they could
be later Iron Age,
- they could be Norse.
- Absolutely.
You can't really
distinguish between them.
No, you can't.
But from their
early investigations
comes the first conclusive proof
of contact with the Vikings.
A tiny scrap of
steatite, or soapstone,
a material often
imported from Scandinavia
and found in great
quantities on Norse sites
right across Britain.
But what you can say from this
fragment of soapstone bowl
is that this is
typically Viking.
Either somebody who
was already here learnt
how to make such a
thing from a Viking,
or they got it from a Viking,
or it belonged to a Viking.
Exactly, so the
Vikings were here.
Yeah.
You can see why the Vikings
might have felt at home here.
This is a landscape
that's perfectly suited
to their seafaring way of life.
You can just imagine
their longships coming in,
and then being pulled up on
these flat, wide beaches,
ready to start a
new life in a land
that's completely
surrounded by sea.
And the arrival of the Vikings
would mark the beginning
of a new phase in
this island's history,
and one that would leave
a lasting impression.
It's a history that
is still frustratingly
just below the
surface on Harris.
But I don't have to look too far
to find more
substantial evidence
of Norse culture.
Just up the road, on the
adjoining Isle of Lewis,
is perhaps the most famous and
iconic Scandinavian treasure
ever discovered in Scotland.
It was found in the 1800s, but
dates from the 12th Century,
a time when Lewis was controlled
by the kings of Norway.
Still shrouded in mystery,
it's a compendium of 93 ivory
chess and gaming pieces,
known to us as the
Lewis Chessmen.
A selection of the chessmen
has come back to Lewis
some 180 years after
they were first thought
to have been found.
They are such charismatic
little figures,
and I've been fascinated by
them since I was a child.
My grandparents had
a replica chess set.
Well, now, they're on tour,
following a new piece
of research looking
into their origins
and their story.
And it's so lovely to come
here to Stornaway to see them,
close to where they
were discovered.
The new research places the
chessmen firmly at the heart
of the once powerful but now
forgotten Kingdom of the Isles,
a hybrid Norse Gaelic
state controlled
by the kings of Norway.
The project has been led
by Dr. David Caldwell
from the National
Museum of Scotland.
So we've got all the
characters you'd expect,
we've got kings and queens
and bishops and knights,
and who's this character here?
Right, this is a
warrior or warder,
and nowadays he's normally
represented by a tower,
he's a rook, in
other words, yeah.
Although this particular one,
as you can just see there.
- He's biting his shield.
- Biting his shield, yeah.
This, in fact, I think, is one
of the key bits of evidence
that these pieces were made
in the Scandinavian world,
because that's a
reference to a cult
in the Scandinavian world,
the cult of the Berserkers.
The Berserkers were warriors
who got so high before
going into battle,
that they had to bite their
shields to hold themselves back.
Really?
And I don't think this
chessman is really a Berserker,
but I think it's the
carver, in a way,
just showing his cultural
roots, or perhaps,
gently poking fun at some
of his contemporaries
by showing that.
The finding of the chessmen
is shrouded in mystery.
Tradition has it they were
lost by a passing merchant.
But David thinks it's
possible they were owned
by an important person
living on Lewis.
Lewis was the center,
or one of the centers,
of a Scandinavian kingdom,
the Kingdom of the Isles,
which people have
now forgotten about,
but it was a very important
kingdom on a European model
which was here until 1266.
This was the year
in which the Vikings
handed the Hebrides
over to Scotland for
the sum of 4,000 marks,
ending four centuries
of Norwegian sovereignty
on the islands.
But who made these
beautiful figures?
Detailed study of their faces
has revealed that they fall
into five different types,
which suggests they were made
by five different craftsmen.
This face, this
face is beautiful.
Yeah, that's one
of my favorites.
The craftsman who made this
was exceptionally good,
and ivory is an amazingly
tough material to carve.
It must have taken
days to do this,
but just the subtlety
of the expression there.
Just the look,
and even when you move
away from the face
and you look at the
knuckles, the detail there,
you can almost
sense that the hand
is actually gripping that sword.
Those hands are
absolutely beautiful,
and the face, and the
contours of the face,
there's even a change in contour
when we go from the cheek,
down to the upper lip,
that crease between the
nose and the mouth is shown.
