A discovery in Dorset has shed further light on England's violent and bloody past.
Archaeologists have discovered the skeletons of 51 headless corpses near Weymouth, Dorset, where the sailing events of the 2012 Olympic Games will be held.
The skeletons are of 51 young Viking men, barely in their twenties, who were executed one by one by their English captors.
Modern Weymouth is located in what was once the heart of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex - the stronghold of King Alfred the Great and his descendants.
Justice against rogue Vikings would have been violent and swift.
The blows to the back of their necks were so fierce that the swords cut into the jaws and collarbones.
Carbon dating showed they were buried between 910 and 1030AD, a time when England (which was several Anglo-Saxon kingdoms) was being unified under Saxon kings and when Vikings from Denmark had begun a second wave of raids on the South Coast.
The first Viking raid on England occurred in 789AD when three ships from Norway sailed to Portland Bay, in Dorset, not far from modern day Weymouth. The Vikings fooled a royal official into thinking they were merchants.
Later they raided a Christian monastery that held Saint Cuthbert’s relics.
Archaeologists uncover headless corpses of 51 Vikings executed by Saxons in Dorset killing field
By David Derbyshire
12th March 2010
Daily Mail
They knelt and cowered together - a once proud and fearless band of raiders stripped and humiliated by their Saxon captors.
One by one, their executioners stepped forward, uttered a prayer and brought their axes and swords crashing down on the necks of the Viking prisoners.
The axes fell until the roadside which was sticky with blood from the decapitated corpses of the 51 men, most barely in their twenties.
Enlarge
Soon the excited crowd joined in, spearing a couple of heads on stakes, placing the rest in a neat pile and tossing the bodies into a ditch.
Now, thanks to an extraordinary piece of luck - and detective work - the massacre has been uncovered by archaeologists in a discovery that sheds fascinating new light on life in Viking Britain.
The 51 beheaded skeletons were discovered last summer near Weymouth, Dorset, during excavations for a relief road.
Over the following two months, Oxford Archaeology removed the skulls which had been placed together in one part of a pit, and the bodies which had been thrown roughly into a heap a few feet away.
A chemical analysis of teeth from ten of the men showed they grew up in countries where the climate is far colder than Britain - with one individual thought to have come from within the Arctic Circle.
Carbon dating showed they were buried between 910 and 1030AD, a time when England was being unified under Saxon kings and when Vikings from Denmark had begun a second wave of raids on the South Coast.
Oxford Archaeology project manager David Score said: 'To find out that the young men executed were Vikings is a thrilling development.
'Any mass grave is a relatively rare find, but to find one on this scale, from this period of history, is extremely unusual.'
For researchers, there is no question that the victims were Vikings. And not the Vikings who had settled and lived in Britain for generations, but almost certainly a captured raiding party.
In the heart of Anglo-Saxon Wessex - the stronghold of Alfred the Great and his descendants - justice against rogue Vikings would have been violent and swift.
The blows to the back of their necks were so fierce that the swords cut into the jaws and collarbones.
One man had wounds to his hands - indicating that he grabbed for the blade in a futile bid to save himself. Others suffered blows to pelvis, stomach and chest.
There were more bodies than skulls, leading to speculation that three dismembered heads were displayed on stakes.
Oxford archaeology bone specialist Ceri Boston said: 'It was not a straight one slice and head off. They were all hacked at around the head and jaw. It doesn't look like they were very willing or the executioners very skilled.
'We think the decapitation was messy because the person would have been moving around.
'The location is a typical place for a Saxon execution site - on a main road and a parish boundary and close to prehistoric barrows.'
Enlarge
A researcher sifts through the Viking bones found by the side of the road
Enlarge
Although a raiding party seems the most likely explanation, the men could have been caught in battle some distance away and taken to Weymouth for execution. Or they could even have been killed by a rival Viking party.
History suggests that the Viking raiders could be just as ruthless as their fearsome reputation.
The first to arrive in Britain were after loot - and they saw the undefended monasteries, with their silver-chalices, gold crosses and bejewelled books, as a soft target.
The raids - which started in Lindisfarne in Northumbria in 793AD, then one of Europe's most holy sites - sent shockwaves through the country and signalled an era of terror that would last, on and off, for more than 200 years.
The 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicle' of 793 gives us a vivid picture of Britain under attack from Viking invaders.
There, under the leadership of King Alfred, the Saxons organised themselves and pushed back - eventually dividing Britain into Wessex to the West and Danelaw to the East. By the time of the Weymouth massacre, the Saxons had regained most of their old territories and had created the first unified English kingdom.
