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NZ Herald
5 days ago
- NZ Herald
Greer Jarrett's voyages reveal Viking traders' open ocean capabilities
'Most scholarship has focused on the large, impressive longships, which were not designed for long-range sailing and did not represent the realities of everyday life in the period,' Jarrett said. Longships, he reasoned, give a skewed image of what sorts of sailing trips would have been possible. For much of those three years, Jarrett led student and volunteer crews on sailing expeditions along the west coast of the Scandinavian Peninsula, the historical core of Norse seafaring. Even without traversing oceans, they encountered perils that sometimes rivalled those of Leif Erikson and his father, Erik the Red, who is believed to have been the first European to reach North America. Turbulent tidal currents. Broken yards - the horizontal spars on a ship's mast to which the mainsail is attached. Encounters with 4m-waves, a surfacing submarine, and an amorous minke whale. A photo provided by Lorenz Peppler shows the archaeologist Greer Jarrett, rear, at the helm during a Norwegian voyage, in 2022, from Rissa to Bergen, Norway, along a route described in a ninth-century account that helped locate a number of potential Viking Age harbours and anchorages. Photo / Lorenz Peppler, The New York Times The most challenging, if not the most terrifying, of the hazards were powerful, frigid winds that swept down mountain slopes. Norwegians have a term for these surprising gusts: fallvinder, because they seem to fall off hillsides and on to the water without warning, and can reach speeds comparable to that of a tornado. It was all in the name of science: providing Jarrett with practical insights into Norse navigation. Scholars of seafaring, he contends, have over-emphasised terrestrial and textual sources at the expense of understanding the actual lived realities of sailors. To counter his own academic bias and what he calls 'mainland myopia', Jarrett spends as much time as possible at sea, working as part of a crew onboard a traditional wooden boat, with few modern aids for navigation, comfort and food processing. He has now published his findings in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. His analysis, spanning the first 17 voyages and 1494 nautical miles logged during this investigation, weds firsthand observations with digital modelling of the ancient Norwegian shoreline to uncover lost sea routes and hidden harbours once used by Viking seafarers. Vibeke Bischoff, a ship reconstructor at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark, said Jarrett's study, which encompassed several extended sea journeys, upended the notion that Viking traders were confined to coastal travel. Instead, it suggests they were capable of lengthy trips across stretches of open ocean. 'Jarrett has demonstrated that the use of experimental archaeological approaches that marry theory and practice can uncover new subjects for investigation that haven't been thought of before, quite simply because they haven't been physically experienced,' he said. Beyond the fjords Born in Scotland and raised in Spain, Jarrett, 32, descends from a long line of seamen dating back to at least the 16th century, when an ancestor helped build the Great Michael, the largest ship built under the reign of King James IV of Scotland. Jarrett's father sailed him, at 18 months old, through the Corryvreckan, the third largest whirlpool in the world, as a form of baptism. Jarrett became interested in the North Atlantic's Viking Age maritime links while pursuing an undergraduate degree in archaeology at the University of Glasgow. He sought to understand the Viking worldview by seeing it through the eyes of seasoned sailors. In 2020, Jarrett began his doctoral studies at Lund University, focusing on Viking Age seafaring. He began exploring the North Atlantic in fyringer assembled at a Norwegian vocational centre. The construction followed the clinker, or lapstrake, method, meaning the hulls were formed by overlapping spruce planks secured with metal rivets (originally iron nails with roves, in Viking times). Jarrett's fyringer featured one major upgrade: rather than the traditional steering oar (or steer board) mounted on the right side, his boats were controlled by a stern rudder. The premise of Jarrett's new study is that Viking expeditions – despite lacking navigational tools like sextants, maps or compasses – journeyed farther out into high seas than previously assumed. 'It is probable that Viking traders did not exclusively use large, established towns and harbours,' he said. 