Jorvik:  Viking York

After the Romans abandoned Eboracum/York (and England in general) in the early 5th century, Eboracum became known as its Saxon name of Eoforwic to the remaining local populace.  However, our understanding from a historical museum is that the people of that era preferred more rural settings rather than towns so Eoforwic was not the bustling town it was during Roman times.

In 866, the Vikings came to Eoforwic and settled here, renaming the city Jorvik.  The Vikings in this area were mainly a peaceful settlement.  There were traders, craftsmen and craftswomen, farmers, merchants, etc.  They also enhanced the Roman walls, burying the existing Roman walls under earthen ramparts and building wood palisade walls above to extend the height of the walls up higher.

Learning about this settlement we were surprised by how advanced, civilized, and peaceful they were.  Especially as Jon and I love the Last Kingdom, and in general every Viking show on TV these days shows the Vikings as uncivilized, brutish, invading hordes.

Decades ago they were doing excavation work in York when they stumbled upon a huge amount of Viking remains from this settlement.  You can still see some of the original excavations and treasures in two of the museums, Jorvik and DIG.

Jorvik is on a street called Coppergate, which, despite how it sounds, has nothing to do with copper.  It’s translated to the street of the cup makers.  There’s a fun saying that in York the streets are gates, the gates are bars, and the bars are pubs.  Gate comes from a word that means street, though the exact details of this escape me.

When you walk into Jorvik, you see a glass floor with remains beneath.  Some are re-created, some are original.  From these remains and other treasures taken from the site, they were able to re-create much of the Viking settlement.  You proceed into a little multimedia pod, select your language, and listen to the fascinating history and information about the Viking settlement as it moves along the ceiling-mounted track to take you through the settlement.  As you get off the ride, you walk through the museum of preserved artifacts.  You can listen to informative talks and watch them mint Viking coins from a re-created coin mould.

This museum was fascinating and we went in a couple of times.  The construction of the buildings, the weavers at their looms, the dying of the fabrics with rich, bright, beautiful colours, the various craftsmen creating combs, cups, hides, etc, the bustling market with stalls selling fish, vegetables, bread, etc. the children playing games such as Hnefeltafl, the outdoor latrines, the storytellers, the boat builders, the priests, and probably so much more I’m forgetting.  It was vast and extensive.  Further, two of the replicas of people in the recreated settlement were recreated from skeletons they found on the site.  We were astonished at the amazing and bustling little settlement from the past.  We also loved seeing all the amazing artifacts on display, including the skeletons!

Outside Jorvik, they regularly had Viking-clad men and women teaching passersby how to play traditional games, make broaches, and learn more about Viking times.  The girls LOVED learning how to play the games, especially Hnefeltafl.  Essentially you have one person with their army trapped in the centre of the board, and the other person has an attacking army surrounding them on all four sides.  The person being attacked needs to get their leader out to the corner of the board without being captured, while the attacking army is trying to capture said leader.  It reminded us a little of chess, which is one of the girls’ favourite games.  We already have plans to buy Hnefeltafl when we get home!

We also loved going to DIG, which is an archaeological museum affiliated with the Jorvik Museum.  They have tons of artifacts and you sit and learn a little about some of them before going to get your hands dirty with a trowel as you dig through four recreated archeological sites.  There is a Roman, Viking, Medieval, and Victorian-era dig site where you dig and uncover treasures.  These are all re-created from actual archaeological sites from York to give perspective to what the archaeologists found in this magnificent city.  The girls love to dig in the sand, and though this was pulverized rubber to keep the mess down, they still loved getting in there and seeing what they could uncover!

The building that DIG is housed in is also stunning, being a 1000-year-old de-consecrated church, complete with a graveyard.  This was a museum we went into more than once, as well.  And even went here to DIG After Dark at Halloween, where we sat outside in the graveyard around a campfire, listening to ghost stories, some from the Viking days.

There were a few things we found especially interesting about the Vikings:

• First and foremost how advanced and peaceful they were.  Maybe they earned their bloody reputation in some places, but apparently not in Jorvik! 
• We found it fascinating to learn that they highly valued silver but had no interest in gold. 
• The number of remaining oyster shells everywhere was astonishing to us.  It looked like they were a huge staple in their lives, even using the shells to grind up and use as a form of cobblestone walkways.
• Personal hygiene was important to them.  The most prized possession Vikings could own was a comb, and it was a sign of prestige to have a really nice comb.  They carried them with them, hanging from their belts to show them off.
• How quickly they converted from their pagan roots of worshipping the Viking gods to Christianity.  Again, we were biased by TV in this respect, and maybe Jorvik was an anomaly, but the Vikings adapted to Christianity very quickly in this settlement.

It was amazing to get such visual and hands-on history with the recreated Viking settlement and the hands-on archaeological dig site.  Those really left a lasting impression on all of us, especially the girls.  More-so than just walking through a museum and looking at artifacts!  We also really enjoyed the Viking pub in the city centre, Valhalla, which had some delicious food and drinks and great ambiance!