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A section of Dublin's 900-year-old Viking city wall has been put on public view for the first time at the city council's civic offices on the Southside. When the Viking settlement site -- built in the 10th century AD near Christchurch Cathedral -- was first excavated over 30 years ago it caused huge controversy. The city wall at the time was earmarked for demolition and storage at another site but thousands of people demanded that the historically important area be preserved from a development that was designed to house the Dublin City civic offices. Measuring just under 20 metres in...

One of two people who transported a spray-painted goat that had Brett Favre's number shaved into its sides admitted Monday she tied the animal up and locked it in the trunk of her car, according to the Winona Daily News. Janelle Dorothy Riopel, 21, of St. Paul pleaded guilty to misdemeanor cruelty to animals in transportation. She was placed on unsupervised probation for a year and ordered by Judge Mary Leahy to pay a $200 fine.

An impressive Viking hoard of jewellery has made a father and son metal-detector team £1m, after being bought by two British museums. The find, which is the 'largest and most important' since 1840, was found in a field in Harrogate, North Yorkshire in January 2007. It had been buried there for more than 1,000 years. Valued at £1,082,000, the hoard was purchased by the British Museum and the York Museum Trust after two years of fundraising. The highlight of the collection is an intricately carved silver cup, estimated to be worth more than £200,000. It contains 617coins and various silver...

A man dressed as a Viking reportedly exposed his warhammer to two women at the Marriott hotel bar Saturday night. According to police reports, the two women were drinking at the bar at about 9:30 p.m. when they saw a 63-year-old Mashpee man dressed as a Viking sitting next to them. The man “lifted his skirt up exposing his genitals,” according to the report.

How to tell if you've been FReeping too longIf some, many or all of the following apply to you, you probably have been FReeping too long. You remember when you had to know basic HTML in order to form a decent post.  You remember when the entire thread had to be 86’d in order to remove a single post.  You remember when if someone forgot to close their italics, bold tags, the entire thread after that point was in bold or italics.  You remember when if a disruptor made a mess of things during the wee hours of the night,...

From the moment that they ransacked a remote priory at Lindisfarne in 793, the Vikings have had a bad press. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s entry for the year says that the raiders made “lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter”, fixing the popular image of the Vikings for the next 1,200 years. New evidence suggests that many of the Norse invaders were in fact model immigrants. Historians will try to redress the balance today at a conference at the University of Cambridge and show that the Vikings who settled in Britain and Ireland were technologically...

Editor’s note: This is the second of two parts. There are many stories of “Qalunaat,” white-skinned strangers who were encountered in Inuit occupied lands in times of old. Much of the traditional life had changed by the 1840s when Hinrich Johannes Rink went to Greenland to study geology and later became the governor of Greenland. Johannes was soon drawn to a new interest in the Inuit language and folklore, which he viewed as national treasures. He published old stories collected in 1866 “Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo” in which he included some early contact stories with the Qalunaat. In...

There are many stories of ‘Qavlunaat,’ white-skinned strangers who were encountered in Inuit-occupied lands in times of old. Stories of contact between these foreign people and Inuit were passed down the generations and used mostly to scare children to behave “or the Qavlunaat will get them.” This sparked my curiosity to explore both sides of the encounters from written records and Inuit oral legends to see if some of these events can be correlated. One must recall that these legends were passed down orally in the Inupiaq language. Inuit myths and legends of contact with other people were passed from...

THE remains of a Viking home have been discovered in York by archaeologists. York Archaeological Trust archaeologists have exposed what they believe to be a timber-lined cellar of a two-storey house, during excavations at the site of the new Hungate development, which is being built near Stonebow. The archaeologists say the home, which was uncovered about three metres below street level, would have been built in the mid to late tenth century. It appears that ships’ timbers used in the building’s construction – the first discovery of its kind in York. Hungate excavations project director Peter Connelly said: “To find...