These figures may be stylized,
but there's every
reason to believe
they're based on
living Scandinavians.
The people who carved them
were paying attention
to authentic details.
So the clothes aren't just
figments of the imagination
of a carver, this is real attire
that is being represented.
Yes, they clearly have
a very good understanding
of what they're representing.
They understand the
different layers
of vestment a bishop is wearing,
the chasubles, the albs,
and everything else,
and they represent that
very carefully indeed.
These craftsmen probably worked
in a major center in Norway
where they could closely observe
high-status Scandinavians.
Where they may even have
had bishops or kings
as their patrons.
The Vikings came to
the Western Isles
and created a Scandinavian
state to rival
the kingdoms of
England and Scotland.
One that we've all
but forgotten about.
And we have potent
Viking legacies
in the form of amazing craftwork
that reminds us of our
shared Scandinavian genes.
But what lured the Vikings
here in the first place?
Back on Harris is another
site where the archeology
is reminding us that they
first came here to plunder.
It's a possible
medieval monastery,
the ultimate temptation
for a seafaring pirate.
History tells us that the riches
of these Christian monasteries
are what drew the
Vikings to our shores.
This site houses
a ruined chapel,
and there are traces
dating all the way back
to an Iron Age broch, or tower.
Professor John Hunter is
overseeing the excavations here.
Anyway if we get, stand here,
and we just look round here.
This is the outer
face of the broch.
- Huge stones.
- Oh, that's fantastic, yeah.
And you can see the collapse
- has just fallen in.
- Massive!
- Massively thick walls.
- The wall's
four meters thick, roughly.
If there was an
early monastery here,
you're directly on
the great sea routes,
that bring Norwegian Vikings
all the way down to Ireland,
and they would've seen this.
It would've been sweets for
the taking, it really would.
Just outside the boundary
of the possible
monastery are some graves
that might be Norse.
And the team has discovered
the first fragments
of whoever was buried here.
But is it a long-dead Viking?
Oh, okay, so as well
as these bits of bone.
- A tooth, yeah.
- A tooth, all right.
Tell us about that, then.
Where's it from?
Well, it looks
like a lower incisor,
I think, and it's very worn,
so all of the enamel on
the top has been worn down.
It's somebody who's an adult
and who's been wearing that
tooth down for many years.
- Yeah.
- That's right.
Even if these are all
that remains of a Viking,
does it necessarily prove
that he or she lived here?
Or might this be the grave
of a passing seafarer,
whose remains were
brought to shore
before the ship
continued on its way?
It's very exciting being
here with archeologists
who are trying to work out
what Harris was to the Vikings.
As part of the Hebrides,
it's on that sea route
between Shetland and
Orkney in the north,
and Ireland, places that
were all firmly part
of the Viking world.
But what about Harris?
Was it just a
stopping-off point,
were the Vikings here
only transiently,
or did they actually settle here
and put down roots, as the
place names seem to suggest?
Well, they're finding what
look like Norse buildings,
and we have that piece
of steatite as well,
which suggests that the
archeologists are just on the brink
of finding the
first hard evidence
of Viking settlement
here on Harris.
In England, there's one city
that boasts more evidence
of Viking occupation than
anywhere else in Britain,
York, or Jorvik.
The first Viking to take the
city was Ivar the Boneless,
a Danish Viking leader
and reputed Berserker.
Jorvik became the capital
of his new Danish
territory in 866 AD.
For the next 20 years,
the Danes continued
with their aggressive expansion
until the English
king, Alfred the Great,
drew up a treaty with
the Viking king, Guthrum.
The country was sliced in two,
and the Danes were given
their own territory
in the north and east,
the Danelaw, with
York at its heart.
Even though they only
ruled here for 100 years,
York is very much still
associated with the Vikings.
And an excavation in the
'70s here at Coppergate,
dragged York's Viking
past into the present
in a very vivid way.
Now all of that archeology
is sealed beneath
these shops and cafes.
But there's a current
excavation going on
in another part of the
city not far from here,
and again we're starting
to see the buried
history of this city.
So I'm going to visit
the dig to find out
what more we can learn
about the Vikings of Jorvik.
