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00:00:08,920 --> 00:00:10,240
'Here in Ireland

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00:00:10,240 --> 00:00:14,000
'evidence is being unearthed
of a Viking fortress.'

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00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:18,280
The Viking site is re-emerging.

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00:00:18,280 --> 00:00:20,520
You can see it back again

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00:00:20,520 --> 00:00:22,560
for the first time
in a thousand years.

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00:00:24,600 --> 00:00:29,880
This was built to help colonise a
land that provided a key commodity

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00:00:29,880 --> 00:00:34,120
in a trade network that stretched
all the way to the Middle East...

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00:00:36,760 --> 00:00:37,760
slaves.

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00:00:43,480 --> 00:00:46,520
I'm finding out the truth
about the Vikings.

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00:00:48,760 --> 00:00:53,560
Leaving Britain
behind to enter their land

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and their own mysterious world.

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Even now,

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this place feels like it's
on the edge of everything.

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And as an archaeologist,

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I'm seeking out some of the most
telling evidence of all...

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..the very remains
of the Vikings themselves.

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00:01:13,760 --> 00:01:16,960
This flamboyant hairstyle

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00:01:16,960 --> 00:01:20,480
just adds to his allure.

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Last time, I searched out the
ancient, prehistoric roots

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00:01:25,920 --> 00:01:28,160
of the Vikings.

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It's such a Baltic thing to do.

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You don't get ship settings
in France or in Britain.

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Now, I'm travelling out
from Scandinavia...

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00:01:38,800 --> 00:01:40,760
THEY HEAVE THE BOAT

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..to explore how the Vikings
extended their reach

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00:01:44,880 --> 00:01:46,440
into new lands...

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00:01:46,440 --> 00:01:49,680
HE SPEAKS ARABIC

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00:01:49,680 --> 00:01:52,320
..building a vast trading network,

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00:01:52,320 --> 00:01:55,280
from Ireland to the Middle East.

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I'm starting off
in the heart of Scandinavia,

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heading to the coast of
the Baltic Sea -

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the capital of Sweden - Stockholm.

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00:02:32,760 --> 00:02:36,800
Here in Stockholm, life is very much
about the Baltic.

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00:02:36,800 --> 00:02:39,640
Britain feels like a long way away
towards the west.

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From here the nearest neighbours
are Finland, Latvia and Estonia

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00:02:43,080 --> 00:02:44,400
in the east.

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00:02:48,800 --> 00:02:52,440
In Britain, the force of the Vikings

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was Norwegians and Danes
sailing westwards.

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00:02:55,680 --> 00:03:00,400
But here it was a different
story of settlement and exploration,

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00:03:00,400 --> 00:03:05,400
starting on the Baltic and heading
east into Russia and beyond.

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00:03:05,400 --> 00:03:08,960
It was settlement built on trade
in luxury items,

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00:03:08,960 --> 00:03:12,120
many of them obtained
from as far afield as China

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00:03:12,120 --> 00:03:14,560
but at a dreadful human cost -

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00:03:14,560 --> 00:03:19,120
countless slaves rounded up from
their homes in Britain and Ireland

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00:03:19,120 --> 00:03:24,160
and shipped eastwards for
unimaginable lives in far-off lands.

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00:03:24,160 --> 00:03:29,600
It's not a story of north and south
but rather of an east-west axis

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00:03:29,600 --> 00:03:34,680
and of a Viking footprint that began
in the eighth century and in just

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00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:39,360
100 years or so was planted firmly
over a vast tract of territory.

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It was the beginning of a
Viking trading empire.

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00:03:53,320 --> 00:03:57,280
Here in Sweden archaeologists
have discovered evidence

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00:03:57,280 --> 00:04:02,720
of one of the extremes
of this network far to the east.

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00:04:02,720 --> 00:04:06,000
These are Arabic dirhams...

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00:04:08,400 --> 00:04:13,920
..minted in places like Tashkent
and Baghdad and Samarkand.

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00:04:13,920 --> 00:04:17,160
Those exotic names,

55
00:04:17,160 --> 00:04:22,240
and yet these pieces found their way
back to Scandinavia

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00:04:22,240 --> 00:04:26,480
in truly vast quantities, tens of
thousands of coins like this.

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00:04:28,760 --> 00:04:32,000
These were found in rich
Viking hordes,

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00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:36,960
2,500 miles
from where they were minted.

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00:04:36,960 --> 00:04:41,080
Also Middle Eastern in origin
are these necklaces

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00:04:41,080 --> 00:04:44,960
made of rock crystal beads.

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00:04:44,960 --> 00:04:48,560
They're so colourful,
they're almost gaudy.

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00:04:52,480 --> 00:04:57,360
Perhaps best of all,
this unprepossessing sliver here

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00:04:57,360 --> 00:05:01,120
is a piece of Chinese silk.

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00:05:01,120 --> 00:05:06,680
To me, gold and silver
are statements of wealth,

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00:05:06,680 --> 00:05:10,080
but with silk,
you're talking about luxury.

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00:05:10,080 --> 00:05:14,480
The way it looks, but more
importantly the way it feels.

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All this kind of material
makes the people of Sweden

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00:05:18,840 --> 00:05:22,480
different from their neighbours,

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00:05:22,480 --> 00:05:26,400
because although they live on
an outcrop of north-western Europe,

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00:05:26,400 --> 00:05:28,880
out on the edge of the world,

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00:05:28,880 --> 00:05:33,720
they have connections that reach
all the way to the Orient and China.

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00:05:42,440 --> 00:05:46,560
To track down those Viking traders
I'm crossing the Baltic,

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00:05:46,560 --> 00:05:53,360
heading for Russia and its cultural
capital - St Petersburg.

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00:06:06,200 --> 00:06:11,520
This place is such a symbol of
Russia from the time of the tsars

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00:06:11,520 --> 00:06:14,760
and then its reincarnation as
Leningrad during Communist rule,

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00:06:14,760 --> 00:06:18,320
and now reinventing itself again,
but incredibly,

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00:06:18,320 --> 00:06:21,400
this part of Russia as late as the
17th century

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00:06:21,400 --> 00:06:25,000
wasn't under Russian rule.
It was Swedish

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00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:28,560
because the deepest heritage here
is Viking.

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00:06:31,840 --> 00:06:33,040
We're so obsessed

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00:06:33,040 --> 00:06:35,880
with what the Vikings got up to in
Britain and Ireland

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00:06:35,880 --> 00:06:39,960
that the folk who came here
tend to be completely overlooked.

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00:06:39,960 --> 00:06:45,320
The fact is more Viking artefacts
have been found here in Russia

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00:06:45,320 --> 00:06:48,680
and Eastern Europe than in the whole
of Western Europe put together.

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00:06:55,600 --> 00:07:00,360
Some of the relics preserved here
in Russia's most famous museum -

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00:07:00,360 --> 00:07:05,520
The Hermitage - paint a completely
new picture of the Vikings for me.

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00:07:09,200 --> 00:07:13,640
Not one of bands of bearded
men out on warlike raids,

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00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:17,920
but ordinary people,
living settled lives.

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00:07:20,960 --> 00:07:24,120
This wonder

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00:07:24,120 --> 00:07:28,680
is a magnificent, well-preserved
leather shoe or ankle boot.

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00:07:31,080 --> 00:07:33,200
Look at the workmanship in this.

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00:07:33,200 --> 00:07:36,600
Here's where the lace would have
gone to hold it in place

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00:07:36,600 --> 00:07:38,240
around the foot and ankle.

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00:07:40,880 --> 00:07:43,800
This has been worn to make someone
look good,

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00:07:43,800 --> 00:07:47,000
somebody who cared
about her appearance

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00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:50,160
and presumably wanted
to appear fashionable.

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00:07:50,160 --> 00:07:53,920
And this, it's a distaff,

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00:07:53,920 --> 00:07:59,600
part of the quite simple equipment
needed to spin wool into thread.