An ancient solid silver ingot found in Stagsden is stealing the limelight at Bedford Museum. The Viking coin is the first of its kind discovered in the county and dates from AD 850-1000. It was found by treasure hunters in the north Bedfordshire village last year, but has only just been bought by the museum following lengthy examination and valuation at the British Museum in London. Jim Inglis, keeper of archaeology at Bedford Museum, said: "This is the only one to be found in Bedfordshire, and in terms of looking for Viking material in Bedford, which used to be a...

TREASURE dating back to the time of the Vikings has been found in a Bridlington field. The Viking finger ring has a silver content of 98% which, combined with its age, meets the criteria for it to be officially classed as treasure. The ring, found by Paul Rennoldson, has been sent to the British Museum in London where it will be valued. Alan Worth, chairman of the Bridlington Metal Detecting Society, said finding any items dating back to the Viking age was very rare. "The Vikings were around in about 700AD which is an incredibly long time ago," said Mr...

Every nation could be described as a manifestation of a unique trait of character and most countries furthermore nurture, give emphasize to and celebrate this national identity of theirs. Some examples of such key national characters (please DO comment if you feel inclined to); USA: Liberty Italy: Creativity France: Refinement India: Spirituality Germany: Self-discipline Finland: "Sisu" (a Finnish term meaning "To have guts") Britain: Elevatedness Denmark: "Hygge" (a Danish word meaning "Good-naturedness", of mind as well as of deed) Spain: Passion China: Cultivation Russia: Chaos - just joking, I would actually say "Heart" (in the sense of having a big...

Although “Viking” literally means “pirate,” recent research has indicated that the Vikings were also traders to the fishmongers of Europe. Stereotypically, these Norsemen are usually pictured wearing a horned helmet but in a new study published in the journal PLoS ONE this week, Jørgen Dissing and colleagues from the University of Copenhagen, investigated what went under the helmet; the scientists were able to extract authentic DNA from ancient Viking skeletons, avoiding many of the problems of contamination faced by past researchers. Analysis of DNA from the remains of ancient humans provides valuable insights into such important questions as the origin...

Newfoundland Viking site remarkableL'Anse aux Meadows likely marks the first European contact with New World -- 500 years before Columbus Jeff Lukovich , Special to The Sun More than 1,200 years ago, Vikings from Norway set out on a series of daring voyages that would eventually result in their being the first Europeans to explore the east coast of North America. In stages they established settlements in the Shetland Islands, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and finally Newfoundland and Labrador. Though we passed through an area around the capital of Nuuk, that would have been near the former Viking "Western Settlement,"...

Irish Viking trade centre unearthed Almost 6,000 artefacts and a Viking chieftain's grave have been discovered One of the Vikings' most important trading centres has been discovered in Ireland. The settlement at Woodstown in County Waterford is estimated to be about 1,200 years old. It was discovered during archaeological excavations for a road by-pass for Waterford city, which was founded by the Vikings. The Irish government said the settlement was one of the most important early Viking age trading centres discovered in the country. Its working group, which includes archaeologists from Ireland's museum and monuments service, said it was of...

Vikings acquitted in 100-year-old murder mystery By Alister Doyle Fri Apr 25, 10:06 AM ETReuters Photo: Archaeological conservationist Brynjar Sandvoll and his co-worker Ragnar Lochen (R) study the bones of a... OSLO (Reuters) - Tests of the bones of two Viking women found in a buried longboat have dispelled 100-year-old suspicions that one was a maid sacrificed to accompany her queen into the afterlife, experts said on Friday. The bones indicated that a broken collarbone on the younger woman had been healing for several weeks -- meaning the break was not part of a ritual execution as suspected since the...

Swedes find Viking-era Arab coinsThe Arab coins reveal where they were minted and the date Swedish archaeologists have discovered a rare hoard of Viking-age silver Arab coins near Stockholm's Arlanda airport. About 470 coins were found on 1 April at an early Iron Age burial site. They date from the 7th to 9th Century, when Viking traders travelled widely. There has been no similar find in that part of Sweden since the 1880s. Most of the coins were minted in Baghdad and Damascus, but some came from Persia and North Africa, said archaeologist Karin Beckman-Thoor. The team from the Swedish...

