Boat finds from Ralswiek
The boat finds from Ralswiek are four boat wrecks or the remains of boats from the Viking Age that were discovered in 1967, 1968 and 1980 in the silted up bay of Ralswiek , a municipality in the north of Rügen .
Finding and excavation circumstances
Ralswiek is likely to be one of the oldest settlement areas in Rügen and was probably an important Slavic sea trading center. The beginnings of the first settlement in Ralswiek date back to the end of the 8th century. The first settlement period included the construction of houses and boat entrances. The four boat finds from Ralswiek belong to the second settlement period in which a port was used specifically for trade. The settlement of Ralswiek served as an important trading center in the lively exchange and as an interface between the Vikings settled north and west and the Slavs ancestors in the east. It can be assumed that the Ralswieks settlement came to a terrible end. Numerous scorch marks and a smashed child's skull covered by a field stone allow the conclusion that there were violent clashes. In the 10th century, Ralswiek was probably destroyed as a trading center by the Danes in the course of their attack on the Arkona Castle. The third settlement period is the decline of the settlement, in which the harbor moles and ship entrances silted up.
In 1967, during construction work on a drainage ditch, an excavator struck wooden parts of a boat wreck. The next day he hit the planks of another wreck about 15 m away . The wrecks were buried under a one-meter-thick layer of peat in the former bay. The following year, when archaeological work continued, the remains of a third boat were found. The fourth boat was discovered in 1980 while excavating a water pit. Since it was not possible for the local archaeologists to conserve the wood, the remains of the boat were left at the site and covered with sea sand and peat.
It was not until 1993 that the best preserved boat, the “Ralswiek-2”, was gradually salvaged. The keel and the front part of the stern were brought to the Schleswig-Holstein Archaeological Museum in Gottorf Castle for conservation . The remaining wooden parts were initially preserved in water troughs before they were brought to the Archaeological State Museum Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in Schwerin in 1996 .
Since 1998 parts of "Ralswiek-2" have been exhibited in the Museum for Underwater Archeology in the old ferry port in Sassnitz , including the keel and the stern section . Above you can see the planks and frames that have been restored in the museum. The museum is currently [obsolete] closed for refurbishment.
Individual descriptions of the boats
The Ralswieker boats were all between 9.5 and 14 meters long and designed as cargo and crew boats. There was probably a mixture of Slavic and Viking designs. The boats had been systematically scrapped. Well-preserved frames were reused, which required a certain degree of standardization in shipbuilding.
Boat I.
Boat I dates from the 9th or 10th century AD, was about 14 meters long, 3.40 meters wide and with a draft of about one meter 1.40 meters high. It is not clear whether it had a sail.
Boat II
The rig of boat II indicates that this 9 meter long and 2.50 meter wide boat with eight to ten pairs of oars was originally also equipped with a square sail . The boat, which dates from the 9th or 10th century, may have served as a warship. Eric Andersen from the Naval Archaeological Research Center Roskilde attempted to reconstruct the rig, although there were no remains of the original rigging. Among other things, he was able to draw on the findings from the Skuldelev finds in Denmark .
Reconstructions
Boat II was rebuilt twice after its conservation in 1996, with different interpretations of the found material being implemented. After successful test drives, however, these boats fell out of the public eye again in 2005. Other replicas of Boot II were not made in the original design, but are still in service.
Reconstructions of the second boat can be found in the archaeological open-air museum in Groß Raden and in the Ukranenland near Torgelow . The Svarog was built in 1997; the Groß Rader ship with the name Bialy Kon ("White Horse") followed in 1998. It is a museum ship .
Boat IV
Boat IV, which was found on the beach in July 1980, was apparently dismantled there in the 8th or 9th century AD and stored as a construction store. Stones that were found inside the plank boat , which was built exclusively from oak , were supposed to serve to prevent it from sliding away. Besides these stones, horn cones and Fresendorfer ceramics were found in the vicinity of the boat .
The boat should have been 12 to 13 meters long, as can be deduced from the 8.65 meter long remnant of the keel beam, and was designed for a crew of about ten men. Its width is likely to have been between 3.20 and 3.40 meters, the floor height at around 40 centimeters and the curb height at 50 to 60 centimeters, resulting in a total height of about one meter. In addition to tar , human hair, sheep's wool and moss were also used for caulking .
See also
literature
- Peter Herfert (ed.): Early medieval boat finds in Ralswiek, Kr.Rügen. In: Excavations and finds: News sheet of the state archeology. Vol. 13, 1968, pp. 211-222.
- Joachim Herrmann (Ed.): Kultplatz, Boot 4, Hof, Probstei, Mühlenberg, Schloßberg and Rugard: 11 tables. Lübstorf, 1968.
- Jochen von Fircks (ed.): The replica of an old Slavonic boat: an archaeological find from Ralswiek on Rügen is seaworthy. Lübstorf, 1999.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Museum of Underwater Archeology ( Memento of the original from June 28, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Joachim Hermann (Ed.): The Slavs in Germany. (= Publications of the Central Institute for Ancient History and Archeology of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR. Volume 14), Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1985 pp. 113–114.
- ↑ a b c Sebastian Brather : Archeology of the Western Slavs. (= Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde - supplementary volume 30), de Gruyter, 2001, ISBN 978-3-11-017061-0 , p. 250 ( digitized version ).
- ↑ Rahsegel.de
- ↑ a b Svarog. (No longer available online.) Ukranenland - Historisches Werkstätten Torgelow, archived from the original on February 25, 2012 ; Retrieved April 5, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Ship History Archive Flensburg ( Memento of the original from October 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Elisabeth Anna Krüger: Ralswiek - a Slavic-Viking sea trading center on Rügen. Grin-Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-640-27581-6 , p. 10 ( digitized version ).
Coordinates: 54 ° 28 ′ 10.1 ″ N , 13 ° 27 ′ 1.6 ″ E