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00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:02,720
What makes this one
especially memorable

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00:08:02,720 --> 00:08:08,240
is this carefully prepared
smooth face,

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00:08:08,240 --> 00:08:11,640
into which have been etched
Viking runes.

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00:08:12,960 --> 00:08:14,960
This is Viking writing.

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00:08:14,960 --> 00:08:18,760
This, it's thought, says something
poetic like,

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00:08:18,760 --> 00:08:21,320
"clad from above

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00:08:21,320 --> 00:08:23,400
"the spindle is spinning.

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00:08:23,400 --> 00:08:27,080
"Starry-eyed maiden will have
a long thin thread.

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00:08:27,080 --> 00:08:30,040
"Navluk owns this distaff."

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00:08:31,960 --> 00:08:35,720
So often when you find
archaeological artefacts,

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00:08:35,720 --> 00:08:39,880
you're left to wonder helplessly
about who made it

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00:08:39,880 --> 00:08:44,880
and who owned it and who left
it behind, but here, we know.

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00:08:46,440 --> 00:08:50,160
Navluk, a starry-eyed Viking maiden.

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00:08:52,160 --> 00:08:57,640
So much attention is given to Viking
men, it's striking that the

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00:08:57,640 --> 00:09:01,880
pioneers of this eastern frontier
also included women.

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00:09:03,160 --> 00:09:07,000
The objects come from one of the
very earliest Viking communities

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00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:09,040
outside of Scandinavia,

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00:09:09,040 --> 00:09:14,360
one of the first steps in the
creation of a vast trading empire.

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00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:22,880
To discover the source of those
artefacts, I have to head

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00:09:22,880 --> 00:09:27,320
90 miles east of St Petersburg
to a tiny riverside village.

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00:09:34,440 --> 00:09:37,880
It's called Staraya Ladoga

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00:09:37,880 --> 00:09:41,320
and it's here in the rural
backwaters of western Russia

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00:09:41,320 --> 00:09:45,520
that the story
of Viking expansion begins.

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00:09:45,520 --> 00:09:48,440
SNOW CRUNCHES

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00:09:48,440 --> 00:09:54,680
Even now this place feels
like it's on the edge of everything.

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It feels remote,

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00:09:56,600 --> 00:10:01,240
it feels surrounded by wilderness,
nothingness really,

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so what on earth must it have
been like for the first Vikings,

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00:10:07,480 --> 00:10:11,800
who found this place
beside the river

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00:10:11,800 --> 00:10:16,880
and furthermore decided to stay,
actually to set up home and shop?

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It would have been
wild in the extreme.

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00:10:24,560 --> 00:10:29,720
The very earliest Viking finds from
here date back to 753AD -

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a generation before the first
recorded raids on Britain.

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So this Russian outpost marks
some of the very earliest evidence

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of the Vikings outside
their Scandinavian homelands.

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00:10:47,160 --> 00:10:50,480
And this soon became the gateway
to a route that would

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00:10:50,480 --> 00:10:55,440
stretch as far as Constantinople
and even Baghdad.

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A route that could only be
tackled by river.

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00:11:08,680 --> 00:11:12,720
Morning, Vikings. Where can I be?
Up here?

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00:11:18,960 --> 00:11:22,160
Using a replica Viking boat,
these Russian enthusiasts

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00:11:22,160 --> 00:11:27,840
are figuring out how the Vikings
made extraordinary journeys east.

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00:11:29,840 --> 00:11:34,480
Today there's too much ice on the
river to launch our own boat so just

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00:11:34,480 --> 00:11:40,320
like the eighth century Vikings,
we've got to shift it ourselves.

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00:11:54,480 --> 00:11:57,840
This is just the way the boat
has to be moved on dry land.

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00:11:57,840 --> 00:12:01,560
If it got to an obstacle - rapids,
waterfall or ice -

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00:12:01,560 --> 00:12:04,760
they have to take the boat out of
the river and either go round

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00:12:04,760 --> 00:12:07,360
the obstacle or find another river.
This is the only way to do it

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00:12:07,360 --> 00:12:10,440
so it's just rolled over
land on these logs.

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00:12:10,440 --> 00:12:13,680
Hopefully over the shortest
possible distance.

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00:12:17,120 --> 00:12:20,800
It's literally yard by yard,
foot by foot.

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00:12:22,880 --> 00:12:25,640
ENCOURAGEMENT IN RUSSIAN

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00:12:28,080 --> 00:12:29,640
Oh, God!

151
00:12:32,160 --> 00:12:35,520
Imagine how long it would take
to get anywhere.

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00:12:35,520 --> 00:12:38,720
You leave home in Sweden,

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00:12:38,720 --> 00:12:41,720
cross the Baltic in ships

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00:12:41,720 --> 00:12:44,600
and then get everything into boats
like this and every now and again

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00:12:44,600 --> 00:12:48,880
you've got to take the boat out
of the water and move it over land.

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00:12:48,880 --> 00:12:50,880
These guys must have been
away for years at a time.

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00:12:55,040 --> 00:12:59,000
By navigating the Russian rivers
and lugging their boats

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00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:02,120
when necessary, the Vikings could
transport themselves all the way

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00:13:02,120 --> 00:13:07,080
from the Baltic to the Caspian
and Black Seas.

160
00:13:09,320 --> 00:13:13,800
It's time consuming and it's
laborious but there's enough men

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00:13:13,800 --> 00:13:20,080
here to move a boat this size so the
system does work, as history shows!

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00:13:20,080 --> 00:13:22,760
ENCOURAGEMENT IN RUSSIAN

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00:13:28,960 --> 00:13:32,720
The journeys east along the Russian
rivers demanded incredible

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00:13:32,720 --> 00:13:34,920
feats of organisation,

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00:13:34,920 --> 00:13:37,400
boatmanship and endurance.

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00:13:37,400 --> 00:13:40,480
And as well as overcoming
the physical hardships,

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00:13:40,480 --> 00:13:44,000
the Vikings had to find ways
of dealing with the very strange

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00:13:44,000 --> 00:13:48,560
and often very violent locals
they encountered along the way.

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00:13:49,800 --> 00:13:54,240
For the people from the East,
the Vikings also seemed strange.

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00:14:02,800 --> 00:14:06,880
Preserved in contemporary accounts
written by Islamic scholars

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00:14:06,880 --> 00:14:09,440
are vivid descriptions

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00:14:09,440 --> 00:14:12,200
of how they saw those
strange people from the North.

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00:14:14,120 --> 00:14:16,800
Arabic scholar James Montgomery

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00:14:16,800 --> 00:14:19,800
has studied
the remarkable written records

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00:14:19,800 --> 00:14:22,840
of a Middle Eastern traveller
called Ibn Fadlan.

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00:14:22,840 --> 00:14:27,600
HE SPEAKS ARABIC

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00:14:30,200 --> 00:14:33,400
"I've never seen more perfect bodies
than theirs.

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00:14:33,400 --> 00:14:35,040
"They were like palm trees."

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00:14:35,040 --> 00:14:38,720
And then there's this absolutely
fantastic phrase which I just love.

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00:14:38,720 --> 00:14:41,360
ARABIC PHRASE

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00:14:41,360 --> 00:14:45,960
They're red, bright red, light
haired, they're like a burst of fire.

182
00:14:45,960 --> 00:14:51,640
He says, "From the tip of their
fingers right up to their necks,

183
00:14:51,640 --> 00:14:57,760
"every one of them is covered
in dark green trees and shapes

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00:14:57,760 --> 00:15:00,440
"and other things." Tattoos. Tattoos.

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00:15:00,440 --> 00:15:03,040
He then goes on and describes
what the women look like,

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00:15:03,040 --> 00:15:06,160
and this is really interesting,
because they are accompanied by their
wives.

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00:15:06,160 --> 00:15:10,600
It says that, "Each woman has some
form of a box

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00:15:10,600 --> 00:15:15,680
"made of iron or silver
or bronze or gold,

189
00:15:15,680 --> 00:15:18,320
"depending on how much money
her husband has.

