The exhibition highlights how ships were not only practical means of transport, but also powerful symbols of wealth and status in the Viking Age. Ships could accompany powerful women and men to the grave or be sacrificed to higher powers. The exhibition is created in collaboration with the University Museum of Bergen.
Bergen Maritime Museum presents both fragments of West Norwegian Viking ships and ship models, as well as weapons, beautiful jewelry, essential farming tools, and, not least, imported objects that tell stories of contact with foreign lands and peoples. All items were found in boat graves.
The seafaring Viking ships enabled contact with other lands—whether through chieftains leading raids, merchants trading goods, or people settling in new territories across the sea. The exhibition includes fragments of the Kvalsund ship, an archaeological find from the late 8th century, contemporaneous with the earliest known Viking raids.
We showcase Viking burial practices involving boat graves and the grave goods that powerful women and men were buried with. Great resources were invested in building clinker-built boats and producing sails. One exhibit features a woman’s grave from Sogn, which included various tools used in sail-making.