'Instead, they relied on a network of smaller, decentralised havens.' Jarrett has identified four such havens, all previously unknown. He said that the anchorages, dispersed on remote islands and peninsulas, likely served as crucial, informal staging areas, providing pit stops for sailors travelling between well-known hubs such as Ribe in Denmark, Bergen in Norway, and Dublin in Ireland. He speculated that these were more than mere stopovers. Often situated in what he calls 'transition zones' between open water and fjords, the havens offered temporary refuge from harsh conditions and opportunities to resupply and interact with other sailors. When he reached a potential haven, Jarrett surveyed the area and gathered information from local sailors and fishermen about traditional Norwegian sailing routes used in the 19th and early 20th centuries. At that time, boats lacked engines, and navigation relied on visual observation and local knowledge. Following each voyage, Jarrett consulted marine charts and historical documents, seeking references to havens in old sailing accounts and their archaeological features. The islands of Torget, Hestmona, and Skrova, held significance for some mariners as a source of cautionary tales and coastal landmarks conveyed through shared memories and myths. By integrating the sailing logs of the 26 voyages with advanced digital models, Jarrett reconstructed sea levels, spanning 1200 years of geological shifts. 'I took modern elevation values from a digital grid and subtracted the difference in sea level from the Viking Age for each square in the grid,' he said. After plotting out where low and high tide would have been, he estimated how much dry land might have been available and the navigability of some of the shallower sailing channels. Jarrett found that islands along the outer coast are easier to access than sheltered havens deep in the fjords because they can be approached and departed from under a wider range of conditions. None of the havens that he identified were in narrow fjords, which are hard to access with a square-rigged boat. 'Each one had to be a safe space between different areas of risk, that can be easily found, and can fit multiple boats,' Jarrett said. They also had to offer fresh water, shelter from swells, tidal currents, tempests and a vantage point from which to scout for incoming storms or hostile fleets. The square rig of a femboring, a vessel built in the style used by Viking seafarers and one of the types used by Greer Jarrett in his three-year-long study. Photo / Greer Kimsa Jarrett, The New York Times A fallvinder strikes It was not long after the first leg of his project that Jarrett experienced the terrifying perils of the North Sea. One day a collision with another vessel snapped his ship's yard, and the crew, two men and two women, made emergency repairs by hammering the two halves back together with the butt of an axe. Jarrett and his shipmates cautiously hoisted the sail on the braced yardarm and departed, propelled by a gentle easterly breeze. As they neared Brettingsneset, a headland under a steep hill, they had to turn into the wind. With darkness descending, they strained to see the iron poles indicating treacherous reefs and rocks. Rounding the promontory, they were suddenly struck by fallvinder. 'In that moment I was sure the yard would break, and the boat would be turned sideways by the waves and capsize,' Jarrett said. Fortunately, Jarrett had undergone capsize training a month earlier. He knew that exposure to 3C seawater causes moderate hypothermia. 'I was therefore very aware of what it would be like to be thrown into the sea, at dusk, with slowly numbing limbs and a brain clouded by icy water,' he said. Panic rose inside him, and he feared that he would lose control. 'Instead, I managed to greet the fear and hold it at bay while the rest of my mind and body took care of the situation at hand,' he said. He hauled down the sail, stiff with ice, and used his oars to stabilise the boat against the roaring wind. The boat remained steady on the tumultuous waves, effortlessly twisting as it rode over them. 'Although fyringer are sensitive to fallvinder, they are actually more capable of dealing with them than boats with other rigs,' Jarrett said. Staying composed, he and his crew quickly lowered the sail and prepared to weather the wind. They then resumed their course, safely arriving at port within a few hours. 'From then onI knew we could handle ourselves in even the most dreadful conditions.' The landscapes of Helgeland, within the Arctic Circle in northern Norway, during one of the voyages. Photo / Greer Kimsa Jarrett, The New York Times A 'bridge of experience' Jarrett's conclusions highlight the impact of isostatic rebound, which occurs when land rises after glaciers retreat from the coast. 'Some of the havens that exist today, and which we have long believed were active in the Viking Age, were actually underwater at the time,' Jarrett said. 'The sea level had changed by as much as 20 feet [6m], and so low-lying islands had been entirely submerged back then.' Of the four havens, only the island of Storfosna has yielded archaeological evidence of human habitation – a ship burial from the period just before the Viking Age. Jarrett is hopeful that excavations will be carried out in the havens, to potentially unearth remains of jetties, mooring posts, ballast stones, cooking pits, temporary shelters, and the detritus of boatbuilding, such as rivets and bent nails. Morten Ravn, a researcher at the Viking Ship Museum, said that Jarrett's study illustrated that sailing in the Viking Age was a negotiation among ship, shipmates, seascape, and weather that required constant adaptation. 'Sailing, back then, was never about just taking one route from A to B, but having several routes to choose from,' he said. In Jarrett's view, the success of Viking voyages hinged on both robust vessels and unified crews who could withstand harsh environments and each other. He asserts that mastering traditional sailing techniques and experiencing the bond of shipmates during difficult passages creates a tangible link, or 'bridge of experience', with the sailors of antiquity. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Written by: Franz Lidz Photographs by: Greer Kimsa Jarrett and Lorenz Peppler ©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
