Viking Age

The Viking Age, conventionally 793 to 1066 CE, was the period of Norse seafaring expansion from Scandinavia in raiding, trading, and settlement. Sailing the longship and the cargo-carrying knarr, the Norse raided and settled across the British Isles, Normandy, and the North Atlantic, founded Iceland and Greenland, reached Vinland in North America around 1000, and traded down the Russian rivers to Byzantium. The era’s ships, known from the Oseberg, Gokstad, and Skuldelev finds, define early medieval maritime technology.