190
00:15:18,320 --> 00:15:20,160
"And every box has a ring

191
00:15:20,160 --> 00:15:23,240
"and from the ring there is a dagger
suspended."

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00:15:23,240 --> 00:15:27,120
Are they settling and colonising in
the East or are they just moving
through?

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00:15:27,120 --> 00:15:30,920
Well, if we turn to another one of
the texts that we have with us today,

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00:15:30,920 --> 00:15:33,400
we can see a sense that
they are both settling,

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00:15:33,400 --> 00:15:36,880
but they are not setting down any
particular roots.

196
00:15:36,880 --> 00:15:44,520
HE SPEAKS ARABIC

197
00:15:49,400 --> 00:15:53,280
So he says, "They don't have any
fields that they sow,

198
00:15:53,280 --> 00:15:55,440
"they don't have any villages,

199
00:15:55,440 --> 00:15:57,520
"they don't have any agriculture.

200
00:15:57,520 --> 00:15:59,160
"The only thing they do is trade

201
00:15:59,160 --> 00:16:03,040
"and that is trade in martens and
squirrels and other pelts."

202
00:16:03,040 --> 00:16:06,880
So I think the picture that we have
at this point

203
00:16:06,880 --> 00:16:09,360
is of a set of trading emporia.

204
00:16:09,360 --> 00:16:11,320
You get off your boat,
you do your trade,

205
00:16:11,320 --> 00:16:12,960
build a couple of huts or whatever

206
00:16:12,960 --> 00:16:15,600
and then get back on the boat.

207
00:16:16,800 --> 00:16:20,280
The Islamic writers even had
a special name

208
00:16:20,280 --> 00:16:22,520
for the intrepid
merchants from the North.

209
00:16:23,920 --> 00:16:26,040
They called them "the Rus,"

210
00:16:26,040 --> 00:16:29,040
which means something like
"the men who row".

211
00:16:29,040 --> 00:16:31,400
And it shows how influential
they became,

212
00:16:31,400 --> 00:16:35,080
because, after all,
this land is now called Russia.

213
00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:46,680
It's remarkable to think that one of
the biggest nations in the world

214
00:16:46,680 --> 00:16:49,120
gets its name from the Vikings,

215
00:16:49,120 --> 00:16:51,720
who navigated its waterways

216
00:16:51,720 --> 00:16:55,640
setting up trading posts
and colonies as they went.

217
00:16:59,280 --> 00:17:03,960
Their target was the greatest
city on Earth - Constantinople.

218
00:17:23,400 --> 00:17:25,880
When I started looking
into the Vikings,

219
00:17:25,880 --> 00:17:29,080
I didn't think I'd have to go
1,500 miles south of Scandinavia

220
00:17:29,080 --> 00:17:31,680
to find out about them.

221
00:17:36,120 --> 00:17:41,680
But here I am, in a city that's
the gateway to Asia -

222
00:17:41,680 --> 00:17:42,920
Istanbul.

223
00:17:44,200 --> 00:17:47,320
Once known as Constantinople.

224
00:17:54,720 --> 00:17:57,560
For the Vikings, this glorious city

225
00:17:57,560 --> 00:18:02,240
was the culmination
of their journeys.

226
00:18:03,240 --> 00:18:05,680
Because, within its walls,

227
00:18:05,680 --> 00:18:08,520
were some of the greatest markets
in the world.

228
00:18:20,960 --> 00:18:25,640
For a Viking, this would have been
all but overwhelming,

229
00:18:25,640 --> 00:18:28,440
because this is on a completely
different scale

230
00:18:28,440 --> 00:18:31,080
from anything he would
have witnessed before.

231
00:18:33,320 --> 00:18:35,440
Instead of hundreds of people,

232
00:18:35,440 --> 00:18:38,000
here there would have been thousands
or even tens of thousands

233
00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:39,600
and from all over the world.

234
00:18:43,080 --> 00:18:47,800
And then, there were all the exotic
sights and sounds and smells.

235
00:18:47,800 --> 00:18:50,280
It's all but an assault
on the senses.

236
00:18:53,640 --> 00:18:57,920
The trouble was that Constantinople
was tightly controlled

237
00:18:57,920 --> 00:19:04,200
with strict trade quotas, taxes
and even immigration rules.

238
00:19:04,200 --> 00:19:09,200
But, by the early 900s,
the Vikings had been granted access.

239
00:19:10,680 --> 00:19:13,280
Hey! Yes? Do you speak English?
I speak English, my friend.

240
00:19:13,280 --> 00:19:17,280
Can I have 100 grams of the red
spice? 100 grams.

241
00:19:17,280 --> 00:19:19,000
OK. Something else?

242
00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:20,440
No, that's all. How much?

243
00:19:22,360 --> 00:19:25,360
Once here, they could buy
finely woven silk

244
00:19:25,360 --> 00:19:31,600
worth its weight in gold in exchange
for their own exotic wares.

245
00:19:31,600 --> 00:19:35,280
Baltic amber, Arctic furs,

246
00:19:35,280 --> 00:19:39,320
and the Vikings' most important
commodity of all -

247
00:19:39,320 --> 00:19:41,240
slaves.

248
00:19:43,120 --> 00:19:46,480
Any Viking who spent three months or
more in the city

249
00:19:46,480 --> 00:19:51,120
was entitled to buy silk
up to the value of two slaves.

250
00:19:51,120 --> 00:19:53,320
And that silk was so valuable,

251
00:19:53,320 --> 00:19:58,200
it made the perilous river journeys
to get here more than worthwhile.

252
00:19:58,200 --> 00:20:01,080
A merchant could earn, in just
a year or two,

253
00:20:01,080 --> 00:20:04,720
more wealth than a prosperous farmer
back home in Scandinavia

254
00:20:04,720 --> 00:20:08,200
could acquire in an entire lifetime.

255
00:20:13,440 --> 00:20:17,520
Some Vikings made Constantinople
their home.

256
00:20:17,520 --> 00:20:20,760
And one of them even left his mark
on the city,

257
00:20:20,760 --> 00:20:25,880
in one of the most historic
and holy places on the planet.

258
00:20:25,880 --> 00:20:28,400
This is the Hagia Sophia.

259
00:20:28,400 --> 00:20:31,520
Most of what you're looking at
was built in the sixth century,

260
00:20:31,520 --> 00:20:34,760
which means that, by the time
the Vikings turned up,

261
00:20:34,760 --> 00:20:37,720
that building was already old.

262
00:20:41,480 --> 00:20:44,160
Hagia Sophia was built
as a Christian church.

263
00:20:45,760 --> 00:20:49,800
'And it later became
a Muslim mosque.

264
00:20:49,800 --> 00:20:51,280
'All around me are remnants

265
00:20:51,280 --> 00:20:54,680
'of over 1,000 years of Christian
and Muslim worship.

266
00:20:56,720 --> 00:20:59,960
'But one tiny corner is Viking.'

267
00:21:06,080 --> 00:21:10,280
These dark lines etched into
the marble are Vikings runes,

268
00:21:10,280 --> 00:21:13,520
ancient Viking writing.

269
00:21:13,520 --> 00:21:16,160
They're almost indecipherable.

270
00:21:16,160 --> 00:21:19,280
The only bit that's in any way clear
is part of someone's name,
a man's name -

271
00:21:19,280 --> 00:21:20,920
Halfdan.

272
00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:23,720
And the rest of it is assumed
to read "was here".

273
00:21:23,720 --> 00:21:26,360
So you've got, "Halfdan was here"
or made these runes.

274
00:21:28,440 --> 00:21:30,880
We'll never know for sure
who Halfdan was,

275
00:21:30,880 --> 00:21:33,680
but it's possible
that he was a member

276
00:21:33,680 --> 00:21:38,360
of the near-legendary elite
bodyguard of the Byzantine emperor,

277
00:21:38,360 --> 00:21:40,600
the so-called Varangian Guard,

278
00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:43,040
who escorted the Emperor
on special occasions

279
00:21:43,040 --> 00:21:45,080
and for special ceremonies.