American Military News
07-05-2025
- Science
- American Military News
Pics: Two shipwrecks confirmed as slave ships by archaeologists
Archaeologists from the National Museum of Denmark recently announced that two 18th-century shipwrecks off the coast of Central America were confirmed to be slave ships. According to Fox News, the remains of the two ships, known as the Fridericus Quartus and Christianus Quintus, have been located underwater off the coast of the Cahuita National Park in Costa Rica for more than 300 years. The outlet noted that the two ships were believed to have been pirate ships prior to a recent discovery. Fox News reported that David John Gregory, an archaeologist with the National Museum of Denmark, told the outlet that the ships are now believed to have been carrying between 600 and 700 African slaves and roughly 100 crew members when the ships sank. 'When the ships were abandoned on the coast of present-day Costa Rica, almost all of the enslaved were released on the forested coast except for about 20 people, who were forced onboard smaller vessels heading for the nearby Spanish town of Portobello,' Gregory said. '[Fridericus Quartus] was set on fire by its crew, while the other, Christianus Quintus, was set free from its moorings and soon after stranded on the coast.' The National Museum of Denmark announced last month that new information regarding the Fridericus Quartus and Christianus Quintus had been revealed by 'scientific analyses from an underwater excavation in 2023, when marine archaeologists from the National Museum of Denmark and the Viking Ship Museum took samples of wood from one of the wrecks and from the bricks that were part of the cargo more than 300 years ago.' READ MORE: Pics: Surprising WWII shipwreck finds revealed Gregory told Fox News that the excavation was 'minimal' and that his team surveyed approximately 21 square feet around one of the ships to 'obtain samples of the ship's timber.' According to the National Museum of Denmark, archaeologists have been able to use dendrochronological technology to determine that the wood from the ships was from the 17th century. The National Museum of Denmark explained, 'The timbers originate in the western part of the Baltic Sea, an area that encompasses the northeastern German province of Mecklenburg, as well as Schleswig-Holstein, Denmark and Scania — and that the tree was cut down sometime during the years 1690-1695.' The museum added that the 'charred and sooty' wood confirmed historical sources that claimed one of the ships had been 'set ablaze.' 'The analyses are very convincing and we no longer have any doubts that these are the wrecks of the two Danish slave ships,' Gregory said. 'The bricks are Danish and the same goes for the timbers, which are additionally charred and sooty from a fire. This fits perfectly with the historical accounts stating that one of the ships burnt.' Pictures of the remains of the two Danish slave ships have been shared on X, formerly Twitter. ⚓📜 Archaeologist uncovers chilling secrets of wrecked slave ships off Costa Rica. David John Gregory reveals new findings on Fridericus Quartus & Christianus Quintus, 2 Danish slave ships lost centuries ago. The vessels, stranded on coast, carried enslaved Africans on brutal… — GoodMorningRooster (@RoosterGM) May 6, 2025
Daily Mail
05-05-2025
- Science
- Daily Mail
Underwater 'yellow-brick road' leads divers to long-lost slave ships that sunk in the 18th century
Marine archaeologists have found a 'yellow-brick road' at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean that led them to the discovery of two long-lost Danish slave ships. According to historical records, the ships, called Fridericus Quartus and Christianus Quintus, wrecked off the coast of Central America in 1710. Fridericus Quartus was set on fire, while Christianus Quintus had its anchor rope cut and was destroyed in the surf. But for three centuries, no one knew exactly where the remains of these ships were. In Costa Rica, people had long been aware of two shipwrecks located off the coast of Cahuita National Park, but dismissed them as sunken pirate ships. That changed in 2015, when American marine archaeologists found yellow bricks from one of the wrecks, which raised new questions about their history. Researchers from the National Museum Of Denmark and the Viking Ship Museum conducted an underwater excavation of the ships in 2023, taking samples of wood from one of the wrecks, the bricks, and recovering several clay pipes. The team published their analysis of the objects on Sunday, revealing that the shipwrecks are, in fact, the missing remains of Fridericus Quartus and Christianus. Co-researcher David Gregory of the National Museum Of Denmark said: 'The analyses are very convincing and we no longer have any doubts that these are the wrecks of the two Danish slave ships. 