Things Archaeologists Got Wrong About the Vikings

[@Sideprojects]

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[@Philip-w5l]

The Vikings were really good natured big guys who were fun to "party"with...😎 The Viking Women were ravishing...(You're fortunate to keep your head when you're on their guest list 🌹...☠️)

[@EricCoop]

As a mariner, I can tell you that staying as clean as possible is paramount. Think about it. You're at sea for months at a time, the only thing keeping you alive is your ship, and ship crews live in close quarters. Trust me, a dirty sailor will eventually get fired or get the shit beat out of him.

[@perstaunstrup3451]

The danish word for Saturday is ‘lørdag’ which means washing day; cleanliness legacy! And becoming Christian took some time, even to the point of having laws in the 12’hundredth regarding inheritance to require that the child was Christian (some would argue we are still a bunch of half-pagans). At this time of year, also worth noting that no Scandinavian language has ‘Christ’ in Christmas; we all celebrate Jul/Yule.

[@alexanderaugustus]

And let's not forget that all the other peoples the Vikings encountered were just as warlike and ruthless - they were just taken aback at first by the skill and efficiency of Viking warfare.

[@jamesfry8983]

They were great farmers and did a lot of trade, as well as exploring the seas, they even made it to the Arabic world

[@BringNightmares]

Especially the misconception with the Rus

[@alaric_]

Blatantly false, just to give one example: the Finns. Glamorization of vikings is something i really don't understand.

[@martinsportfoto2423]

I remember hearing a historian commenting on vikings, saying basically that they did what a lot of other peoples also did and had been doing for a long time - the raiding, the invasions, the violence. They just had the misfortune of being pretty good at it and of doing it against people who used writing to document what happened. That is, they attacked early Christians (monks and similar) who not only wrote down what they saw, but these writings (and the propaganda created from it) was collected and spread by a very large and powerful organization - the church. In short, what vikings did was not that unusual, what was unusual was the fact that their actions got documented for posterity.

[@artor9175]

Their advanced ship building technology allowed them to spread far and wide, to hit fast and vanish quickly. Their brutality in battle wasn't unique, but as a cultural phenomenon, they did stand out in history.

[@andy2950]

The early Christians were far worse when it came to blood and gore in the slaughter of non Christian vikings.

[@Cara-39]

I'm an early medieval historian with a focus on post-Roman Anglo-Saxon Britian, of which the Viking attacks and subsequent settlement in England were defining events of the period. The attack on Lindisfarne in 793 was so shocking to the completely unprepared Christian population and church establishment that it essentially solidified the Vikings' reputation as murderous demons for the next 1200 yrs. They could only explain it and the brutal raids that followed as punishment from God and it was only in the late 19th century that their cultures, lifestyles and traditions were explored in depth, changing the way the world viewed them. Of all the Scandinavians, there were more farmers, traders, artisans...etc than actual Vikings, which means raiders/pirates, but they inspired so much fear that even through the Viking Age only lasted a few hundred years, they haven't faded into obscurity and are even part of modern pop culture.

[@jackvos8047]

They've put the ad read in the wrong spot. They should have put it with the hygiene section. "Vikings took care of their appearance and they would have taken care of their skin with today's sponsor............"

[@andrewmcalister3462]

Simon would have completely failed as a Viking, by not navigating himself to that obvious segue.

[@raquellofstedt9713]

I know a guy who is a dcumented decendent och Harald blue-tooth, one of the last of the big Danish viking chiefs. He's well, an elementary school principal, which is perhaps the kind of administrator we need these days.

[@kristianjohansen5561]

He wasn't one of the last big viking chiefs, he was the king of Denmark, son of Gorm the Old and father of Sweyn Forkbeard. The greatest viking king of Denmark was Canute the Great who were grandson to Bluetooth. The last viking king of Denmark was Sweyn Estridsen. But there were a lot of different Jarls etc that went viking

[@fillyfresh]

The Viking age was a holy war of the Pagans against the Holy Roman Empire. It was a continuation of the Wars Charlamaine started in Europe with the Saxons, which was also a holy crusade.

