Archaeologists have found traces of a Viking ship and a large number of burial mounds and longhouses in southeastern Norway, newspaper Aftenposten reported Monday.
The discoveries were made in Norway’s Ostfold County by the archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU).
“This is one of the best things an archaeologist can find,” said Dr. Knut Paasche, Head of the Department of Digital Archaeology at NIKU and an expert on Viking ships.
“This new ship will certainly be of great historical significance as it can be investigated with all modern means of archaeology,” he added.
The archaeologists used a motorized high resolution georadar and technology developed by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology (LBI ArchPro).
The method that was used can depict the underground without seriously damaging the soil.
“We have seen a so-called anomaly, which means we see one ship shape below the ground. It is the same size as the other ships we have found,” Paasche said. “It is centered in a burial mound and has a shape that you expect a ship to have. The depth also fits well. ”
There are clear indications that the ship’s keel and floor timbers are preserved in the grave. Based on other Viking ship finds the archaeologists worked out a first hypothetical reconstruction of the ship, NIKU said in a press release.
The archaeologists from NIKU are now proposing a research project to further investigate the ship, the site and the surrounding landscape with non-invasive methods before any excavations.
The three Viking ships previously found in Norway are the Gokstad ship, the Oseberg ship and the Tune ship, which are all preserved in the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo.
