Repton's winter camp
The winter camp of Repton was accidentally discovered by archaeologists as 1985, the St Wystans Church in Repton in Derbyshire , England , was dug up, and they came across a massive moat and an embankment. It was known that the Vikings had set up winter camps on their campaigns in England and Ireland ( Athlunkard , Turgesius ), also on the Orkney and in the Franconian Empire since 850 , but such a place had not been found before. The winter camp of Repton is so far unprecedented in England and represents a considerable monument to the Viking Wars with Wessex .
The Great Pagan Army of the Vikings wintered in 871/72, first in London , then on the Trent ; 872/73 in Torksey and finally 873/74 in Repton. The winter camp there was set up in preparation for a campaign against Mercien , which took place in 874 and was victorious.
The warehouse
The rampart ran in the shape of a D to the bank of the Trent to form a fence, in the center of which the church was the part of the fortification that formed the entrance. The D-shaped enclosure made use of the natural topography, especially on the slope to the river bank that formed part of the enclosure.
The individual graves
Viking graves have been found around the church. Among them was that of a man aged 35 to 40 who was killed by a blow to the hip and buried with weapons and equipment. His grave was covered with a stone mound. The finds included a sword with a scabbard, two knives and an ornate set of belts. As a heather, the dead man wore a collar with a Thor's hammer and had been buried with a pouch containing the canine teeth of a wild boar and the leg bones of a jackdaw, perhaps as a magical amulet of luck. Coins dated the facilities to exactly the year in which, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Repton was the site of a winter camp.
The mass grave
To the west of the wall, a Saxon burial chapel had been cleared out and leveled in order to use it as a mass grave for at least 249 people. Their bones had been piled along the walls and in the center was the grave of a Viking of high standing. The chapel was covered with a mound of earth. Almost all of the dead were male and of a strange body type, probably members of the Viking army. They did not die from combat injuries, so it is likely that disease ravaged the army. With the exception of Repton and 60 burial mounds near Ingleby in Derbyshire, the Viking graves found in England were individual burials.
Today a school takes the place of Repton's camp on the steep bank above the Trent. Excavations were carried out here between 1974 and 1988. The burial mound with the mass grave outside the camp was a prominent point in the area. A later hogback was found near him .
See also
literature
- James Grahem-Campbell (Ed.): The Vikings . Bechtermünz Verlag 1998. ISBN 3-86047-789-7 , p. 128
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 50 ′ 29 ″ N , 1 ° 33 ′ 7 ″ W.