Archaeologists have confirmed the finding of a Viking ship at Gjellestad in Østfold. The ship was part of a funeral.
We scraped away about 30 centimeters of topsoil, and six rivets emerged right away, says excavation leader and archaeologist Christian Løchsen Rødsrud to NRK.
The archaeologists started work on Monday. To TV 2, the excavation manager says that the ship now found was part of a ship burial.
It is the first Viking ship in a burial to be investigated, so this is a great rarity. It’s very fun and exciting to take part in, and it has great research potential, says Rødsrud.
The Cultural History Museum (Kulturhistorisk) at the University of Oslo and the county conservator in Østfold are behind the surveys of the Gjellestad field. The excavation will end on September 6th.
Last year, the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (Norsk institutt for kulturminneforskning) surveyed the ground in Halden with a georadar, which showed the outline of a ship.
The three finds of Viking tombs earlier in this country are the Tune ship at Fredrikstad in 1867, the Gokstad ship at Sandefjord in 1880 and the Oseberg ship at Tønsberg in 1904.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