280
00:21:45,080 --> 00:21:47,040
So we can allow ourselves to imagine

281
00:21:47,040 --> 00:21:49,680
that, one day, Halfdan
was up here on duty

282
00:21:49,680 --> 00:21:52,560
during a long, boring religious
ceremony.

283
00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:55,440
And to pass the time,
he carved his name

284
00:21:55,440 --> 00:21:57,480
and some words into the stonework.

285
00:22:02,120 --> 00:22:07,400
These few lines are such a moving,
visceral reminder of just how far

286
00:22:07,400 --> 00:22:09,520
the Swedish Vikings had come

287
00:22:09,520 --> 00:22:13,720
since they first set out
across the glassy Baltic Sea.

288
00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:26,320
'But what's left in Constantinople
is only part of the story,

289
00:22:26,320 --> 00:22:30,560
'because everything the Vikings
achieved on their journeys east

290
00:22:30,560 --> 00:22:33,600
'also had a huge impact back home.'

291
00:22:44,800 --> 00:22:47,800
From Istanbul,
I'm heading back to Sweden.

292
00:22:49,240 --> 00:22:51,600
My destination - a tiny island,

293
00:22:51,600 --> 00:22:55,920
just a stone's throw from Stockholm,
called Birka.

294
00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:03,600
Hello. Hello. Welcome. Thank you!
Can we head off? Yes.

295
00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:12,600
Today, it's a remote rural place.

296
00:23:12,600 --> 00:23:15,440
And its isolation
from the modern world

297
00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:18,480
has meant that Birka has been
remarkably undisturbed

298
00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:20,960
for over 1,000 years.

299
00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:27,680
In Birka, we should glimpse
traces of everyday life,

300
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:32,320
not the lives of the warrior class,
but ordinary working people.

301
00:23:32,320 --> 00:23:37,200
Because what's preserved in Birka
is more than just a town,

302
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:39,680
it's an entire culture.

303
00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:50,240
Swedish archaeologist
Charlotte Hedenstierna-Johnson

304
00:23:50,240 --> 00:23:54,040
has been excavating Viking
Birka for a decade.

305
00:23:55,480 --> 00:23:59,800
In the league of Viking towns,
where does Birka rank?

306
00:23:59,800 --> 00:24:01,960
If you ask me, very top.

307
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:04,080
Number one? Yeah. OK.

308
00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:11,120
Birka was one of the very first
urban centres in Scandinavia

309
00:24:11,120 --> 00:24:14,560
and it thrived on international
trade.

310
00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:18,640
So Birka is like a department store
where you can get clothes,

311
00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:21,880
you can get jewellery, you can get
furnishings for your home...

312
00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:24,640
Weaponry, food...

313
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:27,360
Imported food, I should say.

314
00:24:27,360 --> 00:24:30,800
Um... Spices, textiles.

315
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:33,000
What kind of things do you find?

316
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:37,120
You know, is it rich pickings out
where the people lived?

317
00:24:37,120 --> 00:24:39,160
Yeah, it's very rich pickings.

318
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:43,600
Gold and silver? No, not today.

319
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:50,920
Now, this is a very good example
of what they actually did here.

320
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:54,040
Their trade is at the heart
of everything.

321
00:24:54,040 --> 00:24:55,800
This is an iron weight.

322
00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:58,080
So this isn't for weighing the goods
themselves. No.

323
00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:00,880
This is how you make sure someone's
paid the right price. Exactly.

324
00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:03,320
So, by the time they got
these weights,

325
00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:05,280
they've moved from, you know,

326
00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:11,040
simple barter to objects having an
established value in silver?

327
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:13,280
Yeah, yeah, much more advanced.

328
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:15,720
It's coming close
to a monetary system.

329
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:21,200
But Birka was far more
than just a market.

330
00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:24,440
This was a whole society

331
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:27,280
with a garrison
and an industrial area

332
00:25:27,280 --> 00:25:29,920
as well as markets and residences.

333
00:25:34,120 --> 00:25:38,480
For Vikings, places like Birka
were a new world.

334
00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:40,840
It was about urban living,

335
00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:44,960
it was about life in an
international trading centre

336
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:48,880
and it was about having connections,
contacts,

337
00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:53,880
with people living as far afield
as Ireland and Constantinople.

338
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:03,200
And the Vikings who once lived here
clearly wanted to be remembered.

339
00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:09,320
These humps and bumps are the
unmistakable outlines

340
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:13,360
of Viking burial mounds.

341
00:26:13,360 --> 00:26:17,280
They're all around me here,
they stretch off in every direction.

342
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:22,640
It's reckoned that there are
at least 3,000 visible graves

343
00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:25,600
in and around Birka.

344
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:29,880
Within these graves, archaeologists
have found the remains

345
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:33,840
of wealthy merchants
with Eastern goods.

346
00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:38,280
And even their Viking children who
lived over 1,000 years ago.

347
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:50,800
It's an unusually
well-preserved skeleton,

348
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:55,440
especially given that
it's the skeleton of a child.

349
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:59,680
There's nothing on the skeleton
to reveal how she died.

350
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:01,760
That will remain a mystery.

351
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:04,920
But we know from analysis that
she was no more

352
00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:08,240
than maybe six years old
when she died.

353
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:10,880
And I can confidently say SHE

354
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:14,520
because of the things that
went into her coffin with her.

355
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:22,240
She was wearing a necklace
of brightly coloured glass beads,

356
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:24,880
silver and gold and blue in there.

357
00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:30,960
Also, her clothing was fastened
across her chest

358
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:35,640
with a very heavily decorated
gilded brooch.

359
00:27:37,360 --> 00:27:41,000
And on the back of the brooch,
there's the impression

360
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:45,200
of some of the fabric
that it was holding in place,

361
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:47,400
and it's a very finely made,
expensive fabric.

362
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:49,040
We don't know quite what it was,

363
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:50,720
but it would have cost
a lot of money

364
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:52,920
and it may well have been
an exotic import.

365
00:27:56,840 --> 00:27:58,640
Because she was expensively dressed,

366
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:01,040
she was obviously
the daughter of a wealthy family.

367
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:11,000
The wealth here tells us that she
was part of Birka's trading elite.

368
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:22,240
In places like Birka, all those
luxury Eastern goods could be found,

369
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:24,800
but they also had to be paid for.

370
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:28,480
Furs could be traded and trapped.

371
00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:31,320
Amber could be found in the ground
itself.

372
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:37,400
But much of the Vikings' wealth
depended on slaves.

373
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:41,480
And THEY had to be taken by force.

374
00:28:56,720 --> 00:29:00,120
Having travelled east,
I'm now heading west,

375
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:03,280
to the other extreme of the Vikings'
trading network.

376
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:13,520
Dublin, Ireland's capital, was
founded by Norwegian Vikings
in 841AD.

377
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:20,840
Dublin was one of the Vikings'
most important bases

378
00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:23,400
and Ireland's very first town.

379
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:25,760
It's often thought that the Vikings
came here

380
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:29,600
to raid gold and silver treasures
from Irish monasteries.

381
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:45,840
But it turns out that the engine
behind the Vikings expansion
into Ireland

382
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:49,600
was that oh, so important
human commodity -

383
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:50,960
slaves.

384
00:29:55,440 --> 00:30:00,160
In here is evidence of what the
Vikings came here for.

385
00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:03,320
Part of what Dublin was all about.

386
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:08,840
These are slave collars
and chains made of iron.

387
00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:14,120
You can imagine the discomfort,
never mind the humiliation,

388
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:17,760
of having something like this placed
around your neck

389
00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:18,800
with a chain attached.

390
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:28,280
The going rate for a male slave
at the time was 12 ounces of silver.

391
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:31,160
And a woman could be had for eight
ounces of silver.

392
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:37,160
There were even different kinds of
chains and collars

393
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:39,680
for different classes of captives.

394
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:43,800
Look at this.

