Students and lecturers from the UK’s National School of Blacksmithing travelled to Aggersborg in northern Denmark, one of the country’s largest Viking Age ring fortresses, to take part in an experimental archaeology project.
Working beside roaring furnaces, the team is forging an anchor from bloomery iron, a material produced by smelting iron ore in a small furnace rather than through modern industrial steelmaking.
The design is based on X-ray analysis of early medieval anchors. Researchers can identify weld lines and different types of iron within the original objects, allowing the blacksmiths to reproduce the techniques used to make them.
The team is also using hand-powered bellows and historically appropriate fuel, giving students an insight into the challenges faced by Viking craftsmen.
Technician Ernestas Jakubauskas says the experience shows why Viking blacksmiths developed particular techniques to work with the materials available to them.
The project is taking place at Aggersborg, a strategic fortress built around 980 AD during the reign of King Harald Bluetooth. Its location gave Vikings access to the Limfjord, an important waterway linking the Baltic and North Seas.
Once finished, the anchor is due to be fitted to a reconstructed early medieval workboat based on the Gislinge boat, discovered in Denmark in 1993.
The researchers hope the experiment will provide a better understanding of the expertise and craftsmanship behind the objects that helped Viking seafarers travel, trade and raid across Europe.
Check out the video above for footage of the anchor recreation.
