Viking warriors from the Jorvik Viking Festival

Three Viking warriors in a reenactment from the Jorvik Viking Festival (2012).

Reenactors and creators of the helmets, armour, clothing etc, are unknown: kudos to them for their marvelous work.

Raiding on DNA to explore Vikings’ genetic roots

Republication from  national geographic

Image credit: Wikimedia commons

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By Erin Blakemore

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While our modern ideas of these ancient seafarers paint a very homogenous picture, their reality was decidedly diverse.

In popular imagination, Vikings were robust, flaxen-haired Scandinavian warriors who plundered the coastlines of northern Europe in sleek wooden battleships. But despite ancient sagas that celebrate seafaring adventurers with complex lineages, there remains a persistent, and pernicious, modern myth that Vikings were a distinctive ethnic or regional group of people with a “pure” genetic bloodline. Like the iconic “Viking” helmet, it’s a fiction that arose in the simmering nationalist movements of late 19th-century Europe. Yet it remains celebrated today among various white supremacist groups that use the supposed superiority of the Vikings as a way to justify hate, perpetuating the stereotype along the way.

Vikings didn’t just murder monks and pillage monasteries – they helped spread Christianity too

Republication from /theconversation.com/

By Caitlin Ellis

Stipendiary Lecturer in Medieval History, University of Oxford

Vikings are often seen as heathen marauders mercilessly targeting Christian churches and killing defenceless monks. But this is only part of their story. The Vikings played a key role in spreading Christianity, too.

Norse mythology has long captured the popular imagination and many today have heard stories about the pagan gods, particularly Odin, Thor and Loki, recently reimagined in Marvel’s comic books and movies. Some now even follow reconstructed versions of these beliefs, known as Ásatrú (the religion of the Aesir).

100 Viking swords found in Estonia are the largest discovery to date

Republication from Norway today

Viking swords in Wikimedia commons

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By: Lara Rasin

Scandinavia is an archeological hotspot when it comes to Viking discoveries.

But there’s another Northern European area that has been especially important for Viking finds, too: the Baltic region – and Estonia in particular.

Kievan Russian warriors, 9th-11th centuries

A reenactment of an onslaught of Kievan Russian warriors (9th-11th centuries). Reenactors and creators of the weapons, shields, helmets etc, are unknown: kudos to them for their fine work.