395
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:49,120
It's hard to use terms like "luxury
item" in relation to a slave collar
and chain,

396
00:30:49,120 --> 00:30:52,520
but everything about it seems to
speak to the status

397
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:55,440
of the person whose neck
it was once around.

398
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:58,600
It's nothing less than ornate,

399
00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:01,040
quite a lot of work has
gone into making this look

400
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:06,040
like the kind of collar you would
put round an expensive neck.

401
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:10,520
So perhaps this was briefly worn
around the neck of an Irish king

402
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:13,200
before his ransom was paid

403
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:17,080
or he agreed to some specific
set of terms.

404
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:22,280
And it's harrowing to think a city
owes its foundation,

405
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:24,760
its existence, at least in part,

406
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:30,440
to one civilisation's appetite
for buying and selling human beings.

407
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:38,800
Dublin quickly grew into one of the
largest slave markets in Europe,

408
00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:43,080
attracting merchants from all
across the continent.

409
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:47,280
In 871, it was reported
that 200 ships arrived

410
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:50,160
packed with Angles, Britons
and Picts.

411
00:31:52,520 --> 00:31:55,880
This was organised human trafficking

412
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:58,720
on a scale that even bears
comparison

413
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:01,120
with the early years of the slave
trade to the Americas,

414
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:03,760
almost 1,000 years later.

415
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:15,120
Incredibly, the remains of some
of the very early pioneers

416
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:19,120
who came to seek their fortune in
the slave trade have been found.

417
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:27,320
Archaeologist Lindsay Simpson
has recently examined four skeletons

418
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:30,160
on the site of the original
Dublin settlement.

419
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:38,120
How can you tell that this is
a Viking and not a local?

420
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:39,920
Yes, very good question.

421
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:42,760
Well, we knew by the way that he was
buried, is the short answer.

422
00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:45,600
He wasn't buried in a Christian
burial, as an Irish person would be.

423
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:48,480
He's a pagan, he was buried with
grave goods, which is not something

424
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:50,720
that happens with Irish people
who are Christian.

425
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:54,560
Based on his skeleton, what do you
think he looked like in life?

426
00:32:54,560 --> 00:32:56,800
He was probably five foot nine,

427
00:32:56,800 --> 00:32:58,240
which is very big for that time.

428
00:32:58,240 --> 00:33:00,920
You can see that his bones
are really quite enormous.

429
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:02,880
And when you look down at his legs,

430
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:06,120
his legs are incredibly powerful.

431
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:09,600
The upper shoulder here,
you can see the strong lines

432
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:14,600
where the ligaments have actually
worn a groove in the bones.

433
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:18,720
Is that happening during hard
physical work? This has happened
through rotation movement.

434
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:22,480
So a big part of his daily life
involved some kind of

435
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:25,640
rotational, repetitive movement.

436
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:29,480
So this could be either sword
fighting or it could be from rowing.

437
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:31,840
Cos they would have been doing
an awful lot of rowing.

438
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:36,080
It's always amazing to me
that all of that hard work -

439
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:41,520
rowing, swinging a sword,
it's all written into the bones.

440
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:44,840
Everything you do with your skeleton
is reflected at the end of the day.

441
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:48,000
And he was a very bulky,
stocky, scary guy.

442
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:50,600
You would not want to meet this
individual,

443
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:54,080
especially not when he had all
his paraphernalia with him.

444
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:01,400
It's clear that, just
like the Swedish Vikings in Russia,

445
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:05,640
many of the Norwegian Vikings who
came here didn't go home again,

446
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:07,640
but decided to settle.

447
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:15,280
With Dublin established
as a thriving base,

448
00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:19,680
the Vikings of Norway began to
settle more widely,

449
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:23,440
over large parts of Ireland, much of
Scotland,

450
00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:27,200
the Isle of Man and coastal Wales.

451
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:32,920
Dublin was the centre of this vast
and expanding sea kingdom.

452
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:34,920
It commanded the Irish Sea

453
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:37,960
as well as the sea routes headed
north to Scotland,

454
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:40,600
south to Wales and east to England.

455
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:44,040
From this frontier town,
the Norsemen commanded it all.

456
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:49,120
But the Vikings weren't content with
just controlling the sea routes

457
00:34:49,120 --> 00:34:51,160
and settling barren land.

458
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:54,800
They had much greater ambitions.

459
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:06,800
A vast Viking trade network

460
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:08,440
from Russia to Ireland

461
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:12,440
had led to increasingly widespread
Viking settlement.

462
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:17,960
But there was one more prize
that lay right on their doorstep.

463
00:35:19,240 --> 00:35:20,560
England.

464
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:26,000
The trouble was, though, that unlike
the great wilderness of Russia

465
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:27,920
or the tribal lands of Ireland,

466
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:30,760
the valuable, golden land of England

467
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:34,840
already had some well-organised
sitting tenants.

468
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:36,640
The Anglo-Saxons.

469
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,600
Leaving Dublin behind,
I've come to Oxford,

470
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:48,920
once part of Wessex, the most
powerful of all England's kingdoms.

471
00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:53,720
And it's here that

472
00:35:53,720 --> 00:35:57,080
one of the greatest treasures
of the age can be seen.

473
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,040
An Anglo-Saxon masterpiece.

474
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:15,880
This is the Alfred Jewel.

475
00:36:19,720 --> 00:36:23,600
It's so irreplaceably valuable that
I'm not even allowed to touch it.

476
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:27,640
Which, frankly,
given the price on it, is a relief!

477
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:35,160
This once belonged to Alfred the
Great, King of 9th-century Wessex.

478
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:38,800
The most powerful man
in all of Britain.

479
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:45,280
It's made of gold
and enamel and crystal.

480
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:50,640
But, more impressive than the raw
materials, by far,

481
00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:54,240
is the artistry that's
gone into making it.

482
00:36:54,240 --> 00:36:57,640
So finely worked, and it terminates

483
00:36:57,640 --> 00:37:02,440
in this weird and wonderful
head of a beast.

484
00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:11,720
There's been a lot of theory over
the years about what it was for.

485
00:37:11,720 --> 00:37:16,800
Could it be a centrepiece for a
headdress, making it a crown jewel?

486
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:21,240
Could it have been worn as a pendant
on a chain around someone's neck?

487
00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:25,920
The abiding theory now is
it's the handle of a pointer.

488
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:27,720
It would have been a little piece

489
00:37:27,720 --> 00:37:31,480
of maybe worked ivory,
something suitably glamorous,

490
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:32,800
in the mouth of the beast.

491
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:37,040
And then it could be used to point
out lines and words

492
00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:39,560
on an illuminated manuscript

493
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:43,120
that was itself
too valuable to be touched.

494
00:37:43,120 --> 00:37:45,240
This was made for King Alfred.

495
00:37:45,240 --> 00:37:47,040
The letters around it say,

496
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:49,720
"Alfred ordered me to be made."

497
00:37:49,720 --> 00:37:53,600
And right here, in this tiny object,

498
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:56,400
is a powerful statement of wealth

499
00:37:56,400 --> 00:37:59,840
and authority
and commitment to learning.

500
00:38:01,520 --> 00:38:03,320
And you can only imagine
what it did

501
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:05,360
in the hearts and minds of Vikings,

502
00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:07,400
when they knew
that objects like this

503
00:38:07,400 --> 00:38:11,760
were here and that
they could get their hands on them.

504
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:22,080
Around 50 years after the foundation
of Staraya Ladoga,

505
00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:25,040
and 50 years before
the birth of Alfred,

506
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:28,720
the British had their first taste
of the Vikings.

507
00:38:28,720 --> 00:38:29,920
On the 8th of June 793,

508
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:34,920
the peace of the Northumbrian
coast was shattered.

509
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:41,320
A band of Vikings launched
a surprise attack

510
00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:43,920
on the monastery at Lindisfarne.

511
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:49,680
They hacked most
of the monks to death

512
00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:53,280
and stole the unguarded
religious treasures.

513
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:56,720
It was the 9/11 moment
for Anglo-Saxon Britain.

514
00:38:56,720 --> 00:38:59,120
Things could never be
the same again.