Archeologists have been working
in an area called Hungate
in the center of the
city for 4 1/2 years.
It's a huge, multi-layered
excavation, but right now,
the archeologists are
almost three meters
below today's ground level,
and digging what I'm interested
in, the Viking layer.
And they're revealing
that they were not just
about looting and fighting.
The Vikings were traders
and builders of cities, too.
Once the Vikings had taken
York, they stayed here,
bringing up families
and blending
with the city's
previous inhabitants,
creating a unique culture
known as Anglo-Scandinavian.
And they remained even
after the last Viking king
had been expelled,
expanding their town
and putting up huge,
permanent buildings.
So are you into the
final phase, really?
Yeah, this is the
very final part.
Peter Connelly
is running excavations here
for the York
Archeological Trust.
It's landscape archeology,
it just happens to be
in an urban environment.
Yeah, most of
the buildings here sit
on an organized grid
layout, unexpected evidence
that the Vikings had a
talent for urban planning.
The land here slopes
gently down to the river,
making it an ideal loading
and unloading spot.
These buildings were
probably storage warehouses.
And right in the middle
of these structures,
the Vikings built something
that would have been
totally indispensable.
Now the stuff that I'm
digging through at the moment
is effectively human
waste, it's poo.
'Cause what I'm sat
in at the moment,
it's the remains of a
Viking toilet or cess pit.
All the bits of animal
bone that we're finding
in here as well,
it's been used as a general
rubbish pit as well.
Although the majority
of it is human waste,
you are getting other bits
and pieces in here as well.
But fortunately,
it's not just rubbish
that's come out of
the ground at Hungate.
Over the 4 1/2 years
that the archeologists
have been working here,
they've turned up
thousands of artifacts
from the Viking period.
Most of them are
pottery and bone,
and represent household waste.
But there is a handful
of intriguing small finds
which provide us
with additional clues
as to what the Vikings were
doing in this part of the city.
The finds researcher at
York Archeological Trust
is Nicky Rogers.
So, Nicky, this is a
collection of finds
that are all from the
excavation at Hungate?
They are, they're a
fraction of what we've found
over the five years that
we've been excavating there.
We've found over 12,000
individual artifacts.
What's this here?
Well, actually,
this is a jet pendant.
It's quite sweet, I think,
because the hole, well,
it's a bit off-center.
I like the shape of it.
- That's quite modern-looking.
- It's very, yes.
- Thing isn't it?
- Well, it is,
but that's a very typical
shape of the period in fact.
So where
would that have come from,
the jet for that, do you think?
Probably from Whitby,
yes, from the north coast.
Yeah, what about these beads,
are these amber?
This is all amber here.
So where would
that have come from,
that amber, do you think?
That's going to have
come from the Baltic area.
So the Vikings living
in Hungate imported
high-quality material.
Their trade routes stretched
hundreds of miles away
across the Scandinavian world.
But they also used
less exotic material
to turn out huge
numbers of an item,
that's a little more surprising.
Well, these are actually skates.
- Really?
- Yes.
They're effectively
very easy to make
because the bone is already
that size, that shape.
Very little has to be done
to it to turn it into
So what is the
bone, this is a metapodial,
- isn't it, or something?
- Yes, it is.
They're usually horse
or cattle metapodials.
Right, okay.
All that's been
done to this one,
if you look at it is, well,
on the bottom it's been
flattened and smoothed,
so that's a very
smooth, flat surface.
And that's
been deliberately done.
That has been deliberately done.
Your foot would
have sat on here,
your heel there, your toe there.
You weren't able to take
your foot off the ice,
so you were pulled
yourself along with poles.
So they're not ice dancing,
they're not pirouetting round,
they're keeping their
feet on the ground,
using them like
cross-country skis.
That's it.
These simple bone
objects connect us
to customs imported from
the frozen Norse homelands.
The archeology of Hungate,
the buried evidence of
people who lived here
in Jorvik 1,000 years ago,
is not about monumental remains.
We're not looking at
the elite of society,
but we're getting
an insight instead
into the lives of
ordinary people,
as they started to
plan their town.
And we see how they adapted
their buildings to suit the land
and the specific purpose
they wanted them for.