Viking treasure found on Silloth beach By Sarah NewsteadLast updated 11:28, Thursday, 27 March 2008 TREASURE has been unearthed on a Silloth beach by a man out with a metal detector. Rare find: The silver Viking handle found at SillothCarlisle Coroners’ Court heard that a silver Viking jug handle discovered at Beckfoot could be over 2,000 years old. The court heard the handle, dating back from between the first and fourth centuries by the British Museum, is made mainly from silver and is in the form of a stylised snake’s head. North and West Cumbria Coroner, John Taylor, ruled yesterday...

Viking women had sexy style Published: 11 Feb 08 17:54 CET Online: http://www.thelocal.se/9950/ Women who lived in the major Viking settlement called Birka in the 9th and 10th centuries dressed in a much more provocative manner than previously believed. When the area around Lake Mälaren was Christianized about a century later, women’s dress style became more modest, according to archaeologist Annika Larsson. Previously, it was thought that Viking ladies wore a long garment held up by braces, made of square pieces of wool whose front and back sides were contained with a belt. The characteristic decorative circular buckles, a common...

Unravelling the North West’s Viking past08 February 2008 The blood of the Vikings is still coursing through the veins of men living in the North West of England — according to a new study which has been just published. Focusing on the Wirral in Merseyside and West Lancashire the study of 100 men, whose surnames were in existence as far back as medieval times, has revealed that 50 per cent of their DNA is specifically linked to Scandinavian ancestry. The collaborative study, by The University of Nottingham, the University of Leicester and University College London, reveals that the population in...

The discovery of two massive Viking halls in Borre in Vestfold County gives archeologists reason to reassess the distribution of power in Viking Norway. Vestfold County archeologists presented finds on Wednesday that show there are two great hall buildings underneath the ground about 100 meters from the major burial mounds at Borre.

Proof of Liverpool's Viking past James Randerson, science correspondent Monday December 3, 2007 The Guardian (UK) The region around Liverpool was once a major Viking settlement, according to a genetic study of men living in the area. The research tapped into this Viking ancestry by focusing on people whose surnames were recorded in the area before its population underwent a huge expansion during the industrial revolution. Among men with these "original" surnames, 50% have Norse ancestry. The find backs up historical evidence from place names and archaeological finds of Viking treasure which suggests significant numbers of Norwegian Vikings settled in...

When Stockholm's Mayor donned a t-shirt proclaiming the city 'Capital of Scandinavia', the reaction from the neighbours was predictably indignant. Dan Boman looks at how Stockholm and Copenhagen are battling to prove who's biggest and best. For two years Stockholm has busily been marketing itself as the 'Capital of Scandinavia', in a campaign intended to mark the city out as the natural destination for foreign investment in the Nordic region. Yet not everyone has been pleased by this promotional wheeze - particularly not neighbouring Scandinavians. Now Copenhagen has upped the ante, claiming to be the Real Capital of Scandinavia.

An armada of companies has descended on New York to brand Denmark as a hotbed of creativity When Denmark’s Crown Prince Frederik rings the bell to start trading at Wall Street on Wednesday morning, he will also be making a symbolic wake-up call to America. As part of the Creative Nation trade delegation visiting the United States the Crown Prince and his wife, Crown Princess Mary, will spend the next week telling the Eastern Seaboard that there is more to Denmark than butter cookies and the Little Mermaid. Looking for an elegant evening gown? Danish design can be found at...

Dinky McDougal and I live on half of a Florida hammock, daughter and her family on the other half. I wanted my daughter to make some payments for me, left a check on the desk, door is usually unlocked anyway, and ran up to the C store at I-95. When I got back I could hear snarling and growling through the door, opened it anyway, and there he sat. He calmed right down, but, in my email I found this; "take care of it first thing in the morning. Your darn psycho cat just chased me outta your house by...

