What Vikings really looked like

Rowan · Post by **Rowan** » Mon August 13th, 2012, 2:23 pm

Theres no shortage of myths about the appearance of our notorious Viking ancestors.

To find out more about these myths, ScienceNordics Danish partner site, videnskab.dk, asked its Facebook readers to list their favourite myths about what the Vikings looked like.

We have picked out five myths from the resulting debate and asked researchers to help us confirm or bust these myths.

Full story

fljustice · Post by **fljustice** » Mon August 13th, 2012, 3:46 pm

Interesting article. Thanks for the link, Rowan!

LoveHistory · Post by **LoveHistory** » Tue August 14th, 2012, 5:14 pm

According to the info in that article, Vikings were pretty short people.

DianeL · Post by **DianeL** » Wed August 15th, 2012, 11:03 pm

Rowan, great link - thank you for that!! Similar to the image of "Barbarians" more generally, one I've tried to dispel somewhat. Archaeologists have found sandalwood combs and plentiful evidence of hygeine (oh Swabian hair knotting, how I love you) and interest in personal appearance.

Justin Swanton · Post by **Justin Swanton** » Thu August 16th, 2012, 1:43 pm

Pity. I'd got fond of their look in How to Train Your Dragon, especially the horns. Classic movie, by the way.

Also that other movie about Vikings in the New World. Don't you love the horns on the longboats?

Nefret · Post by **Nefret** » Thu August 16th, 2012, 5:06 pm

The Pathfinder movie?

I like the longboats. That was an interesting article.

Justin Swanton · Post by **Justin Swanton** » Fri August 17th, 2012, 6:01 am

[quote=""Nefret""]The Pathfinder movie?[/quote]

That's the one. The real Vikings would have had a major psychological episode if they had clapped eyes on those chaps. And the horses too - way too big for that epoch. Horses that size were bred only in the high Middle Ages, to carry fully armoured knights. Modern dray horses are their direct descendants.

Divia · Post by **Divia** » Fri August 17th, 2012, 2:30 pm

Kinda disappointing about the horn thing

But yeah I suppose not very practical.

Great article.