About us

Purpose of the website

The goal is to tell you what the Hjortspring boat is. Where it is from. When it is from. When it was found and by whom. As well as tell you about our approach to building a credible reconstruction of the Hjortspring Boat, as well as a collection of technically capable people can do it. We are not trained in wood craftsmanship. We have no one trained in the sciences of history or archaeology; we consider ourselves working with experimental archaeology. The knowledge on which we have built the replica of the Hjortspring boat has been gathered in the period from 1991 to 2003 from the then available sources, both written and personal through our contacts with researchers from various universities and museums. Where this knowledge has not been sufficient, we have "filled in the gaps" ourselves. For all articles, sources have been cited, also with page references where relevant.

Texts on the website

The articles in the menus Hjortspringfundet and Rekonstruktion that cite the source: What the Hand Forms is the Spirit's Trace, are based on the manuscript for the latter.

Therefore, this part will not be updated in terms of content; it is merely documentation of our work until 2003.

The structure of the book is not slavishly followed here. The book was published in 2003.

Since 2003, experiments and changes have been made as a result of these experiments. This can, perhaps, be found in the Newsletters or Guild activities menus, which correspond to current and future maintenance work. Comments can be sent to the Webmaster where indicated. These comments will be forwarded to the author if possible. Where and when relevant, new research will be referenced.

Our work with the Hjortspring find has been appreciated by the scientific staff at the National Museum of Denmark, one of whom wrote the foreword to our book.
Flemming Kaul Dr.phil.,
Museum Curator at the National Museum of Denmark
Senior Researcher
Ancient Denmark and the Mediterranean countries.
Image: From DR's TV programme: The Story of Denmark.
When the replica of the Hjortspring boat -- Tilia Alsie -- was launched on 5 June 1999, the great work of recreating the oldest plank-built boat in the Nordic region was completed. Through skill and hard work, the members of the Hjortspring Boat Guild had succeeded in achieving what they had set out to do some years earlier. The day Tilia was launched and appeared in her element for the first time, those of us who witnessed it knew that the work had been a complete success. Later that day, I had the opportunity to paddle the boat out with the Hjortspring Boat Guild. It was an exciting experience, and easier than I had thought. Tilia glided through the water so beautifully.

Although the work of building an exact replica of the Hjortspring boat was complete, there was still much to do. It was time to test the boat and its capabilities. Now it was time to work with experimental archaeology. The Hjortspring Boat Guild worked closely with the National Museum's Marine Archaeological Research Centre and the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, as well as the Danish Antiquities at the National Museum in Copenhagen. For the person writing these lines, it has been extremely fascinating to be allowed to participate in some of the test sailing races as a paddler. But it has been just as exciting to follow these races when a crew of trained paddlers has taken over. The building of Tilia and the test sails have provided invaluable material for understanding the state of the art of shipbuilding more than 2000 years ago. But that's not all. Tilia and the Hjortspring Boat Guild have been able to contribute to a greater understanding of the pre-Roman Iron Age as a whole.

It became clear that in order to get a full impression of the Hjortspring boat's sailing abilities, it was a good idea to get some experienced paddlers involved. Contact was made with an elite sports team that has shown their class in competitions around the world. Namely, a tight-knit team that paddles the East Asian dragon boat, which shares certain characteristics with the Hjortspring boat. With this team on board, it became clear that the Hjortspring boat could easily handle rough weather in open water. This is an important realisation because it shows that the crew of such a boat or ship could be surprised by rough weather without disastrous consequences. The Hjortspring boat was not only intended for sailing in narrow waters. It is also extremely significant that Tilia, with this elite sports team at the paddle oars, could sail almost 50 kilometres in just five hours in good weather conditions. In other words, a day's journey with a Hjortspring boat or a small fleet of these ships can be assumed to be around 100 kilometres. Such a realisation gives us new opportunities to understand the Hjortspring find as a whole, a spoils of war with an army's equipment that bears witness to war and strife in the pre-Roman Iron Age. Mobility in the Nordic region - also in military operations - must have been great. A landing fleet or mobile army could have travelled longer distances and faster than previously thought.

Not only have we gained invaluable information about the Hjortspring boat's applications, manoeuvrability and other characteristics. In many ways, we have come closer to ancient times. Tilia has contributed to a better understanding of communication, traffic, social, cultural, political and military conditions in pre-Roman Iron Age Northern Europe. Many questions can be answered and new questions can be asked. Step by step, the Hjortspringbådens Guild has helped to uncover new layers about the distant pre-Roman Iron Age.

Flemming Kaul
Museum Curator, Danish Antiquities, The National Museum of Denmark.

Sources

Language

The text in this article has been translated from Danish to English using the free DeepL translation programme.
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