Rain uncovers Viking treasure trove Published: 14th September 2007 08:30 CET A bout of torrential rain left a surprising legacy in the garden of one Swede: a Viking treasure trove. Two coins were uncovered by the rain on the lawn of farmer Tage Pettersson, on the island of Gotland, in early August. He called in Gotland's archaeologists, who last week found a further 52 coins on the site. Most of the coins are German, English and Arabic currency from the late 900s and early 1000s. But archaeologists are most excited about the presence of six very rare Swedish coins, from...

SLAGEN, Norway (Reuters) - Archaeologists exhumed the body of a Viking queen on Monday, hoping to solve a riddle about whether a woman buried with her 1,200 years ago was a servant killed to be a companion into the afterlife. As a less gruesome alternative, the two women in the grass-covered Oseberg mound in south Norway might be a royal mother and daughter who died of the same disease and were buried together in 834. "We will do DNA tests to try to find out. I don't know of any Viking skeletons that have been analyzed as we plan to...

September 10, 2007 Builder found Vikings washed up at pubJack Malvern Archaeologists believe they have found the only intact Viking boat in Britain beneath the patio of a Merseyside pub. The 10th-century vessel was discovered in the 1930s by builders excavating the basement of the Railway Inn on the Wirral peninsula, but they covered it up because they feared an archaeological dig would disrupt their work. The boat would have been forgotten had one of the builders not reported his discovery to his son, who passed the information on to academics at Nottingham University. Stephen Harding, of the university’s archaeology...

U.S. Marines with Viking Red Section, Mobile Assault Platoon, Regimental Combat Team 2, observe an Iraqi personal security detachment fire AK-47 rifles on a firing range at Camp Gannon. The Iraqis are training to be personal security officers for local judges. Viking Red Marines Train Iraqis to Keep Judges Safe Troops employ visual cues to bridge language barrier. By Cpl. Eric C. Schwartz 2nd Marine Division CAMP GANNON, Husaybah, Iraq, Aug. 31, 2007 — It’s not news to read that politicians, famous athletes and even entertainers have bodyguards protecting them from dangerous people, but in Iraq, their judges need...

Scientists found life on Mars back in the 70s By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 6:01pm BST 23/08/2007 The soil on Mars may indeed be teeming with microbes, according to a new interpretation of data first collected more than 30 years ago. Mars could be home to “extremophiles” The search for life on Mars appeared to hit a dead end in 1976 when Viking landers touched down on the red planet and failed to detect biological activity. There was another flurry of excitement a decade later, when Nasa thought it had found evidence of life in a Mars meteorite...

More than 1,200 years ago hordes of bloodthirsty Viking raiders descended on Ireland, pillaging monasteries and massacring the inhabitants. Yesterday, one of their more mild-mannered descendants stepped ashore to apologise. The Danish culture minister, Brian Mikkelson, who was in Dublin to participate in celebrations marking the arrival of a replica Norse longboat, apologised for the invasion and destruction inflicted. "In Denmark we are certainly proud of this ship, but we are not proud of the damages to the people of Ireland that followed in the footsteps of the Vikings," Mr Mikkelson declared in his welcoming speech delivered on the dockside...

120 graves and traces of Viking houses discovered near the city of Trondheim. While most parts of Norway have experienced the wettest summer in years, the county known as Nord-Trøndelag, not far from Norway's third largest city Trondheim, has experienced extreme drought. But due to the dry summer, supposedly the driest in a century, more traces from Norway's Viking past have appeared.

Arial photo of what could be traces of Viking graves. PHOTO: NORD-TRØNDELAG LOCAL AUTHORITIES New Viking graves discovered 120 graves and traces of Viking houses discovered near the city of Trondheim.Traces of what could be a Viking Chief's hall. PHOTO: Ørn E. Borgen A reconstructed Viking Chief's hall in the cultural monuments park near the town of Hønefoss. What may be a Viking Chief's hall is among the new findings. PHOTO: Ørn E. Borgen A total of 145 antiquities have been found at 32 different places around Stiklestad in the county of Nord-Trøndelag. PHOTO: JON A. FOSSEIE While most parts...

