Something To Look Forward To

Viking aficionados have known for a while that the British Museum was planning another big Viking exhibition. It's now been more than three decades since their last big one in 1980, which I remember well even though I was a mere cradolcild of a PhD student in London at the time. Now, more news is emerging about the new exhibition, which will be in 2013, and organised in cooperation with Copenhagen and Berlin.
The website of the National Museum of Denmark is promising the world's longest Viking ship (pictured above), affectionately known as Roskilde Wreck 6, one of several ships found in 1997 when the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde was being expanded. The ship was made of oak, built probably in Norway around 1025, and was 36 m. long and 3.5 m. wide, with up to 78 oars and a crew therefore of around 100.
We are promised 'a new perspective on the world of the Vikings', with a concentration on four themes: (1) expansion and warfare; (2) power and aristocracy; (3) rituals and belief; and (4) cultural contacts and exchange. I'm already clearing my diary for 2013.