Vikings had home windows — normally solely related to medieval church buildings and castles — which means Norsemen dignitaries sat in rooms lit up by apertures with glass
ByJAN M. OLSEN Related Press
On this handout picture launched on Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023, Senior Researcher on the Nationwide Museum of Denmark Mads Dengso Jessen holds a window glass fragment from the Viking Age, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Sept. 8, 2023. Over the previous 25 years, archaeologists have discovered glass fragments in six excavations in southern Sweden, Denmark and northern Germany and have analyzed fragments of glass panes to succeed in the conclusion: Vikings had home windows with glass-panes. (John Fhær Engedal Nissen/The Nationwide Museum of Denmark through AP)
The Related Press
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Vikings had home windows — normally solely related to medieval church buildings and castles — which means Norsemen dignitaries sat in rooms lit up by apertures with glass, Danish researchers stated Thursday. The glass panes will be dated from lengthy earlier than the church buildings and castles of the Center Ages with which glazed home windows are related, they stated.
“That is yet one more shift away from the picture of unsophisticated barbaric Vikings swinging their swords round,” stated Mads Dengsø Jessen, a senior researcher with the Nationwide Museum in Copenhagen.
Over the previous 25 years, archeologists have discovered glass fragments in six excavations in southern Sweden, Denmark and northern Germany.
In Copenhagen, 61 fragments of glass panes have been analyzed and researchers concluded that the items of glass will be dated from lengthy earlier than the church buildings and castles of the Center Ages and that Vikings had home windows with glass panes between 800 and 1100. The Viking Age is taken into account to be from 793 to 1066.
“We solely related early window glass with the Center Ages, subsequently assuming that the glass couldn’t originate from the Viking Age,” the Nationwide Museum stated in a press release. The glass fragments “will be dated to the Vikings Age and most definitely will need to have been in use in that point interval as properly,” stated Torben Sode, a conservator with the museum who first linked the dots.
The museum stated glass home windows have been for the higher echelons of society and non secular use, as was the case in the remainder of Europe. Dengsø Jessen stated there might have been glass home windows within the Vikings’ huge corridor buildings. They weren’t giant, clear home windows as we all know them immediately, however in all probability smaller home windows, presumably composed of flat pane glass in numerous shades of inexperienced and brown. The concept was not to have the ability to look out, however to create a colourful influx of sunshine into the constructing.
The museum stated “it’s most definitely that the Vikings acquired (the glass) via commerce.” The Norsemen often known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest and buying and selling all through Europe. Additionally they reached North America.
“In actual fact, we’re speaking a couple of cultivated Viking elite with royal energy that equaled that, for instance, of Charlemagne, king of the Franks. That is one thing that’s usually omitted within the simplistic Hollywood portraits of Vikings,” Dengsø Jessen stated.
