Ladbyskibet, Funen and Islands, Denmark

5David N 5:00 PM Jul 29, 2013

Viking burial site
Fascinating site. It appears to be a small farmhouse with fields around it, and that is what was there when in the 1920s a farmer discoered that a small hill on his land was actually a burial mound, where an important Viking leader was buried 1000 years ago. His boat was pulled up from the fjord below, and he was laid out in it, along with a few slaughtered horses, dogs, weapons, and apparently one servant (dead or alive?), burned and buried. What has been recovered here is unusual and a bit hard to descibe, but rather like the negative of a photograph. The site is dark and a little spooky. Meanwhile, local craftsmen are busy building an exact and full sized oak repiica, whose progress I have viewed several times in the last year. It will be launched in about a year. The museum itself has maps, artifacts, and information on the Vikings to put this site into a larger context. The whole thing can be seen in about an hour, but you do need a car to get there, unless you are on a cycling holiday, in which case it is a great place to go on the way to Kerteminde.

4Ralph R 5:00 PM Jun 11, 2013

Back in Time Nearly 2000 Years
During a visit to Denmsrk in May 2013, my wife and I greatly enjoyed our visit to the Ladby Viking Shjp Grave and Museum.. It gave us a sense of the courage the Vikings had in sailing the oceans in an open boat with relatively little free board and one sail and some 32 strong oarsmen to move it.. I wondered how the heavy ship was pulled up the slope from the Fjord and concluded in my mind that it was by the eleven horses which were buried in the Boat along with the Captain. The actual buried old boat was hard to discern when you first enter the glass enclosed underground chamber until your eyes adjust to the lighting. I was impressed with the manner that a creative engineer had stabilized the preservation of the boat. At the Museum Site , the construction of a replica of the boat to scale was fascinating and the description of how the oak logs were split and the method of fastening the lapstreak type hull with iron rivets was most interesting.. I took several pictures of the boat under construction and read about its dimensions as an exact replica of the dimensions of the buried Ladby Viking Boat. Finally, we enjoyed the Museum itself with the friendly attendant and my wife purchased a small necklace replica of the Viking boat and I purchased a Viking boat and sailed it all the way back from Denmark to Palm Harbor Florida ( in a little box on the SAS flight home ! ) Thanks to Klaus Petersen for taking us to this historic site which we greatly enjoyed and recommend to all Ralph and Millie Roberts Palm Harbor Florida USA