515
00:38:59,120 --> 00:39:02,400
From that moment,
monks and nuns living in monasteries

516
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:07,240
all around the coastline had to
accept the threat of terror attacks.

517
00:39:07,240 --> 00:39:09,120
Murder, enslavement, all of it,

518
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:11,960
could come at them
from just beyond the horizon.

519
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:17,080
The unprecedented violence
of this raid

520
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:19,480
seared itself
into the nation's psyche.

521
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:23,280
For all their other endeavours,

522
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:26,880
it's raids like this
for which they've been remembered.

523
00:39:30,640 --> 00:39:32,440
But the brutal attack on Lindisfarne

524
00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:34,720
was just the beginning.

525
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:49,600
In 865AD, a combined alliance
of around 3,000 Vikings,

526
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:54,400
mostly Danes,
arrived on English soil.

527
00:39:54,400 --> 00:39:58,280
Their aim wasn't trade,
or another attack.

528
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:03,360
It was conquest
of the whole of England.

529
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:07,200
At a time when a band of 30 men
was routinely described as an army,

530
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:10,080
this was truly a force
to be reckoned with.

531
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:12,680
The Anglo-Saxons called it
The Great Heathen Army,

532
00:40:12,680 --> 00:40:17,240
and it wasn't just a raiding party,
intent on slaves and gold.

533
00:40:17,240 --> 00:40:20,200
The Great Heathen Army
wanted everything.

534
00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:23,240
And to get it, they would have to
take on the Anglo-Saxons.

535
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:30,560
The conquest of England would be
a task far greater

536
00:40:30,560 --> 00:40:34,760
than anything the Vikings
had ever attempted before.

537
00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:39,800
England was divided into four
powerful, well-organised kingdoms.

538
00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:42,560
Northumbria, East Anglia,

539
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:44,600
Mercia and Wessex.

540
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:50,840
To succeed, the Vikings
would have to defeat them all.

541
00:40:53,960 --> 00:40:57,200
After a few brutal years
of fighting,

542
00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:01,760
and the deaths of the Northumbrian
and East Anglian kings,

543
00:41:01,760 --> 00:41:05,160
in 873, the Vikings turned
to the very heart of England.

544
00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:10,520
When The Great Heathen Army
arrived here in Repton,

545
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:13,040
they'd come to take Mercia.

546
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:15,680
Now Repton's small
and out of the way today,

547
00:41:15,680 --> 00:41:19,720
but 1,000 years ago, it was
the most important town in Mercia.

548
00:41:19,720 --> 00:41:23,800
And Mercia was the second most
powerful kingdom in all of England.

549
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:30,200
When the Vikings descended
on Repton,

550
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:33,200
they transformed the sacred
church of St Wystan

551
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:36,320
into a centre of operations.

552
00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:41,680
HE PANTS

553
00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:45,240
The tower doesn't look
very tall from the ground.

554
00:41:45,240 --> 00:41:48,560
But it is. I can assure you!

555
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:53,640
It was a huge step along the way
to controlling the whole of England.

556
00:41:58,120 --> 00:41:59,800
Well, there you go.

557
00:41:59,800 --> 00:42:04,000
The whole of the Trent Valley
laid out before us.

558
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:07,560
Stretching right off into
the haze on the horizon.

559
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:09,480
If you look down just
beyond the graveyard,

560
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:11,080
you can see a stretch of water.

561
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:14,720
And that's a relic of a much older
course of the River Trent.

562
00:42:14,720 --> 00:42:18,440
And it's right there that
the Vikings would have pulled up

563
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:21,080
in their ships,
come out onto the bank,

564
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:24,200
to set about the business
of takeover.

565
00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:27,360
And you can see why Repton
mattered to them.

566
00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:32,760
From up here on the tower, you feel
like the master of all you survey.

567
00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:36,520
And the Vikings, great strategists
that they were,

568
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:39,360
they realised that
Repton was the key

569
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:42,000
that would unlock Mercia for them.

570
00:42:46,240 --> 00:42:48,200
In the churchyard,

571
00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:52,960
archaeologists have found
remnants of the Vikings' fortress.

572
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:55,440
This is a map of the excavations

573
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:59,080
that were done around
the church in the 1980s.

574
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:03,120
Look at the genius of
what's going on here.

575
00:43:03,120 --> 00:43:05,720
We've got a D-shaped enclosure

576
00:43:05,720 --> 00:43:08,960
with a fourth side
created by a river.

577
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:12,480
And, great tacticians
that they were,

578
00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:16,240
the Vikings here have even employed
the Christian church

579
00:43:16,240 --> 00:43:19,840
and turned it into a defensive
gateway into their fortress.

580
00:43:19,840 --> 00:43:22,080
Genius!

581
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:26,800
The Vikings even used
the Christian graveyard

582
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:28,720
to bury their own, pagan dead.

583
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:34,000
This is where archaeological
evidence

584
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:40,080
brings us face-to-face with
the men of The Great Heathen Army.

585
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:44,760
Just here is grave number eight.

586
00:43:44,760 --> 00:43:50,240
That's one of the most important
Viking graves ever found in Britain.

587
00:43:50,240 --> 00:43:53,280
I must be just about standing
on the spot.

588
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:55,640
Just about here. Imagine that!

589
00:43:57,560 --> 00:44:01,360
Right here, archaeologists
discovered the remains

590
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:03,240
of a six-foot-tall skeleton.

591
00:44:03,240 --> 00:44:07,120
A quintessential Viking warrior.

592
00:44:11,080 --> 00:44:13,600
He was buried in the pagan style,

593
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:17,000
with his most precious possessions,

594
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:20,240
preserved today at the Derby Museum.

595
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:29,880
These are some of
the most important things

596
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:33,520
that the Repton Warrior
was buried with.

597
00:44:33,520 --> 00:44:35,680
The Viking belief dictated that

598
00:44:35,680 --> 00:44:38,800
whatever you needed
and wanted in the next life

599
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:41,040
had to go into
the ground with you.

600
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:45,280
First of all,
you've got the perfect weapon.

601
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:47,840
Which is not just giving him
the ability to fight,

602
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:50,160
but it says something
about who he is in life.

603
00:44:50,160 --> 00:44:54,920
Now, it's no ordinary warrior
that's armed like this.

604
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:59,720
The vast majority are armed with
something that's quite simple

605
00:44:59,720 --> 00:45:03,160
and cheap to make, like axes.

606
00:45:03,160 --> 00:45:05,960
A sword is of a different
order of magnitude.

607
00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:09,720
You feel as if you're looking
at the iron blade, but you're not.

608
00:45:09,720 --> 00:45:12,440
The brown colour is deceiving.

609
00:45:12,440 --> 00:45:16,360
This is actually an iron sword
in a scabbard.

610
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:18,240
It's a wooden scabbard

611
00:45:18,240 --> 00:45:21,880
with a fleece lining
to protect the blade,

612
00:45:21,880 --> 00:45:24,360
and then on the outside,
there's a leather casing.

613
00:45:24,360 --> 00:45:26,680
So a man on the battlefield
with a sword

614
00:45:26,680 --> 00:45:28,840
is already someone you would notice.

615
00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:32,920
But a man with a sword and a
scabbard is another step up again.

616
00:45:32,920 --> 00:45:38,720
So this man was clearly a leader
amongst his own kind.

617
00:45:38,720 --> 00:45:42,960
A sword is always
an impressive thing to see,

618
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:46,240
but for me, it's just as affecting

619
00:45:46,240 --> 00:45:49,560
and moving to see the other items
that he wanted with him.

620
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:56,720
This is a little silver hammer.

621
00:45:56,720 --> 00:45:59,160
The Repton Warrior was wearing
this around his neck

622
00:45:59,160 --> 00:46:01,320
in the same way that a Christian
would wear a cross.

623
00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:06,040
It's connecting him physically
to the god Thor.

624
00:46:06,040 --> 00:46:09,160
Thor is one of the big three
Old Norse gods,

625
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:13,240
and he was definitely the soldier's,
the warrior's, friend.