[@Cara-39]

The Viking Age expansion, of which there were fewer actual Vikings than everyday Scandinavians, was not a holy war. The expansion was largely driven by the desire for silver; engagement in the international slave trade, particularly with the Islamic Middle East, also to gain silver; conquest of new and better lands to settle and farm; and new trade opportunities with Western Europe. Charlemagne's campaign to forcibly convert the Saxons wasn't a factor as shown by the fact that the first target of Viking raids was not the Frankish Kingdom, but Christian monasteries in England, where treasure was unguarded and farms well stocked. Silver and the slave trade were two of the biggest factors and while there were pagan vs Christian problems in the beginning, the Scandinavians converted as they settled in new lands that were already Christianized.

[@johnpaulgonzaga5997]

Vinland saga represented their culture quite well

[@kristinjoni]

I’m a descendent of Vikings. I did a thesis on them. I appreciate your accuracy in this and for dispelling some of the misconceptions (like the horned helmet)

[@Cara-39]

How do you know you're a descendant of Vikings? There's no specific Viking DNA and current DNA tests compare DNA with modern populations, not ancient genomes. Also, even with a strong Scandinavian link, there's no way to prove relation to a specific Viking, not to mention most Scandinavians weren't Vikings. So it's quite possible to know if someone has Scandinavian roots but quite difficult to trace back over 1000 yrs to individual raiders.

[@Kazihirom]

⁠​⁠@@Cara-39 I have the actual lineage that goes back to the Normans for my family. Every person in the line is known, including one that came over with William the conquer. I’ve seen another thing where the linked every American president (except Martin, Van Buren) as a descendant of King John (The evil, Prince John from Robin Hood brother of King Richard 2nd) so it’s certainly possible to know and go back pretty far if you’re a European descent

[@brandonvasser5902]

My last name is Vasser now. But the Norwegians that came over were Petersons and before that there was Tajet (which is, Sami?) My twin was able to go back to Norway and even meet some of our family that remembered my grandpa. My grandma loved genealogy and traced marriage records back as a hobby and found we were related to Erik the Red, supposedly. From marriage records, I can surmise my ancestors were on the Isle of Wight in Virginia when the massacre of 1622 happened. And one of my half french relatives is related to Cartier the guy that wifed up Sacajawea. The thing about marriage records though, is that the English crown is actually German 😂, so, you know. To your point. Edit: I had a fraternity brother at LSU, Bjornar Nesland, basically Thor from the first Thor movie, and he joked that Truls Lomo, our other brother, brown hair brown eyes, was from the North. But his ancestors, on the southern coast, got raided and raped by Moors in the 16th century and thats where he, Bjornar, got his tan red skin from. I always wonder if that was true because it was such a weird funny joke but he told it to me when I said I was Norwegian too.

[@OneVerySadPanda]

She is also 1/64th Apache. That is where she gets her tenacity from.

[@Cara-39]

@@brandonvasser5902 Moors is a meaningless term used in the middle ages by Christian Europeans to refer to Muslims in general, particularly from the Iberian peninsula and Magreb, but doesn't describe a distinct group of ppl. That said, the slavery story sounds far fetched, particularly because Muslim slave traders rarely, if ever, went to Scandinavia because the Vikings brought slaves to them in the Middle East to trade, not to mention one Middle Eastern ancestor from 500+ yrs ago seems unlikely to impact someone's skintone to such a degree when all other ancestors are Norwegian. Also, Scandinavia's involvement with the slave trade, basically ended in the late 11th century when Norway, Sweden and Denmark adopted Christianity.

[@davea6314]

A Viking man can impress women by demonstrating how he takes his longship up a canal to deliver seeds which can be planted in fertile places.