But the birth of England was accompanied by a return of the Viking raiders, spurred on by Danish royalty back home.
Some involved a couple of boats and a few dozen men, but others involved 100 boats.
The raids ended in 1016, when the English throne was taken by the Danish King Canute (who set his throne by the sea shore somewhere on the English coast and commanded the tide to halt and not wet his feet and robes. But, needless to say, the tide failed to stop. Canute leapt backwards and said "Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws." He then hung his gold crown on a crucifix, and never wore it again).
Life in Viking times would have been tough and short.
Dr Richard Hall, director of archaeology at the York Archaeological Trust, said: 'Vikings would be the same build and height as us.
'But there would be few women over 35 because so many died in childbirth. And if you lived to 50 you were doing very well.'
Vikings - and the Saxons that some came to live alongside - were riddled with parasites.
Worms, fleas and lice were common and Vikings kept their hair meticulously groomed to remove the steady supply of nits and fleas.
Water was rarely safe to drink in the ninth and tenth centuries, and Vikings would drink weak beer, or imported wine if they were wealthy enough. Mead made with honey was also popular.
Those who settled in Britain lived in wooden long houses, with thick walls to keep them cool in summer and warm in winter.
Families slept together in the centre of the hall around a fire pit.
They ate bread, cottage cheese, milk and cured meats and fish, supplementing their diet with wild fruits, honey and nuts.
Their bowls and plates were similar to our own but they ate with a sharp-pointed knife which doubled up as a fork.
Drink was taken in horns, while spoons were often ornately carved.
The Viking raids on monasteries created the impression to many Saxons that they hated Christianity. But in reality Vikings who settled in Britain adopted the native religion very easily.
Those who did not convert worshipped a pantheon of charismatic gods.
Their most powerful was the one-eyed Odin, but the most popular was Thor - a stupid but strong god who throws lightning bolts.
Despite the popular image of legend, there is no evidence that Vikings wore horned helmets.
The myth came from the discovery of ceremonial helmets in Scandinavia.
The Danelaw
Traditionally, the earliest date given for a Viking raid is 789 when, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, three ships from Norway sailed to Portland Bay, in Dorset.
There, they were mistaken for merchants by a royal official, and they murdered him when he tried to get them to accompany him to the king's manor to pay a trading tax on their goods.
The next recorded attack, dated 6 January, 793, was on the monastery on the island of Lindisfarne, off the east coast of England. The resident monks were killed, thrown into the sea to drown or carried away as slaves along with some of the church treasures.
After repeated Viking raids, the monks fled Lindisfarne in AD 875, carrying the relics of St Cuthbert with them
Cuthbert was an Anglo-Saxon monk and bishop in the Kingdom of Northumbria which at that time included, in modern terms, north east England and south east Scotland as far as the Firth of Forth. Cuthbert today is the patron saint of the English county of Northumberland.
Danish influence in England eventually got so great that a Danish "kingdom" was set up, known as the Danelaw, which comprised what is now northern and eastern England.
The Danelaw was the area conquered by the Vikings in the ninth century. A treaty between King Alfred the Great and the Danish leader, Guthrum, defined a boundary which is roughly the line of the modern A5 between London and Chester, with King Alfred's territories to the south and west, and Guthrum's to the north and east. This boundary, however, was not stable, and some areas were only briefly under Viking control and show modest signs of their culture. The Danelaw was a cultural, not a political unit; and its culture was far from uniform.
Although the word Danelaw does not itself occur in Domesday Book, there are plentiful signs of Viking influence there. The names of territories, institutions, persons, and places were all affected to varying degrees, as was the language of assessment for military service and taxation. The Hundred, hide, and virgate of the south and west become the Wapentake, carucate and bovate of the north and east, for instance; and all modern place-names ending in -by, and many ending in -thorpe, are among the characteristic signs of Viking influence. Even the peasant classes and the prevalent types of manor in the Danelaw were distinctive.
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Archaeologists have discovered the skeletons of 51 headless corpses near Weymouth, Dorset, where the sailing events of the 2012 Olympic Games will be held.
The skeletons are of 51 young Viking men, barely in their twenties, who were executed one by one by their English captors.
Modern Weymouth is located in what was once the heart of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex - the stronghold of King Alfred the Great and his descendants.
Justice against rogue Vikings would have been violent and swift.
The blows to the back of their necks were so fierce that the swords cut into the jaws and collarbones.