These people lived in York
but they kept a connection
with their
Scandinavian homeland,
through the objects that
they bought, used and wore.
And, in a very real
way, 1,000 years ago,
they were laying the foundations
of the York that we see today.
While in York, the Vikings
and Anglo-Saxons learnt
to get along, throughout
the rest of England,
their relationship
remained uneasy.
Although pockets of Danes
lived and traded here,
they hadn't gained
a permanent foothold
and full-scale Danish raids
continued along the coast.
The English king,
Aethelred the Unready,
was repeatedly forced
to pay them off
with huge sums of money
known as danegeld.
And the growing tension
between these clashing nations
led to a horrific act, the
St. Brice's Day massacre.
But the perpetrators of this
slaughter were not Vikings,
they were Anglo-Saxon.
And what's more, the
murder was sanctioned
by King Aethelred.
He decreed that.
"All the Danes who had sprung up
in this island, sprouting
like cockle amongst the wheat,
"were to be destroyed by a
most just extermination."
Some of the victims
of this extermination
may now have been
discovered by archeologists
in a pit in Oxford.
The skeletons of at least 35
people lay in a mass grave,
where they'd been dumped
1,000 years before.
It is very rare that
archeologists get the chance
to examine evidence from a
particular historical event,
and one that the scholars
agree did actually happen.
But I'm interested in the
analysis of these bones.
Do the bones show
evidence of violence,
could they indeed represent
the victims of this massacre?
Osteologist Ceri Falys has
been examining their remains
for signs of trauma.
This was actually the
first skeleton we found,
but it wasn't until we placed
his skull back together,
'cause it was in
hundreds of fragments,
that we actually saw the trauma.
- There's at least 10.
- Oh, my goodness.
10 blade wounds.
So there's a blade wound here,
here, there, so that's three.
There's a glancing wound here.
And what about these
little triangular holes?
They're puncture
wounds, made by maybe a spear,
or something like that.
It is awful, isn't it?
You hold these bones and these
are the bones of somebody
who died a very long time ago,
but you're suddenly
kind of connecting
with this awful moment,
which is his death.
Radiocarbon dating has
shown that these people died
between 998 and 1019 AD,
which means it's
possible they were killed
on St. Brice's Day, 1002,
the day the Anglo-Saxons
turned on the Danes.
And he also has two
puncture wounds to his back.
There's one there and
one a bit farther down.
So these are
quite tiny puncture wounds
into the spine.
What do you think they
could have been caused by?
Possibly by a spear,
something being thrust
rather than thrown.
Yeah, so just the tip of
a spear being pushed in.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
Again, a young man, hacked
to death, horrendous.
Most of these men were
between 16 and 25 years old
when they died.
Incredibly, the next skeleton
I'm shown is that of a man
whose murder was even more
vicious than the last.
His ear, just behind his
ear has been sheared off.
Oh, yeah, so straight through
that mastoid process, that
chunk of bone behind the ear.
The side of his mandible
has been sheared off.
So there's evidence
of blade injury here as well.
Yeah, there's two
definite blade wounds
on that side of the jaw.
He's got four wounds
to his upper neck.
So that's been chopped through.
- As you can see, yeah.
- Yeah.
And the dens itself.
So chopping through
just underneath the ear,
taking off the angle
of the mandible
and the blade carrying on
through and cutting into
- Into the neck.
- The vertebrae of the neck.
Yeah.
Other parts
of this man's skeleton
show further signs of the
frenzied nature of the attack.
He has three
punctures to his pelvis.
There's two small wounds there.
But they've actually
come in from the back.
You can see these very
square-shaped puncture wounds,
which have gone all the
way through the bone.
So these are the
tips of a weapon of some kind,
which are pushing all
the way through to here.
Yeah.
So he was attacked
from the back there,
so on the left side,
somebody stabbed him just
above the hip, from the back,
and then he's also been speared
or stabbed through
from the front,
as well, from about
here, going in
and then hitting his pelvis
as it passes backwards.
So he's being attacked
from all angles.
All angles.
And if the multiple stab wounds
weren't enough to
finish this man off,
for good measure,
he was set on fire.
His forehead has been burnt,
which accounts for the missing
bone in the middle, and also
- his hand has been charred.