626
00:46:13,240 --> 00:46:15,560
They felt that Thor understood them.

627
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:19,320
Thor was armed with a legendary
hammer called Mjolnir,

628
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:22,640
and with it,
Thor could level mountains.

629
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:27,880
For a man like the Repton Warrior,

630
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:32,840
everything about him was building
to one ideal conclusion.

631
00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:35,200
He wanted a heroic death
on the battlefield

632
00:46:35,200 --> 00:46:38,000
that would guarantee him
access to the next world,

633
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:39,680
which for him was Valhalla,

634
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:43,520
which was a place where he would
fight all day with other heroes

635
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:45,000
and then feast all night.

636
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:48,360
It was the perfect Viking heaven.

637
00:46:48,360 --> 00:46:52,960
For the Anglo-Saxons,
this is the worst-case scenario,

638
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:57,120
because it's in the Viking mindset
to fight to the death.

639
00:46:57,120 --> 00:47:01,800
And it's a horde of men
who think like this

640
00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:06,440
that the Anglo-Saxons
here had to face.

641
00:47:13,480 --> 00:47:18,360
East Anglia, Northumbria,
and finally, Mercia,

642
00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:20,520
all fell into the hands
of the Danes.

643
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:24,520
Only King Alfred's kingdom, Wessex,
withstood the onslaught.

644
00:47:27,080 --> 00:47:32,320
But even he wasn't quite strong
enough to drive them out completely.

645
00:47:32,320 --> 00:47:36,320
So eventually,
a peace treaty was agreed,

646
00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:40,120
the terms of which basically
gave the Vikings control

647
00:47:40,120 --> 00:47:42,160
of a territory north of a line

648
00:47:42,160 --> 00:47:45,440
stretching between
Chester and the Thames.

649
00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:47,760
The territory became known
as the Danelaw.

650
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:53,600
It was basically
a Danish Viking colony.

651
00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:55,960
All of this land that
I'm travelling through now

652
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:57,640
was under Danish Viking control.

653
00:48:00,280 --> 00:48:03,840
What the Vikings did
here in England was unprecedented.

654
00:48:05,560 --> 00:48:08,400
The taking of England
wasn't settlement or expansion.

655
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:12,800
It was conquest, by war.

656
00:48:12,800 --> 00:48:16,360
It was different from anything
they were to do anywhere else,

657
00:48:16,360 --> 00:48:19,200
and the result was unique,

658
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:23,240
a fusion of Viking and
Anglo-Saxon culture in the North

659
00:48:23,240 --> 00:48:25,760
that even today gives
Northern England

660
00:48:25,760 --> 00:48:28,840
so much of
its distinctive character.

661
00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:31,080
The establishment of the Danelaw

662
00:48:31,080 --> 00:48:34,360
essentially created
our North-South divide.

663
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:45,520
The city that became the capital
of the Danelaw was York.

664
00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:52,320
And Viking settlers started
flooding in to what was already

665
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:56,240
one of the most important
Anglo-Saxon centres in England.

666
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:08,320
All of these items here shows
that there were Vikings in York.

667
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:10,480
They're classically Viking material.

668
00:49:10,480 --> 00:49:14,160
The comb for personal grooming
and taking care of head lice.

669
00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:16,880
You've got amber jewellery,
possibly from the Baltic.

670
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:21,360
This is a gaming piece,
and it's walrus ivory,

671
00:49:21,360 --> 00:49:24,200
maybe from as far away as Greenland.

672
00:49:24,200 --> 00:49:27,040
So it's precisely the sort of stuff
you expect from Vikings

673
00:49:27,040 --> 00:49:29,080
and from people who are trading,

674
00:49:29,080 --> 00:49:31,280
at a time when York
has become a centre

675
00:49:31,280 --> 00:49:33,400
with material
coming in from all over.

676
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:38,960
On the back of Viking trade,
York boomed,

677
00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:41,680
and became a thriving city,

678
00:49:41,680 --> 00:49:44,480
second only
to Anglo-Saxon London.

679
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:48,400
Its population
exploded from 2,000 to 10,000.

680
00:49:52,040 --> 00:49:54,520
But for the Vikings
who settled here,

681
00:49:54,520 --> 00:49:56,880
it was a very strange experience.

682
00:49:56,880 --> 00:49:59,840
York was quite unlike Birka,
or even Dublin,

683
00:49:59,840 --> 00:50:04,400
let alone the farmstead
settlements of most of Scandinavia.

684
00:50:06,200 --> 00:50:12,720
And the new city life had some
very serious downsides.

685
00:50:12,720 --> 00:50:14,960
I'm quite glad to be
putting on gloves,

686
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:18,440
because these contain
Viking excrement.

687
00:50:18,440 --> 00:50:21,960
Fragments thereof. It's all been
collected from cesspits.

688
00:50:21,960 --> 00:50:23,880
Examination of this, though,

689
00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:26,760
glamorous though it
certainly isn't,

690
00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:28,560
is very informative,

691
00:50:28,560 --> 00:50:32,880
because this contains traces
of what the people were eating.

692
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:38,200
You get traces of things like
bran, cereals, fruit stones.

693
00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:42,960
So we can tell that, in some ways,
their diet was quite healthy.

694
00:50:42,960 --> 00:50:45,880
However, most tellingly of all,

695
00:50:45,880 --> 00:50:48,800
the excrement is full of eggs

696
00:50:48,800 --> 00:50:51,120
left behind by intestinal parasites.
Worms.

697
00:50:51,120 --> 00:50:52,360
It was unavoidable.

698
00:50:52,360 --> 00:50:55,160
And it was caused
by the sanitation,

699
00:50:55,160 --> 00:50:57,400
or frankly, the lack of it.

700
00:50:57,400 --> 00:51:00,480
There wasn't the infrastructure
for running water.

701
00:51:00,480 --> 00:51:03,160
So, by and large,
people had cesspits in their yards.

702
00:51:03,160 --> 00:51:06,760
They were living close to,
surrounded by, their own waste,

703
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:08,480
their own infections.

704
00:51:08,480 --> 00:51:10,160
That took its toll.

705
00:51:10,160 --> 00:51:15,480
Something like 50% of Viking women
were dead at 35.

706
00:51:15,480 --> 00:51:17,680
Viking men were lucky
to make it to 50.

707
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:21,040
Despite its drawbacks,

708
00:51:21,040 --> 00:51:25,040
York became a place of manufacture,
craft and design,

709
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:27,040
as well as trade and settlement.

710
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:32,960
As the second and third-generation
Vikings grew up here,

711
00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:35,480
there was inevitable integration

712
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:38,840
of people and language.

713
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:44,320
How many of the words
we use every day

714
00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:47,360
actually have their
roots in Viking words?

715
00:51:47,360 --> 00:51:49,800
Lots and lots of really basic
everyday words.

716
00:51:49,800 --> 00:51:51,280
So a word you've just used, "root,"

717
00:51:51,280 --> 00:51:54,280
itself probably
comes from Old Norse.

718
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:56,720
Comes through the Viking side
of English's ancestry.

719
00:51:56,720 --> 00:51:58,760
What about things around us
in this market?

720
00:51:58,760 --> 00:52:00,840
Well, things like eggs, skirts,

721
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:02,920
I see some bags over there.

722
00:52:02,920 --> 00:52:04,200
The sky, windows,

723
00:52:04,200 --> 00:52:08,680
other things that I can see
include skin, leg, skull...

724
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:10,760
So very simple words?

725
00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:13,560
Very simple,
basic words for things, yeah.

726
00:52:13,560 --> 00:52:17,640
Also words which describe how
we feel and how we react to stuff.

727
00:52:17,640 --> 00:52:20,800
So if you're angry,
if you're happy, if you're ill...

728
00:52:20,800 --> 00:52:23,080
Those words as well?
All these words come from Norse.

729
00:52:23,080 --> 00:52:25,360
Basic verbs as well.

730
00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:28,840
So, give and take, get, call.