Carbon dating showed they were buried between 910 and 1030AD, a time when England (which was several Anglo-Saxon kingdoms) was being unified under Saxon kings and when Vikings from Denmark had begun a second wave of raids on the South Coast.
The first Viking raid on England occurred in 789AD when three ships from Norway sailed to Portland Bay, in Dorset, not far from modern day Weymouth. The Vikings fooled a royal official into thinking they were merchants.
Later they raided a Christian monastery that held Saint Cuthbert’s relics.
Archaeologists uncover headless corpses of 51 Vikings executed by Saxons in Dorset killing field
By David Derbyshire
12th March 2010
Daily Mail
They knelt and cowered together - a once proud and fearless band of raiders stripped and humiliated by their Saxon captors.
One by one, their executioners stepped forward, uttered a prayer and brought their axes and swords crashing down on the necks of the Viking prisoners.
The axes fell until the roadside which was sticky with blood from the decapitated corpses of the 51 men, most barely in their twenties.
Enlarge
Burial site: The decapitated skulls were left in one part of a pit and the bodies in another near Weymouth, Dorset, during excavations for a relief road
The 51 executed would have been a captured raiding party
Soon the excited crowd joined in, spearing a couple of heads on stakes, placing the rest in a neat pile and tossing the bodies into a ditch.
For more than 1,000 years this bloody roadside act was forgotten, one of many atrocities in the long and violent struggle between the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse invaders.
Now, thanks to an extraordinary piece of luck - and detective work - the massacre has been uncovered by archaeologists in a discovery that sheds fascinating new light on life in Viking Britain.
The 51 beheaded skeletons were discovered last summer near Weymouth, Dorset, during excavations for a relief road.
Over the following two months, Oxford Archaeology removed the skulls which had been placed together in one part of a pit, and the bodies which had been thrown roughly into a heap a few feet away.
A chemical analysis of teeth from ten of the men showed they grew up in countries where the climate is far colder than Britain - with one individual thought to have come from within the Arctic Circle.
Carbon dating showed they were buried between 910 and 1030AD, a time when England was being unified under Saxon kings and when Vikings from Denmark had begun a second wave of raids on the South Coast.
Oxford Archaeology project manager David Score said: 'To find out that the young men executed were Vikings is a thrilling development.
'Any mass grave is a relatively rare find, but to find one on this scale, from this period of history, is extremely unusual.'
For researchers, there is no question that the victims were Vikings. And not the Vikings who had settled and lived in Britain for generations, but almost certainly a captured raiding party.
In the heart of Anglo-Saxon Wessex - the stronghold of Alfred the Great and his descendants - justice against rogue Vikings would have been violent and swift.
The blows to the back of their necks were so fierce that the swords cut into the jaws and collarbones.
One man had wounds to his hands - indicating that he grabbed for the blade in a futile bid to save himself. Others suffered blows to pelvis, stomach and chest.
There were more bodies than skulls, leading to speculation that three dismembered heads were displayed on stakes.
Oxford archaeology bone specialist Ceri Boston said: 'It was not a straight one slice and head off. They were all hacked at around the head and jaw. It doesn't look like they were very willing or the executioners very skilled.
'We think the decapitation was messy because the person would have been moving around.
'The location is a typical place for a Saxon execution site - on a main road and a parish boundary and close to prehistoric barrows.'
Enlarge
A researcher sifts through the Viking bones found by the side of the road
Enlarge
The first waves of Vikings to arrive were after loot - and they saw the undefended monasteries, with their silver chalices and gold crosses as a soft target
Osteologist Helen Webb from Oxford Archaeology with one of the skull fragments
Although a raiding party seems the most likely explanation, the men could have been caught in battle some distance away and taken to Weymouth for execution. Or they could even have been killed by a rival Viking party.
History suggests that the Viking raiders could be just as ruthless as their fearsome reputation.
The first to arrive in Britain were after loot - and they saw the undefended monasteries, with their silver-chalices, gold crosses and bejewelled books, as a soft target.
The raids - which started in Lindisfarne in Northumbria in 793AD, then one of Europe's most holy sites - sent shockwaves through the country and signalled an era of terror that would last, on and off, for more than 200 years.
The 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicle' of 793 gives us a vivid picture of Britain under attack from Viking invaders.
'Terrible portents appeared over Northumbria and miserably frightened the inhabitants: these were exceptional flashes of lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. A great famine followed these signs; and a little after that, in the same year on 8 June, the harrying of the heathen miserably destroyed God's church in Lindisfarne by rapine and slaughter.'
