Nordic Iron Age Vessels

Nordic Iron Age vessels are the boat finds documenting Scandinavian shipbuilding before the Viking sail, principally the Hjortspring boat (Denmark, c.350 BC) and the Nydam boats (c.AD 310 to 320). The Hjortspring is a paddled, sewn-plank war canoe deposited as a weapons sacrifice; the Nydam oak boat is a 23-meter clinker-built rowing vessel with iron rivets and oars but no mast. Both were recovered from bog deposits. They trace the line from paddled and rowed craft toward the keeled sailing longship of the eighth century.