The exhibition highlights how ships were not only practical means of transportation, but also powerful symbols of wealth and status in the Viking Age. Ships could accompany powerful men and women to the grave, or be sacrificed to higher powers. The exhibition is created in collaboration with the University Museum of Bergen.
The seaworthy Viking ships enabled contact with other countries — whether through chieftains leading raids, merchants trading goods, or people settling in new areas across the sea. The exhibition features, among other things, fragments of the Kvalsund ship, an archaeological find from the late 8th century, contemporaneous with the earliest known Viking raids.