A replica Viking ship has set sail for Dublin from the Danish port of Roskilde. It is currently crossing the North Sea, in an attempt to recreate the voyages undertaken by early Norsemen. The volunteer crew on the 30m-long (100ft) Sea Stallion from Glendalough are recording their experiences on the journey. Bad weather is already proving a major challenge. Like the vikings the crew have no shelter from the weather, no cleaning facilities and no lavatories.

ROSKILDE, Denmark - A 100-foot-long replica of a Viking longship glided out of a Danish fjord Sunday with 65 crew members determined to sail across the North Sea to Ireland. Roughly 4,000 people watched the Sea Stallion of Glendalough begin the attempt to relive the perilous journey its Viking forebear made some 1,000 years ago. The ship is billed as the world's biggest and most ambitious Viking ship reconstruction. It was modeled after a warship excavated in 1962 from the Roskilde fjord after being buried in the seabed for nearly 950 years. "The Vikings are coming back. Be prepared," skipper...

Norwegian arhaeologists are puzzled by a find which indicates an Inca Indian died and was buried in the Oestfold city of Sarpsborg 1000 years ago. The remains of two elderly men and a baby were discovered during work in a garden, and one of the skulls indicates that the man was an Inca Indian. There is a genetic flaw in the neck, which is believed to be limited to the Incas in Peru, says archaeologist Mona Beate Buckholm. The Norway Post suggests that maybe the Vikings travelled even more widely than hitherto believed? Why could not the Viking settlers in...

Swedish archaeologists have uncovered signs of a Viking precursor to Mickey Mouse. Among the objects found during excavations at Uppåkra in southern Sweden is an iron age figure bearing a strong resemblance to the classic cartoon character.

Viking graves to be re-openedA worker welded together the aluminium casket in which the Vikings' remains were re-buried in 1948. The Viking graves that contained the famous ships Oseberg and Gokstad will be re-opened in September, in an effort to gain new knowledge from the remains of the two women and one man buried in them.Grave robbers plundered the Viking mounds centuries ago. This photo was taken in 1904. These leather shoes were found in the Oseberg ship and probably belonged to the older of the two women buried with the ship. The burial mound containing the famed Oseberg ship...

ROSKILDE, Denmark - On the skipper's command, deckhands haul in tarred ropes to lower the flax sail. Oars splash into the water. The crew, grimacing with strain, pull with steady strokes sending the sleek Viking longship gliding through the fjord. A thousand years ago, the curved-prow warship might have spewed out hordes of bloodthirsty Norsemen ready to pillage and burn. This time, the spoils are adventure rather than plunder. The Sea Stallion of Glendalough is billed as the world's biggest and most ambitious Viking ship reconstruction, modeled after a warship excavated in 1962 from the Roskilde fjord after being buried...

The Secretary General of the UN has asked Sweden’s Prime Minister to send troops to Darfur as part of a future peace-keeping mission. After the meeting with Ban Ki Moon in New York on Monday, Fredrik Reinfeldt said neutral Sweden is considering whether it could create a unit with Norway to send to the Sudanese province. But he says they would need to see what the force would look like, what the security situation would be and who would be leading the mission. The Swedish Prime Minister is meeting American President George W. Bush in Washington Tuesday as he continues...

- Would this world benefit from more Viking offspring? The article: "Women in Sweden have become less "inclined to use contraceptives. Sales of the morning-after pill have been on the increase, as have the number of abortions, while fewer women are using the contraceptive pill to prevent unwanted pregnancies, Sveriges Radio reports. Apoteket, Sweden's state-owned pharmaceutical retailer, noted an 11 percent increase in sales of morning-after pills in 2006 compared to the previous year. The number of abortions was up one and a half percent on figures for 2005, while the number of women using the contraceptive pill is reported...

The sun was not necessary for Vikings to navigate, say researchers Vikings may have used a special crystal called a sunstone to help navigate the seas even when the sun was obscured by fog or cloud, a study has suggested. Researchers from Hungary ran a test with sunstones in the Arctic ocean, and found that the crystals can reveal the sun's position even in bad weather. This would have allowed the Vikings to navigate successfully, they say. The sunstone theory has been around for 40 years, but some academics have treated it with extreme scepticism. Researcher Gabor Horvath from...