In 865AD a full army arrived to storm through Britain, taking three of the kingdoms of England - Northumbria, East Anglia and Mercia - before finally attacking the remaining Anglo-Saxon stronghold of Wessex.
There, under the leadership of King Alfred, the Saxons organised themselves and pushed back - eventually dividing Britain into Wessex to the West and Danelaw to the East. By the time of the Weymouth massacre, the Saxons had regained most of their old territories and had created the first unified English kingdom.
But the birth of England was accompanied by a return of the Viking raiders, spurred on by Danish royalty back home.
Some involved a couple of boats and a few dozen men, but others involved 100 boats.
The raids ended in 1016, when the English throne was taken by the Danish King Canute (who set his throne by the sea shore somewhere on the English coast and commanded the tide to halt and not wet his feet and robes. But, needless to say, the tide failed to stop. Canute leapt backwards and said "Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws." He then hung his gold crown on a crucifix, and never wore it again).
Life in Viking times would have been tough and short.
Dr Richard Hall, director of archaeology at the York Archaeological Trust, said: 'Vikings would be the same build and height as us.
'But there would be few women over 35 because so many died in childbirth. And if you lived to 50 you were doing very well.'
Vikings - and the Saxons that some came to live alongside - were riddled with parasites.
Worms, fleas and lice were common and Vikings kept their hair meticulously groomed to remove the steady supply of nits and fleas.
Water was rarely safe to drink in the ninth and tenth centuries, and Vikings would drink weak beer, or imported wine if they were wealthy enough. Mead made with honey was also popular.
Those who settled in Britain lived in wooden long houses, with thick walls to keep them cool in summer and warm in winter.
Families slept together in the centre of the hall around a fire pit.
They ate bread, cottage cheese, milk and cured meats and fish, supplementing their diet with wild fruits, honey and nuts.
Their bowls and plates were similar to our own but they ate with a sharp-pointed knife which doubled up as a fork.
Drink was taken in horns, while spoons were often ornately carved.
The Viking raids on monasteries created the impression to many Saxons that they hated Christianity. But in reality Vikings who settled in Britain adopted the native religion very easily.
Those who did not convert worshipped a pantheon of charismatic gods.
Their most powerful was the one-eyed Odin, but the most popular was Thor - a stupid but strong god who throws lightning bolts.
Despite the popular image of legend, there is no evidence that Vikings wore horned helmets.
The myth came from the discovery of ceremonial helmets in Scandinavia.
The Danelaw
Traditionally, the earliest date given for a Viking raid is 789 when, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, three ships from Norway sailed to Portland Bay, in Dorset.
There, they were mistaken for merchants by a royal official, and they murdered him when he tried to get them to accompany him to the king's manor to pay a trading tax on their goods.
The next recorded attack, dated 6 January, 793, was on the monastery on the island of Lindisfarne, off the east coast of England. The resident monks were killed, thrown into the sea to drown or carried away as slaves along with some of the church treasures.
After repeated Viking raids, the monks fled Lindisfarne in AD 875, carrying the relics of St Cuthbert with them
Cuthbert was an Anglo-Saxon monk and bishop in the Kingdom of Northumbria which at that time included, in modern terms, north east England and south east Scotland as far as the Firth of Forth. Cuthbert today is the patron saint of the English county of Northumberland.
Danish influence in England eventually got so great that a Danish "kingdom" was set up, known as the Danelaw, which comprised what is now northern and eastern England.
The Danelaw was the area conquered by the Vikings in the ninth century. A treaty between King Alfred the Great and the Danish leader, Guthrum, defined a boundary which is roughly the line of the modern A5 between London and Chester, with King Alfred's territories to the south and west, and Guthrum's to the north and east. This boundary, however, was not stable, and some areas were only briefly under Viking control and show modest signs of their culture. The Danelaw was a cultural, not a political unit; and its culture was far from uniform.
Although the word Danelaw does not itself occur in Domesday Book, there are plentiful signs of Viking influence there. The names of territories, institutions, persons, and places were all affected to varying degrees, as was the language of assessment for military service and taxation. The Hundred, hide, and virgate of the south and west become the Wapentake, carucate and bovate of the north and east, for instance; and all modern place-names ending in -by, and many ending in -thorpe, are among the characteristic signs of Viking influence. Even the peasant classes and the prevalent types of manor in the Danelaw were distinctive.
dailymail.co.uk
www.domesdaybook.net
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