[@TheCrosshare]

The viking tradition of weekly bathing can probably still be seen in places, like Finland, where saturday is sauna(and cleaning as such) day. Obviously not the only day, and showers etc more often, but saturday is *the* day for sauna and such. Could be a co-incidence that vikings did their stuff on saturday too, according to some research, but it could also be a tradition that's well over a thousand years old :D Although this tradition would've been adopted, either way, as that era Finns weren't exactly part of the viking group.

[@alaric_]

Can confirm: saturday sauna is a cultural rule written in stone. Only flexible thing about is the time which can be freely chosen between 18.00-22.00.

[@Royce16727]

Thanks for embracing the nuance, as always!

[@caseyaldrich6864]

Crazy how many historians are in the comments correcting the video with their abundant knowledge 😂

[@state_your_name]

i always look forward to these videos on my feed

[@benmoore8809]

Honestly, if you still believe the myth about horned helmets, it's willful ignorance at this point. EVERY video talking about Norse and Viking history makes a point to debunk it. I don't think it's even worth mentioning any more. I think the likely viewers are at least more informed than these videos give them credit for.

[@josephhargrove4319]

Alfred the Great notwithstanding, a viking people did (eventually) conquer England. The Normans were descended from viking raiders of northern France who decided to stay. It has also generally believed that the Rus', ancestors of the Russians, were also Scandinavian traders who decided to establish themselves along their Baltic to Black sea trade route and stayed. richard --

[@willmfrank]

"...Either a wild exaggeration or just plain wrong..." You mean like Vikings with shaven heads and big beards? I don't know whether to blame Travis Fimmel or Simon Whistler. 🤔

[@olle7498]

Reading the Icelandic sagas give some good glimpses into the daily life, worldviews, fashion, customs and culture in general around 10th-11th century Iceland, providing a fascinating window onto history - as well as often being genuinely entertaining reads. "Viking" indeed refers to an activity - raiding in particular. Trading and exploring probably shouldn't really be included, although one journey could of course check several of these boxes.

[@stephaniewilson3955]

At least one reason Vikings stopped being pirates was when Medieval ships became 'cogs', too big and tall for them to raid.

[@neillawson2578]

Archeology got it wrong, then they got it right. They might be found wrong again; that's how science works.

[@SherieCrosby]

Agree. The title uses a hasty generalisation fallacy. I'm tired of slagging off all archaeology for clickbait because "some archaeologists" got it wrong. Horned helmet - costume designer. Most of the other myths - Bede and other monks with PTSD. Archaeology analyses "things", i.e. objects & repeats the analysis. That's science. It's not about right or wrong. New procedures become available all the time, that reveal more information.

[@anthonyhudson3459]

"Which is not the case in real life" as if we have real bioships to compare.

[@TrollbaitMage]

A viking video sponsored by a product from a viking company

[@breadboy09]

Thanks

[@outsider7658]

Sorry, Simon ad the Crew, it`s not: "Vineland", as far as I know, it`s: Vinland. "They" have to correct the text, on the stone. As You said, later in the video. And, as complement to You narrative: Vikings got their "teeth kicked in", several times, while trying to invade a part of, as I remember, Lithuania today. By a tribe, more "violent/sophisticated", then them, i.e, better fighters. Correct me, if I am wrong. Sorry to be a party pooper, once again. from a Finn in Diaspora

[@BLACKAAROW]

Bathing once a week was considered excessive? Gross lol 😵‍💫

[@dstripedape978]

No horned helmet? Damn Sideprojects, why ruin a good thing 😂

[@MRoderick89]

I have norse heritage and so proud of it

[@Hevethee]

Just before whatching. To me vikings are just traveling merchants.

[@Peter.H.A.Petersen]

No, they are criminals!

[@blueeyedpunk]

​@@Peter.H.A.PetersenCriminals?

[@artor9175]

Vikings weren't farmers. The word means "to seek fortune overseas." The traders and raiders were Vikings. Their family that stayed at home were not.