- Oh, yeah!
Is this the only skeleton
who has signs of burning?
No, quite a few of
them have got charring.
- Yeah.
- It's mostly to their heads,
their pelvises and their hands.
Ceri, were
you shocked when you got
these bones cleaned up
and into the laboratory
at how much violence there
was represented on them?
Very shocked, I've never
seen anything like this before.
Yeah.
And just to have so many
different weapons used
on one individual.
These skeletons bore none
of the wounds you'd
expect to find
on people who tried
to defend themselves,
so it's likely that they were
murdered whilst running away.
But were they Vikings?
Isotope analysis
was not conclusive,
but did show their diet
was rich in seafood,
suggesting they did at least
live a Viking way of life.
And then they may have been
hunted down and killed for it.
So what can we say for certain?
We have over 30 skeletons,
all of them men,
all showing signs
of extreme violence.
Whilst we can't be sure
that they were the victims
of the St. Brice's Day massacre,
the types of injury and
the date of the skeletons
makes it at least possible.
These young men were cut down,
were hacked to death in
a frenzy of violence.
And 1,000 years on, this mass
murder is still shocking.
Through trauma analysis,
archeology has allowed us to
explore the awful possibility
of the Vikings as victims.
But a different kind of
archeological discovery
has opened a window onto life
for a Viking whose
luck had run out.
Every now and then,
metal detectorists turn
up interesting objects,
which have been
lost, or abandoned,
or even deliberately
buried by their owners,
and then they've laid
hidden in the ground
for hundreds of years.
But it's extremely unusual to
find a collection as diverse,
and which illustrates as
many different aspects
of a past society,
as the hoard I'm
about to see now.
It's one of the most
important Viking finds
of the last 150 years, and
it's so rich in content
that experts are still
writing up their findings.
It's currently on display
at the Yorkshire Museum.
So this is it, this is
the Vale of York Hoard.
It was found four years ago
by a father and son
metal-detecting team.
And it really is an astonishing
collection of silver objects
with one piece of gold.
But what's really
amazing is that most
of those objects were
found inside that cup.
It really is spectacular
and beautiful,
but what I want to know
is can we learn anything
of any real archeological
significance from these objects?
And, given what we know
about this period of history
in this area, might we be able
to get an idea of the person
who had this sort of
wealth in their possession?
The hoard comprises 617 coins
and 67 pieces of silver,
including items of jewelry.
All objects which have
a great deal to tell us
about the Scandinavian world
at the time of their burial.
This cup is absolutely
extraordinary, isn't it?
Yeah, it's, I think, it's
probably the finest thing
in the hoard all on its own.
It's a gilt silver cup,
so it's silver and it's
been gilded with gold.
It was also decorated
with niello,
which is a kind of
alloy that's black.
So when this was first
made it would have been,
if you think of a wasp,
but kind of quite gaudy
yellow and black contrast.
So the detail would have
showed up amazingly well.
- Would you like to hold it?
- I'd love to hold it.
If you sit it in your hand,
it kind of gives you
a real good impression
of what this might've
been used for
when it was originally made.
It feels like a cup which wants
to be passed on
to somebody else.
What do you think
it was used for?
Given the way that you
hold it in both hands,
the fact that it's been gilded
and it may have had a lid,
we think it could be an
ecclesiastical vessel,
something that was
used in a monastery.
So it's possible that this cup,
which experts believe came
from the Frankish Empire,
fell into Viking hands as
loot or in payment of tribute.
It was made in the
mid-9th Century,
predating the rest of the
objects in this collection
in this collection.
But it presumably had a
lot of special significance
and meaning because it
lasted another 100 years,
so I presume it was passed
down through the family,
and then came to hold the
contents of this hoard.
This object gives
us a rare insight
into the mind-set of a Viking.
As an heirloom, it
connects him back
to his adventuring ancestors
and their ill-gotten gains.
But not all of the items
in this hoard had
sentimental value.
So what about these objects
that were inside it?
Are these pieces of jewelry
typically Viking in nature?
They are, yes.
This is by far the
most spectacular.
That's the only
gold piece, isn't it?
This is the only gold
piece in the hoard.
If you'd like to hold it.
Gosh, that's heavy!