'The bricks are Danish and the same goes for the timbers, which are additionally charred and sooty from a fire. This fits perfectly with the historical accounts stating that one of the ships burnt.' Measurements of the bricks revealed that they were the same size as the 'Flensburg' yellow bricks that were used in Denmark and the Danish colonies during the 1700s. Analysis of their clay confirmed that it came from Denmark - either from a beach called Iller Strand or a small town called Egernsund. Both places are located near the Flensburg Fjord, which was home to a large brick-producing industry in the 18th century, according to the National Museum Of Denmark. The researchers used tree-ring dating to determine where oak wood extracted from one of the wrecks came from, finding that it originates from a tree in the western part of the Baltic Sea that was cut down sometime between 1690 and 1695. The wood was also charred and sooty, which aligns with historical reports about one of the ships being set ablaze. The clay pipes offer further evidence that the ships were Danish, as they proved to be Dutch-produced pipes that were commonly found onboard Danish ships at the time. 'The size, shape and patterns of the pipes suggest that they were produced in the period right before the ships became wrecked in 1710,' according to the researchers. Gregory led the study alongside marine archaeologist Andreas Kallmeyer Bloch, who has been working for years to determine the origins of the Costa Rica shipwrecks. Bloch said: 'It's been a long process and I've come close to giving up along the way. 'But this is undoubtedly the craziest archaeological excavation I've yet been part of. Not only because it matters greatly to the local population, but also because it's one of the most dramatic shipwrecks in the history of Denmark, and now we know exactly where it happened. 'This provides two pieces that have been missing from the history of Denmark.' Denmark banned the transatlantic slave trade in 1792, but didn't actually abolish slavery until 1847, according to the museum. This project was carried out by the museum's new research center, Njord, which plans to excavate several more Danish shipwrecks around the world.
Daily Mail
04-05-2025
- Science
- Daily Mail
Underwater yellow-brick road leads divers to astonishing discovery
Marine archaeologists have found a 'yellow-brick road' at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean that led them to the discovery of two long-lost Danish slave ships. According to historical records, these ships, called Fridericus Quartus and Christianus Quintus, wrecked off the coast of Central America in 1710. Fridericus Quartus was set on fire, while Christianus Quintus had its anchor rope cut and was destroyed in the surf. But for three centuries, no one knew exactly where the remains of these ships were. In Costa Rica, people had long been aware of two shipwrecks located off the coast of Cahuita National Park, but dismissed them as sunken pirate ships. That changed in 2015, when American marine archaeologists found yellow bricks from one of the wrecks, which raised new questions about their history. Researchers from the National Museum of Denmark and the Viking Ship Museum conducted an underwater excavation of the ships in 2023, taking samples of wood from one of the wrecks, the bricks and recovering several clay pipes. The team published their analysis of these objects on Sunday, revealing that the shipwrecks were, in fact, the missing remains of Fridericus Quartus and Christianus. 'The analyses are very convincing and we no longer have any doubts that these are the wrecks of the two Danish slave ships,' said co-researcher David Gregory of the National Museum of Denmark. 'The bricks are Danish and the same goes for the timbers, which are additionally charred and sooty from a fire. This fits perfectly with the historical accounts stating that one of the ships burnt,' he added in a statement. Measurements of the bricks revealed that they were the same size as the 'Flensburg' yellow bricks that were used in Denmark and the Danish colonies during the 1700s. Analysis of their clay confirmed that it came from Denmark — specifically either from a beach called Iller Strand or a small town called Egernsund. Both of these places are located near the Flensburg Fjord, which was home to a large brick-producing industry in the 18th century, according to the National Museum of Denmark. The researchers used tree-ring dating to determine where oak wood extracted from one of the wrecks came from, finding that it originates from a tree in the western part of the Baltic Sea that was cut down sometime between 1690 and 1695. The wood was also charred and sooty, which aligns with historical reports about one of the ships being set ablaze. The clay pipes offer further evidence that the ships were Danish, as they proved to be Dutch-produced pipes that were commonly found onboard Danish ships at the time. 