[@kristianjohansen5561]

Vikings was a title or a activity. Many farmers went viking. Especially in the early era of the viking age, before the viking kings got their own professional armies. Just like any other army in early middle ages. The farmers that went viking brought their own weapons they had at their farm, like axes etc.

[@lewisguyan8658]

For Odin 🔥🔥💀🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🖤😈👊🏻

[@Rydonattelo]

For Jesus 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿✝️

[@Peter.H.A.Petersen]

@Rydonattelo Who?

[@Rydonattelo]

@@Peter.H.A.Petersen ☝🏽

[@abnurtharn2927]

Finnland was not and is not a part of Scandinavia. The vikings called them rus. They are a nordic, but not a Scandinavian country. Scandinavia is Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland. Sometimes the Faroe Islands is included, but not Finnland. Look it up.

[@alaric_]

JFC, lies or blatant misinformation. Vikings called them anything but 'rus'. They knew the land well and tried several times raiding the villages, failing most of the times. King Olaf II of Norway was almost killed in one trip when Finns counter-attacked and drove them away. Vikings were not stupid or unbeatable. "Rus" was name given by Finns to Swedes who went to Novgorod. The name stuck only much later, the area being called Novgorod at the time. Look it up. And as we're talking about historical facts: majority of vikings were Norwegian with Danes the second largest group and Swedes the small minority. Also, nobody cares about what neighboring countries belong to scandinavia. To the world, the difference is infinitesimal. Could you explain it in plain terms "Why?" Yep, nobody cares. I mean really, nobody cares except scandinavians as it seems it's somehow "insulting" to them. Can't understand why because it doesn't matter. It's like Don Quixote and the windmills... At the same time, scandinavians are often talking about things that *would* include Finland and Faroe Islands but do not then use the correct term, Nordic, so what's up with that? That means they are excluding those two in their narrow term, being overly pedantic and all that.

[@mbathroom1]

last time I was this early, we had vikings

[@keithwalmsley1830]

They bathed once a week? Puts me to shame!!

[@Jezus42]

Im a Scottish viking.

[@keith_5584]

2:05 Little Nicky Lore…

[@chadbrochill19]

...human... treasure? ...wait a minute.

[@Sarah-fy3qf]

They traded in slaves.

[@brianbrandt25]

Danish women would make good warriors. They are huge, tall and powerful..

[@F1Replays]

When I think of Vikings I think of braided hair and long beards

[@skraeling]

Viking women actually held less power than previously thought. While Vikings were more progressive than their neighbours, a woman was only able to be a warrior if her father or husband allowed it. They were still very much under the thumb of men, like the rest of Europe.

[@laurenmp7486]

Funny enough, women Vikings are well attested in the old Viking histories and stories. And these stories have been known all along. So all anyone ever had to do to know the status of women among Vikings and that there were women Vikings who did the same stuff men did, was to read the old Viking accounts of their own exploits. Also worth remembering that one of the places where Vikings settled and set up permanent communities was northern France, where they intermarried with the locals and eventually got the name Normans.

[@johnthekeane]

Just the same as any other people.

[@Kazihirom]

Simon releasing a ridiculous amount of videos because advertising pays more in December

[@smalls6821]

Is it the vikings getting to me or has Simon been working out 👀...

[@pendragon6207]

And finally, there is ZERO archaeological evidence of any vikings _EVER_ wearing face paint. So PLEASE stop with that nonsense.

[@mikemaricle9941]

SKOL

[@fenriswolfq22]

wild how now we accept the sagas in regards to the context behind vikings finding North America, but we just gonna ignore what they say in regards to the handful of females warriors being DEFENSIVE combatants noted for defending hearth or honor......

[@Cara-39]

Historians and archeologists have proven that women fought and some may have led raids. Unfortunately, much of the evidence has been lost over the last 1300+ plus years but what we do have, mainly from a few burials, shows that women weren't chained to the home. Also, Viking Age Scandinavian women had more rights than most, including the ability to inherit property, run businesses, trade, rule, and convene with the gods as respected seers and interpreters. I'm an early medieval historian with a focus on post-Roman Anglo-Saxon Britian and the Viking Age was one of the most important series of events in the area.