Irish river find may be first discovery of Viking ship by Andrew Bushe Fri Jan 26, 5:29 PM ETAFP/Scanpix/File Photo: A replica of a Viking ship sails off Oslo in 2006. An ancient boat discovered... " DUBLIN (AFP) - An ancient boat discovered in a riverbed north of Dublin may be the first Viking longship found in the country, Environment and Heritage Minister Dick Roche said. The wreck in the River Boyne, close to the northeastern port of Drogheda, was described by Roche as potentially an "enormously exciting discovery". The vessel, nine metres (30 feet) wide by 16 metres long,...

New Viking treasures found Archaeologists have made a major discovery in Western Norway, unearthing well-preserved Viking graves from the 9th century full of riches.Glass beads covered with gold are among the items found in the Viking graves. PHOTO: JONAS HAAR FRIESTAD Workers at the excavation site are awed by what they've found. PHOTO: JONAS HAAR FRIESTAD The Viking treasures were found at Frøyland in Rogaland County. Local newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad reported Monday that items recovered from the graves indicate they belonged to wealthy Vikings of the time. In one of the graves, belonging to a woman, archaeologists found jewellery, many...

New centre will dispel Viking myths Who were the Vikings? For most people, thoughts of raping and pillaging probably spring to mind, as do images of busty women called Brunnhilda with blonde plaits and horned helmets. The Vikings sailed from the Nordic countries to Britain, Ireland, North America, Russia and even Turkey. Yet for visitors to Scandinavia and locals alike, there are currently precious few opportunities to find out the truth about the extraordinary people who spread their culture over most of the known world. This could soon change, as plans have now been unveiled to start an interactive museum...

Viking longships' last voyage strikes fear into the heart of archaeologists WALTER GIBBS IN OSLO A ROW has broken out in Norway over a decision to move three ancient Viking ships, which may not survive the journey. The University of Oslo has decided to move three longships, probably by lorry and barge, to a new museum, despite dire warnings that the thousand-year-old oak vessels could fall apart en route. A retired curator of Oslo's current Viking Ship Museum has said that the delicately preserved ships, two of which are nearly 80ft long, were almost equal in archaeological importance to the...

Probe's powerful camera spots Vikings on Mars 12:29 05 December 2006 NewScientist.com news service David Chandler The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spots Spirit's backshell and parachute (Image: NASA) After three decades lost on the Red Planet, Viking 2's backshell is spotted from space (Image: NASA) It is a feat millions of times more impressive than finding a needle in a haystack. The new Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted about a dozen spacecraft on the Martian surface and, incredibly, taken pictures of such sharpness that scientists have been able to identify individual rocks that were first photographed by the Viking landers in...

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Viking landers may have missed Martian life 22:19 23 October 2006 NewScientist.com news service Mark Buchanan and David L Chandler Viking-like studies of the sediment in Spain's Rio Tinto, which contains microbes, found no signs of life (Image: Rafael Navarro-González)The trace amount of organic matter in soil from the Atacama desert in Chile did not decompose into smaller molecules when heated to the temperatures used in Viking's GCMS experiment (Image: Rafael Navarro-González) NASA’s twin Viking spacecraft may have missed signs of life during their examination of the Martian surface 30 years ago. Researchers now say that the landers’ experiments were...

Viking ship found in Larvik Archaeologists found the remains of a ship from the Viking Age on Tuesday, in a burial mound on a farm outside the coastal city of Larvik.Knut Paasche, shown here with the famous Oseberg Viking ship, is among the archaeologists who found another Viking ship near Larvik on Tuesday. PHOTO: JAN TOMAS ESPEDAL The discovery was made during archaeological examinations of the Nordheim Farm, which is near the Hedrum Church in Larvik. The examinations were ordered in connection with the pending expansion of the cemetery around Hedrum Church, which is located a few hours' drive south...