'The size, shape and patterns of the pipes suggest that they were produced in the period right before the ships became wrecked in 1710,' according to the researchers. Measurements of the bricks revealed that they were the same size as the 'Flensburg' yellow bricks that were used in Denmark and the Danish colonies during the 1700s Gregory led the study alongside marine archaeologist Andreas Kallmeyer Bloch, who has been working for years to determine the origins of the Costa Rica shipwrecks. 'It's been a long process and I've come close to giving up along the way,' Bloch said in the statement. 'But this is undoubtedly the craziest archaeological excavation I've yet been part of. Not only because it matters greatly to the local population, but also because it's one of the most dramatic shipwrecks in the history of Denmark, and now we know exactly where it happened. 'This provides two pieces that have been missing from the history of Denmark,' he said. Denmark banned the transatlantic slave trade in 1792, but didn't actually abolish slavery until 1847, according to the museum. This project was carried out by the museum's new research center, Njord, which plans to excavate several more Danish shipwrecks around the world.
Miami Herald
29-04-2025
- Science
- Miami Herald
Ships carrying enslaved people wrecked amid revolts in 1700s. Now they're found
Centuries after Danish ships carrying enslaved people from West Africa disappeared in the Caribbean, the charred and destroyed remains have been identified for the first time. In 2023, researchers and archaeologists from the National Museum of Denmark and the Viking Ship Museum put on their dive gear and visited two known shipwreck sites off Cahuita National Park in Costa Rica, according to an April 27 news release from the National Museum published in Ritzaus Bureau. 'For many years, however, they were thought to be pirate ships,' researchers said. 'But when American marine archaeologists in 2015 found yellow bricks in one of the wrecks, new questions emerged about the history of the ships.' Hoping to find answers, the archaeologists brought samples of the bricks and wood to the surface to determine where it originated, according to the release. The researchers used dendrochronology, or the study of tree rings, to determine the wood for one wreck came from the western region of the Baltic Sea, which included a region of Germany and Denmark, according to the release. Dating of the wood showed it was cut down between 1690 and 1695, researchers said, and it was 'charred and sooty.' When they analyzed the bricks, they found the brick matched Flensburg bricks produced in Denmark and the Danish colonies, and the clay used to make them was collected in Denmark, researchers said. The bricks were dated to the 18th century. Among the wreckage, the divers also found Dutch-produced pipes with sizes and patterns suggesting they were made at the beginning of the 18th century, according to the release. At this point, there was no doubt where the ships originated: Denmark. But, how did they make their way to the Costa Rican coast? And how had their journeys come to such violent ends? 'According to historical sources, the two Danish slave ships Fridericus Quartus and Christianus Quintus were shipwrecked off the coast of Central America in 1710,' researchers said. 'Fridericus Quartus was set ablaze, while Christianus Quintus had its anchor rope cut, following which the ship was wrecked in the surf. Until now, it has not been clear exactly where the ships were lost.' The ships are considered part of darkest chapters of Danish history, according to an April 28 Facebook post from the Viking Ship Museum. The two ships were blown hundreds of miles off course as they traveled across the Atlantic from West Africa as part of the trade of enslaved people, according to the museum. In the spring of 1710, the ships finally saw land, but the environment on board was dangerously tense, the museum said. The crew and 600-700 enslaved people had resorted to eating only turtles caught off the ship by the end of the journey, and after the surviving West Africans were dropped on shore, there was a mutiny, according to the museum. The anchors of one ship were cut, allowing it to crash into the coral reef and sink, and the second ship was set ablaze, eventually also reaching the seafloor. Some members of the crew had boarded English vessels, eventually making their way back to Denmark and writing about their previous voyage, but none of the sailors wrote where the ships met their end, the museum said. A video about the expedition was shared by the National Museum of Denmark on April 28. Cahuita National Park is on the southeastern coast of Costa Rica along the Caribbean Sea. Facebook Translate was used to translate the post from the Viking Ship Museum.