It is, it's
quite a chunky thing.
This single piece is a
marker of extreme wealth.
Finding gold in Viking
hoards is exceptionally rare.
Only someone of the
highest social standing
would have had access to it.
And there are some
complete items of jewelry,
but then there seem
to be lot of pieces.
This bit in particular.
That just looks like
a brooch or something
- that's been cut in half.
- It does.
And this is very typical of
the way the Vikings did things.
They had a lot of what
we call hack silver.
The Viking economy
was based on the barter
and exchange of silver.
It was highly prized by
the Vikings and valued
by its weight and purity.
Before being chopped up
and used as currency,
silver could be worn and
transported as jewelry.
This is what we call
a penannular brooch.
If you think of this as
the terminal at one end.
- Yeah.
- It would thin out,
come in a big spiral,
and then fatten out again
- at the other end.
- Right.
And you would have a huge
pin through the middle.
And that would sit on your cloak
to keep your cloak together.
And this is a particularly
beautiful example.
It's got these lovely
little roundels
and this really delicate,
interlaced pattern.
Yeah, and actually,
it's made of little,
it looks like little beasts,
which are kind of chasing
their tails around.
Absolutely, very popular
in Viking iconography,
these little beasties.
The Vikings traveled
thousands of miles
across vast, sweeping trade
routes to get their silver.
And some pieces
within this hoard
connect the Vikings
here in Britain
with trading centers as far
away as the Islamic world.
Well, that looks like
Arabic script on there.
It does, this is called a dirham
and it's Islamic coin.
- It really is?
- It is,
and it comes from Afghanistan.
Wow, so this is evidence
of Vikings trading
all the way over
to the Middle East.
Absolutely, yeah.
One other coin here sheds light
on the moment this
hoard was buried.
It's a coin of the
English king, Aethelstan,
minted in 927 AD, just
after he captured York
from the Vikings.
And judging by the lack
of wear on its surface,
it was placed in the
ground almost immediately.
And if you look very closely,
you'll be able to
see that this coin
actually has the
words "Rex To Brie,"
so R-E-X, T-O, B-R-I-E.
Oh, yeah, yeah, I can see that.
And that basically
means king of all Britain.
So this coin
proclaims Aethelstan
as the king of all Britain.
So he used this coin to say
that he'd got rid
of all the Vikings,
and he'd unified the country
and made it into one kingdom.
But although the English
king stamped his identity
on his coins,
the name of the person who owned
these riches is lost to us.
All we have are the
clues passed down
by his cherished possessions.
This hoard of beautiful objects
raises the tantalizing
possibility
that what we're looking
at is the treasure,
the life savings
of a man whose days
amongst the ruling classes
in Northern England
are numbered.
And the hoard dates
from precisely the time
when there's this
changeover of power
between the Vikings
and the Anglo-Saxons.
So are we looking at
a Viking running away
and burying his
wealth for safety?
All that we can be sure about
is that he never
returned to dig it up.
Govan in Glasgow might
seem like an unlikely place
to come looking for
Viking archeology,
but I'm here to
see what is perhaps
the most extensive
collection of Norse artifacts
from any Viking site
anywhere in rural Britain.
Now, these objects
are not treasure,
they are domestic items,
things that Viking men and women
would have used every
day of their lives,
and they're also at the
beginning of their story
because they've been excavated,
but the examination, the
interpretation of them
is very much still
a work in progress.
So what I want to find out
is the potential
of this collection
for helping us understand
Viking everyday life.
The actual material is fine,
but as you see
from the packaging.
Beverley Ballin Smith
has a huge archeological
task ahead of her.
The processing and recording
of all the small finds
from a site called the
Udal in North Uist,
the largest Norse
settlement ever
to have been excavated
in the Western Isles.
It was a monumental project,
which involved a dedicated
group of volunteers
who returned to
dig again and again
over a 30-year period,
starting in 1963.
But the significance of the site
is still only
partially understood.
I don't think I have ever
seen so many bone needles
and I imagine we're
just starting.
So you wanted to have a look at.
That little poppy one.
- Yeah, sure.
- Can we take it out?
Yeah, want to?
Ooh, look at
that, that's really lovely.
What are these made of?
