Live Stream and Lovely Finds
Two weeks ago, the dig was marked by cameras, visits, and awesome finds!
Per (left) excavates in the southern end of the ship, while Margrethe, actress Silje Torp, and host Ole Andreas Laache Klevan records the daily summary for Thursday September 24th. Photo: Christian L. Rødsrud/KHM.
The week of September 21st to September 25th was Alltid viking (Always Viking) week, a collaboration project between the Norwegian Broadcasting Company (NRK) and our excavation. The point of this project was to visualize what an archaeological excavation can be like, minute by minute, through a live stream. Therefore, we got to experience what it is like to work in front of cameras from start to finish every workday last week. It was a different experience and quite strange to begin with, but all in all it turned out alright!
While most of us excavated, Margrethe joined forces with NRK journalist Christian Nicolai to answer viewer questions during the live stream. We were quite overwhelmed by how engaged and curious you guys were!
Every day ended with a summary broadcast with host Ole, project manager Christian, and dissemination coordinator Margrethe, along with a few cool guests. Both the live streams and summaries of the whole week are still available at Alltid viking's website, so go ahead and have a look if you did not get a chance to tune in, or if you want to watch it over again.
During the week, two pretty awesome finds were uncovered: A very distinct, gorgeous row of nails in the southern end of the ship, and animal bones in the mid/northern section of the ship. The row of nails is located in the area where the strakes were fastened to the prow, which gives us a clear indication of how the ship was constructed. The animal bones are relatively large in size, so we think that they are the remains of an ox or a horse that has been sacrificed to be part of the burial. The bones are also in the area that we think contained the burial chamber. Although the topmost layers of the bones are heavily decomposed, they seem to be better preserved further down. This indicates that it is quite likely that things are better preserved deeper into the ship burial!
We want to thank NRK for a super fun week, and those of you who tuned in to the live stream! Remember, even though the live stream has ended, you can still follow the progress of the excavation here on our website, in addition to our Facebook event, and The Viking Ship Museum's Instagram.