"Vikings' home reveals extent of their wanderlust" 

 Archaeologists working in the area still known as Vikin, south of Oslo,
 have uncovered the remains of one of the Vikings' first towns - and of
 the palace and sacrificial temple of the king who ruled it. The town,
 near the modern Norwegian town of Larvik, was founded in the 780s. 

 Persian rock crystal jewellery, Islamic silver coins, Baltic amber,
 cornelian and amethyst beads from southern Russia and India, pottery
 from France and the Rhineland, Italian glass, and ... silver from
 England have all been unearthed as part of a £2m archaeological
 investigation being carried out by Oslo University archaeologists
 at the site of the ancient Viking town of Kaupang.

 As the only known town in 9th century Viking Norway, the town was the
 probable power-base of the famous Viking royal dynasty - the Ynglingas,
 the putative descendants of the Norse God Yngvi-Freyr, the Shining One,
 a popular Viking deity who owned a supernatural sword, a magic ship and
 a flying chariot pulled across the heavens by a shining golden boar.
 Some traditions even associate that dynasty and Kaupang with Harald
 Finehair, the 9th century king who began the unification of Norway. 

 What was probably the Ynglingas's original palace has been discovered
 by the Oslo archaeologists just half a mile from Kaupang. Excavations
 are revealing the remains of a partly stonepaved hall-house, 33 metres
 long and 11 metres wide, with massive curved boat-like walls. It was
 built on a man-made 300 cubic metre stone and earth platform located
 at the top of a 13-metre high cliff. Such a platform building has never
 been found in Norway before. 

 Inside the newly discovered palace, excavations are yielding pottery,
 evidence for textile manufacture and the scattered fragments of glass,
 amber and cornelian bead necklaces. Even before the town developed,
 the hall-house had probably become a royal centre and may well have
 been the palace of the famous early 8th century king, Halfdan Kvitbein
 - Half Dane the White Leg. As successive Ynglinga kings were seen as
 descendants of the god Yngvi-Freyr, their palace was also a religious
 shrine to the deity.

 The director of the excavations, Professor Dagfinn Skre of the University
 of Oslo, says the archaeological investigations around Kaupang are "showing
 the trading and raiding connections between Kaupang and the British Isles
 and other areas of Europe". 

 By David Keys, Archaeology Correspondent 
 22 February 2001
 From "The Independent" an English broadsheet

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 refs 

 www.perceptions.couk.com/laworjustice.html#Some
 Viking jury - an actual example

 www.perceptions.couk.com/reactions.txt 
 Viking jury - its ancient roots

 www.perceptions.couk.com/viking.txt 
 www.perceptions.couk.com/vikingnote.txt    
 www.perceptions.couk.com/vikingnote2.txt

 Viking divorce / `democracy', early towns / trade


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