731
00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:33,280
Does language reveal anything about
the extent of Viking colonisation?

732
00:52:33,280 --> 00:52:35,560
Well, the easiest way to tell that

733
00:52:35,560 --> 00:52:39,400
is by looking at the evidence
of the place names.

734
00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:42,000
Anywhere in a band across the North
and the East,

735
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:44,400
from Cheshire right down to Suffolk,

736
00:52:44,400 --> 00:52:46,600
there are lots of
Old Norse place names.

737
00:52:46,600 --> 00:52:48,920
Words which are wholly
or partly from Old Norse.

738
00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:51,360
So anything involving '-by'. B-Y.

739
00:52:51,360 --> 00:52:54,040
Places like Grimsby...

740
00:52:54,040 --> 00:52:56,440
Or Whitby. Whitby, yes. Selby.

741
00:52:56,440 --> 00:52:58,920
And what does the '-by' mean?

742
00:52:58,920 --> 00:53:00,720
"-By" seems to mean a settlement,
village.

743
00:53:00,720 --> 00:53:03,120
Somewhere round a farmstead.
There are lots more.

744
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:04,760
It's amazing, isn't it?

745
00:53:04,760 --> 00:53:07,640
We're talking about people
who arrived, you know,

746
00:53:07,640 --> 00:53:09,040
1,300, 1,200 years ago,

747
00:53:09,040 --> 00:53:11,440
and yet the words
they brought with them

748
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:14,520
are still echoing around us today.

749
00:53:14,520 --> 00:53:16,760
They're all around, yes.
That's right. That's right.

750
00:53:19,400 --> 00:53:21,080
When you come to a place like this,

751
00:53:21,080 --> 00:53:25,680
is easy to see the impact
that Vikings have had on us.

752
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:27,520
And it's not just the place names

753
00:53:27,520 --> 00:53:29,520
or the words
in our everyday language.

754
00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:32,320
The Vikings are part of who we are.

755
00:53:32,320 --> 00:53:36,040
By setting up their own towns,
and by marrying the locals,

756
00:53:36,040 --> 00:53:38,880
their blood mixed with our blood.

757
00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:40,920
And they're still here
with us today.

758
00:53:44,400 --> 00:53:48,240
What started with attack
and war became,

759
00:53:48,240 --> 00:53:52,080
as so often with invaders,
assimilation.

760
00:53:52,080 --> 00:53:55,960
Bloodshed giving way
to a new cultural fusion.

761
00:54:00,040 --> 00:54:03,520
But for the Vikings, this wasn't
only something that happened

762
00:54:03,520 --> 00:54:05,640
with the Anglo-Saxons of England.

763
00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:08,320
It was global.

764
00:54:14,040 --> 00:54:19,680
To end my journey, I'm returning
to Stockholm one last time.

765
00:54:22,160 --> 00:54:25,240
Because right here,
at the geographical hub

766
00:54:25,240 --> 00:54:27,880
of East and West, North and South,

767
00:54:27,880 --> 00:54:31,080
at the heart of
the Vikings' trading network,

768
00:54:31,080 --> 00:54:34,320
there's something that epitomises

769
00:54:34,320 --> 00:54:37,800
the global reach
of that trading empire.

770
00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:40,640
And it also graphically illustrates

771
00:54:40,640 --> 00:54:44,440
just how many cultures
the Vikings were exposed to.

772
00:54:51,360 --> 00:54:56,280
A collection of treasure discovered
on a little Baltic island

773
00:54:56,280 --> 00:54:59,480
was once the property
of a single Viking household.

774
00:55:00,760 --> 00:55:03,400
Look at these three marvels.

775
00:55:03,400 --> 00:55:08,240
They are known collectively
as the Helgo Treasure.

776
00:55:14,520 --> 00:55:17,400
They were all found
together in one house.

777
00:55:19,440 --> 00:55:23,720
First of all,
there's a bishop's crosier,

778
00:55:23,720 --> 00:55:26,840
which is the headpiece
that would be on top of a staff

779
00:55:26,840 --> 00:55:30,000
carried by a bishop as a mark
of his office and status.

780
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:36,320
Everything about its decoration
is typically Irish.

781
00:55:36,320 --> 00:55:40,440
How did it come to be
in an island in Sweden?

782
00:55:40,440 --> 00:55:44,040
Well, we've talked about raids
on Irish monasteries,

783
00:55:44,040 --> 00:55:46,280
and it's very believable

784
00:55:46,280 --> 00:55:49,320
that this has been plundered
during one of those raids.

785
00:55:50,840 --> 00:55:53,160
Next here, we have a ladle.

786
00:55:53,160 --> 00:55:55,800
It would've been used
in religious ceremonies,

787
00:55:55,800 --> 00:55:58,920
specifically for baptism.

788
00:55:58,920 --> 00:56:01,520
It's to pour water over
the head of someone

789
00:56:01,520 --> 00:56:04,440
who's being welcomed
into the Christian church.

790
00:56:04,440 --> 00:56:07,200
It's made of bronze,

791
00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:11,240
and it's probably from North Africa.

792
00:56:15,520 --> 00:56:21,720
The Christian crosier and
Coptic ladle are incredible objects.

793
00:56:21,720 --> 00:56:25,040
But there was something
found beside them

794
00:56:25,040 --> 00:56:27,680
that I find even more extraordinary.

795
00:56:29,920 --> 00:56:32,720
It's a bronze Buddha.

796
00:56:32,720 --> 00:56:33,960
This was probably made

797
00:56:33,960 --> 00:56:36,560
in the northern part
of the Indian subcontinent.

798
00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:38,680
Maybe Pakistan or Afghanistan.

799
00:56:38,680 --> 00:56:43,480
And it has made its way here,
likely, along the Silk Road.

800
00:56:43,480 --> 00:56:45,960
Passing through many hands,

801
00:56:45,960 --> 00:56:50,040
going through Constantinople,
through Russia,

802
00:56:50,040 --> 00:56:52,080
and eventually finding its way
to Helgo.

803
00:56:55,280 --> 00:56:58,960
Within the heart of Scandinavia,
in the far north,

804
00:56:58,960 --> 00:57:01,040
you have objects that represent

805
00:57:01,040 --> 00:57:04,400
the other three points
on the compass.

806
00:57:04,400 --> 00:57:06,960
West, South, and East.

807
00:57:06,960 --> 00:57:12,400
The products of Africa,
Ireland, and India,

808
00:57:12,400 --> 00:57:14,440
and in one place.

809
00:57:14,440 --> 00:57:16,800
One little Baltic island.

810
00:57:19,080 --> 00:57:21,320
It's almost inconceivable.

811
00:57:21,320 --> 00:57:24,840
Quite marvellous to behold.

812
00:57:24,840 --> 00:57:28,000
Think how far the Vikings have come.

813
00:57:28,000 --> 00:57:30,840
It's only 100, maybe 150 years,

814
00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:33,280
since those first raids.

815
00:57:33,280 --> 00:57:35,320
But by now, those Vikings

816
00:57:35,320 --> 00:57:40,040
have stretched their hands
across the face of the known world.

817
00:57:40,040 --> 00:57:42,640
The Vikings have arrived.

818
00:57:44,000 --> 00:57:46,360
Next time,

819
00:57:46,360 --> 00:57:49,040
the Vikings head for unknown lands.

820
00:57:49,040 --> 00:57:53,640
The Vikings were no longer
just raiders and traders.

821
00:57:53,640 --> 00:57:59,320
From that moment onwards,
they were explorers and adventurers.

822
00:57:59,320 --> 00:58:03,440
They begin to form powerful
nation states.

823
00:58:03,440 --> 00:58:07,880
We have Harold himself
being baptised.

824
00:58:07,880 --> 00:58:11,440
And finally, say goodbye

825
00:58:11,440 --> 00:58:13,320
to their ancient pagan gods,

826
00:58:13,320 --> 00:58:18,000
to join the kings
of Christian Europe.

827
00:58:46,760 --> 00:58:50,280
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