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VIKING

Norway plans world’s largest Viking theme park

A group of Norwegian investors plan to build the world's largest Viking theme park in a village in western Norway, luring tourists with roller coasters, staged Viking battles, and Viking-style feasts.

Published: 2 December 2013 11:44 CET
Norway plans world's largest Viking theme park
Nordvegen History Centre - Visit Haugelund
The Viking Land project, which will cost some 350m kroner ($60m), is expected to draw in up to 300,000 visitors a year once it opens in 2014. 
 
"Nothing like this exists anywhere in the world. The project is unique" Odd Erik Salvesen, who is coordinating the project, told Norway's VG newspaper. 
 
The park, which is being designed by Itec, a US theme park design company which does work for Disney will be built around the myth of the Yggdrasil, the giant tree from Norse mythology.
 
It will be divided into three zones: one centred on Asgard, the land of the gods, one on nature and forest, and a third on a Viking village.
 
The investors are looking for suitable sites near Haugesund airport, which takes four Ryanair flights a week from London's Stanstead airport. 
 
The project is being promoted by the Vikinglandet Utvikling  joint venture, and partly involves Caiano, the investment vehicle of shipping magnate Kristian Eidesvik. 
 
Salvesen is looking at the village of Fosen, which is close to the E39 road, the Nordvegen History Centre (a museum about Viking life in the area), and the village of Avaldsnes, where many believe Harald Fairhair, the king who first united Norway is buried. 
 

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VIKING

Viking-age skeleton found under Norway couple’s house

Archeologists have now found a skeleton in the suspected Viking-era tomb a Norwegian couple discovered last week under their house -- but the bones have been broken into pieces.

Published: 1 June 2020 11:35 CEST
Viking-age skeleton found under Norway couple's house
The bones had been broken up. Photo: The Arctic University of Norway
“We have found several bones, and bones from a human,”  archaeologist Jørn Erik Henriksen from Tromsø University told Norway's state TV station NRK. 
 
“The big bones have been affected by some sort of violence, and we can't say what it is. A disturbance, or event has taken place after the body was buried.” 
 
Mariann Kristiansen from Seivåg near Bodø was pulling up the floor of her house with her husband to install insulation last week when they couple found a glass bead, and then a Viking axe. 
 
 
When they contacted the local county archeologist, he concluded it was a Viking-age grave, after which a team from Tromsø University came to inspect the discovery. 
 
Henriksen said his team had yet to carry out carbon dating which could confirm the age of the tomb, and had yet to ascertain the gender of the person buried, but said they still believed the grave was Viking era. 
 
All of the skeleton's larger bones were broken, he said. “We are excited to find out if there are any cut marks on them.”   
 
“We do not know when the grave was given this treatment, but everything indicates that it must have happened long before the house was built in 1914.” 
 
 
As well as the skeleton, archeologists have also found a knife. 
 
From the grave, Henriksen, it did not seem as if the person buried was from the upper echelons of society. 
 
“It may have been a free person, but hardly anyone who belonged to the aristocracy.
 
 
 
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