In 1904 and 1905, archaeologists Haakon Shetelig and Gabriel Gustafson excavated a burial mound at the Oseberg farm near Tønsberg in Vestfold county, Norway that contained a well-preserved Viking ship. The Osberg ship was reconstructed and has became Norway’s largest tourist attraction.
The New Oseberg Ship Foundation is now building a replica of the 9th century ship, which it hopes to launch this summer. One critical question remained, however, before construction could begin. Was the almost 22 meter ship actually a seaworthy design or merely a funerary decoration? A previous copy, built twenty years ago, capsized and sank almost immediately. Recent analysis suggests that the rebuilding of the original ship may have introduced errors which impacted the seaworthiness of the subsequent replica. The video, below, looks at the history of the Osberg ship and the engineering and model testing of the design of the new replica, now under construction.
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