I think that's a bird bone,
it's pretty, isn't it?
It's really lovely, yeah.
There are hundreds of
decorated bone pins here,
perhaps a reflection of
their value in everyday life
as something to fix a
Viking's hair in place,
or to fasten his cloak.
That's fantastic.
In a sense, all
these are lost objects.
Yes, things that have
just dropped off people.
Dropped off people
- and not been recovered.
- And they go,
"Where did that go?"
And they've trotted into the mud
and then archeologists
found centuries later, wow!
It's not unusual to find
combs in a Viking settlement.
They're commonplace
personal objects.
What's surprising
about this collection,
though, is the sheer number
of them found on one site.
Oh, that's fantastic, it's
got a little animal on it!
It's a little
horse's head, I think.
And I love these roundels,
which are obviously kind
of drilled into the bone.
I think you look
at things like this
and you have this
immediate contact
with somebody who
lived centuries ago,
and this was their
comb and you also know
that you have the same
kind of sensibilities
that I quite like to have
things that are nice.
I like to have objects which
aren't just functional,
but actually which are
quite attractive as well.
Yes,
The massive task of
excavating this site
and all the finds buried there
was effectively the life's work,
of historian and
archeologist, lain Crawford.
But unable to continue
with his task,
due to ill health, it's
now fallen to Beverley.
But he ended up amassing
a huge collection of finds
that you're still
looking through now.
So he obviously, what happened?
Did he become overwhelmed with
the amount he was finding?
I've been there myself.
When you work on a massive site
with complicated stratigraphy.
So he carried on digging,
he produced interim reports
for every year that he dug,
but then there's the next
stage of actually writing up
and getting the information
out to the public.
And I think he was
simply overwhelmed.
Even since my visit,
fresh research has suggested
the volume of beautiful combs
may be proof of a Viking
comb-making industry here.
It reinforces just how
important the research
into the Udal will
be in years to come.
It's great to see
just a small part
of this massive collection
of everyday objects.
They seem mundane in some
ways but they also show that,
just like us, the Vikings
liked to have nice things.
And it's fantastic that this
collection is being revisited.
Archeologically speaking,
there's still an enormous amount
to be learned about this site
and all the artifacts
it contained.
And there must be
people on North Uist
who remember digging at
that site in the dunes.
And I imagine it's
important to them
to know that the last
chapters in the story of Udal
are finally being written.
Off the northeastern shore
of Scotland lie the
islands of Orkney,
colonized by the Vikings
in the 9th century.
Sailing from their
Norwegian homelands,
it would have taken
the Norse longships
about a day to get here.
And when they settled for good,
the islands became the center
of Norse power in Scotland,
right up until 1469,
the last bastion of Scandinavian
authority in Britain.
Today, these islands are home
to a classic Norse
archeological find,
and also to new excavations
that are offering
tantalizing glimpses
of the Vikings in Scotland.
My first destination is the
dig currently taking place
in the east of
Orkney's mainland,
near its ancient
capital, Kirkwall.
It sits on top of a 30-meter-high
stack of sheer rock,
the Brough of Deerness,
which, even today,
is challenging to access.
This is such a wild place.
There's nothing here but
cliffs, sea and birds.
I'm walking up a path
that I can't imagine
was here 1,000 years
ago, so I do wonder
how people got across from
the land there, to the Brough.
This is such an exposed
place, it's a lovely day today
but imagine this on a
rainy, windswept day.
The Brough is totally exposed
to the legendary Orcadian winds.
What an extreme place
to choose as your home.
Whether coming from the mainland
or from ships secured
in a nearby bay,
getting here can't have
been straightforward.
The old path up the Brough
has disappeared into the sea.
So we're now coming up
through the original
- entrance to the site?
- That's right, exactly.
Can we go and have a look at
- Yeah, of course, we can.
- Some of the archeology
that you're exploring?
There was once a settlement
of around 30 Viking
houses up here,
and Dr. James
Barrett and his team
are excavating one
of them this season.
So would this have been
the original doorway?
This is the original
doorway of the phase
that we're excavating right now.
So there was a settlement
here before the Vikings came,
and the ground
level, at that point,
was at the top of that layer.