[@fenriswolfq22]

@ I’m disagreeing about the way females warriors are being contextualized as relatively common active battle seekers, not any of the points regarding their rights, nor implying they are chained to the house…. Your creative interpretation of my comment alludes that your value to the field of historical research may not be additive…

[@Cara-39]

@@fenriswolfq22 Your comment is poorly worded, with vague claims abt ppl ignoring "what they say" abt a handful of female warriors and reading as if ppl don't believe they actually fought to defend their homes, families and/or communities. My response was to confirm what I thought you claimed, that it's true the general academic consensus is that some women did fight, however, those that study the period do not claim it was a common thing for women to do because there's no proof of widespread women fighters. Maybe specify what you mean next time and rather than insult someone, ask for clarification.

[@LexFrelsari]

Loki isn't a god. He's a Jötun. An ice giant.

[@bonnecherie]

That's more Marvel getting Loki wrong. He is technically a god, but one that was also a possible fire giant, not an ice giant. Laufey and Farbauti (Loki's parents) actually mean Spark and Tinder, hence Loki's association with fire. There's also a hypothesis that Loki is actually Lóðurr, one of Odin's brothers. In one event in the tales, he is called blood brother to Odin and it was stated that Odin would not drink without him present. Now whether that means blood brother as we would think of it now (as in, really close friend who was treated as a brother) or a literal brother, it's not quite clear. In either case, he is still counted as one of the gods of the Norse.

[@DavidBenner-cy4zl]

The United States Marines are the modern-day Vikings.

[@teddypicker8799]

More like the Chinese fishermen

[@musicisfree91]

How dare science use DNA to assume that warrior's gender.

[@Caleb1874ya]

I feel like ONE or THREE Vikings put horns on their helmets…deer antlers likely

[@Kraakesolv]

Then they died when the enemy took them by the horns.

[@artor9175]

Not in battle they didn't. You need to move your arm through that space when fighting with swords and axes.

[@Reina.Nijinsky]

🇺🇸 Wishing🌟u & urs a🐾peaceful 🕊️ & 🌱happy❣️holiday☃️season ☮️✝️☦️ ☯️ 🔯 ⚧️ 🕎 🪯 ✡️☸️ 🕉️ 🛐 ☪️🎄

[@longfootbuddy]

well, archaeologists are a lot like scientists, and government people, and doctors, and lawyers, and religious leaders, and any other dweeb in the world that pretends they are experts but dont know diddly squat about much of anything

[@TheGwydion777]

Horned helmed Vikings aren't old enough to be a myth. They are a monkey sandwich as we say over here. OK, it's a myth of sorts, but using the word 'urban' is probably racist these days.🤣

[@blueeyedpunk]

Viking female warriors is a woke grasp of the Viking age. Viking female warriors where only going in to defend as a last resort if the settlement got attacked and most women didn't.

[@Kraakesolv]

Aaaaand you can't possibly know any of that. You did manage to get the word woke squeezed in there though, so fret not - you are still nominated for the Dunning-Kruger award in the best fallacy category.🏆

[@blueeyedpunk]

@Kraakesolv Ah using the word fallacy when we don't talk about OF or similar? Interesting. It's been well documented also in Sagas that women weren't warriors

[@artor9175]

So "woke" means "well-researched" now? Interesting...

[@Grutmaw]

Finnish Vikings? What!? Also Finland isn't part of Scandinavia. Yes the Finns traded with the Vikings but they where not themself vikings.

[@CarnageDogg]

Why does he talk like that

[@doodlebopped]

First for once

[@EpicGhostShadow]

Second lol

[@fillyfresh]

Real Vikings wear horns.

[@michaelchristy967]

Lots of bots commenting

[@JasonFromVermont]

All stuff I’ve know before watching… 8million videos covered all of this already. 🥳