And then the Viking Age
houses were literally dug
into the ground and
lined with stonewalls,
what you see here, and then
above that, at ground level,
the rest of the house
would've been built
in turf and timber.
It's likely that
the Vikings dug their homes
so deep into the ground
to withstand the extreme
winds that often blow here.
And evidence of life inside
one of those homes came
to light during my visit.
Oh, wow, oh, my goodness!
Right, so we're just going
to come in here and do a bit.
That's just beautiful.
It's moments like these that
make archeology so rewarding,
discovering an unexpected find,
a forgotten part
of somebody's life.
If we start cleaning off
most of this loose around it.
- That's it, fantastic.
- That's fantastic.
This is just brilliant.
This is a Viking gaming
board that was thrown away,
that was thrown into this
rubbish pit, this midden,
that we've just found in
the corner of the trench.
And t's wonderful
to hold something
that was obviously a very
personal object to somebody,
something that they would
have enjoyed using 1,000 ago.
It looks like a board
for playing the popular
Viking game, Hnefatafl.
It's something that might
have kept people occupied
in place of looking after
crops or farming animals.
A task that would have
been impossible up here.
So their food must have been
brought in from other farms
or settlements nearby
and only someone
of the highest status
could have demanded
this of their neighbors,
perhaps a Viking
chief and his retinue.
But it does beg the question,
why live in such
a difficult spot?
The way it works
is what you see.
It's a site that is all
about seeing and being seen.
When people ask me
"Why were they here,"
when I want to give a glib
answer, it's, "To make a point."
It gives extraordinary control
of the maritime vantage
and in addition to
that, you will be seen.
So if you imagine
a large hall here
then if you're coming
into the archipelago,
you immediately know who
you have to go and talk to,
you know who's boss.
I am quite taken by this
ancient cliff-top settlement.
It seems such an
extraordinary place to live,
so wild and windy,
with these crashing
waves all around.
The men and women
who lived up here
must have been very
isolated in some ways,
but on the other hand,
they can't have survived
here on their own,
they depended on support
from people living
on mainland Orkney.
But who were they?
One of the reasons the
Vikings seem so mysterious
is that they left few
written records in Britain,
but it's wrong to think they
didn't write, they used runes.
And last year, James
found a tiny bronze strip
with a mysterious message
etched into its surface.
Professor John Hines examined
it to see if he could make
some sense of it.
It takes quite a while
getting used to it,
but once you get your
eye into these things,
you start seeing certain letters
that we're familiar with.
So if you look on it here,
we've got, see that letter,
like that, that's fairly clear.
Then there's very clearly
what we call an I, ih,
and another ka, then we've
got an ooh at the end of that.
Some letters in the
Scandinavian runic alphabet
resemble our own, and
others are more cryptic.
To make it even more difficult,
they changed over time,
and experts continue to discover
new letters and symbols.
Unfortunately, going
across all of the bits
that I can read, I just
cannot put enough together
to form coherent words
and coherent strings of words.
Interestingly, practically every
mark that we've got on that
we can identify as
being the sort of things
they were using as runes.
They've abbreviated what
they're writing rather like,
the people who are
younger than me do
when they send text messages,
- and I try and work out what.
- Viking texting.
They're actually saying there.
It's frustrating to be so
close and yet so far away
from knowing what's been
written down by this Viking,
living on the
Brough of Deerness.
A message from
Scandinavian Orkney
that we'll probably
never decipher.
The Norse archeology
that I've seen in Orkney
has shown me some of the purest
evidence of that culture,
because when the
Vikings came here,
they transplanted their entire
way of life from Norway.
And this year's research has
unearthed unexpected evidence
of this Viking lifestyle,
of how they settled and
shaped our landscape,
as well as raiding here.
Evidence like the
ivory chessmen,
carved in a Norwegian workshop.
Tangible proof of a
wealthy, forgotten kingdom.
The buried life savings
of a powerful Viking,
whose wealth connects us
to vast trading empires.
And the horrific St.
Brice's Day massacre,
when men may have been killed
just for being Scandinavian.
Through its invaders, Britain
became firmly connected
with the continent and beyond,
and archeology
helps us understand
how these outsiders came
and enriched our culture,
and ended up becoming British.
And so the digging continues.