“For this subsequent half, everybody goes to want an axe.”

One after the other, 12 undergraduate college students selected a blade from the toolbox in a studio on the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark, a metropolis about 20 minutes west of Copenhagen by practice. The duty at hand was to make a snelle, a small however very important piece of a Viking vessel.

With assist from Silas Tavs Ravn, a craftwork educator, every pupil measured, chopped and chiseled a jagged block of wooden till it resembled the traditional binding.

The workshop, which came about throughout a spring break journey, was one in all a number of immersive actions constructed into “Making the Viking Age,” a brand new seminar taught by Matthew Delvaux, lecturer within the Humanities Council, historical past and humanistic research. Delvaux, a historian targeted on the Center Ages, can also be the Haarlow-Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow within the Society of Fellows.

The undergraduate class explored the advanced lives of the individuals in Scandinavia and Northern Europe through the Viking Age — the approximate years between 700-1100 CE. Delvaux mentioned he imagined the syllabus as a type of “multidisciplinary experiment” that might construct on his personal experience and faucet into a well-liked matter of curiosity throughout a broad vary of scholars from the humanities, social sciences and STEM fields. He labored carefully with the Program in Humanistic Research and the Humanities Council to develop the course with assist from the David A. Gardner ’69 Magic Undertaking, which inspires revolutionary instructing and analysis within the humanities.

Sunken ships, hidden tales

The Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark, shows 5 unique Viking ships that had been recovered in Roskilde Fjord. The museum was the primary cease on the weeklong spring break journey, supported by the Humanities Council Magic Undertaking.

Photograph by Mary Cate Connors

Within the eleventh century, Vikings who had been seafaring pirates intentionally sunk 5 of their ships in Denmark’s Roskilde Fjord to dam an necessary commerce route and defend from enemy assaults at sea. These ships, known as the Skudelev ships, had been discovered and excavated by maritime archaeologists starting within the late Nineteen Fifties by way of the early Nineteen Sixties and at the moment are preserved within the halls of the Viking Ship Museum, which features a working boatyard.

In Roskilde, the primary cease on the break journey, the Princeton class stayed simply steps from the fjord the place the Skudelev ships had been scuttled over a century in the past. Assembly with curators, craftspeople, engineers and educators from the museum, the scholars discovered about rising Iron Age and Viking Age scholarship, and the museum’s efforts to each protect and reconstruct cultural artifacts from the time interval, together with a number of Viking ships.

“[The course] wasn’t about Vikings as pure historical past, or Vikings as pure artwork, or pure literature,” mentioned Daniel Viorica ’25, a comparative literature main who selected the category due to its cross-disciplinary method — much like the year-long, team-taught Western Humanities Sequence he’d taken his first yr at Princeton. “The category taught us to interact not simply with texts, however with issues,” he mentioned. “It was a completely completely different mind-set concerning the world, a special methodology with which to method the questions that we are going to be confronted with sooner or later.”

Shaun Cason ’24 (foreground) and classmates trek by way of Lejre’s Land of Legends, a 106-acre open air historical past museum devoted to analysis and reenactment of a number of time durations, together with the Viking Age.

Photograph by Julia Stern ’26

After leaving Roskilde, the category traveled west to Lejre, a metropolis that — in accordance with Scandinavian sagas — performed an necessary function in Denmark’s historical past, and the historical past of the Vikings. On the Lejre Museum, college students explored archaeological finds, together with “Odin of Lejre,” a small forged silver figurine of the Norse god that dates to across the yr 900. They trekked by way of the chilly March countryside to Lejre’s Land of Legends, a 106-acre open air historical past museum devoted to analysis and reenactment of a number of time durations, together with the Viking Age.

“College students went by way of the steps from grime to show,” Delvaux mentioned. “How can we recuperate archaeology, how can we show it, how can we reconstruct it, how can we examine it?”

He hoped the big variety of museums — which concluded with an tour to the Nationwide Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, residence of the nation’s largest assortment of artifacts from the Viking Age, and its conservation department in Brede — would enable college students to consider the sometimes-competing narratives that had been offered to them.

“I needed college students to grasp that related artifacts showing throughout completely different museums have profoundly completely different meanings, primarily based upon how they’re contextualized,” he mentioned. “We will suppose by way of what completely different museums are doing and never simply be passive recipients of the tales they’re telling, however we will interact with them critically.”

Impromptu perception from Princeton school

Beatrice Kitzinger, affiliate professor of artwork and archaeology and Behrman Professor within the Humanities Council, and Charlie Barber, the Donald Drew Egbert Professor of Artwork and Archaeology, joined the category in Denmark. Their participation led to moments of impromptu studying all through the week.

On the Roskilde Cathedral, Kitzinger supplied a mini-lesson on medieval artwork and Biblical typology when the category encountered carved choir stalls from the twelfth century. In Copenhagen, college students joined Barber for a day on the Glyptotek Museum, the place they seen a group of Byzantine artwork. In Lejre, Kitzinger delivered the opening strains of the Outdated English epic “Beowulf” on the website of the excavated lengthy corridor considered on the heart of the poem.

College students discover artwork and sculpture on the Glyptotek Museum in Copenhagen throughout a free afternoon in Denmark.

Kate Weseley-Jones ’25, an artwork & archaeology main, mentioned that spending time with school overseas was a real bonus. “It’s one factor to interact with professors on campus and one other factor to get to spend time with them for a complete week straight,” she mentioned. “[But] what number of instances in your life do you get to go together with a Byzantine artwork scholar to have a look at Byzantine artwork in Copenhagen?”

Spinning thread, forging steel: Experiencing Viking craftsmanship firsthand

Again in Princeton, college students delved into extra experiential studying with campus and group companions.

In Princeton College Library’s Particular Collections, college students examined minted cash and manuscripts from the Center Ages. They tried their hand at metalworking throughout a workshop with the Blacksmith of Trenton. On the Arts Council of Princeton, they constructed pots from coils throughout a ceramics workshop, and returned a couple of weeks later for a textile class, the place they dyed cloth and discovered to spin thread on a drop spindle.
 

For the ultimate project, college students created a web based exhibition to attach “materials and textual proof” from the interval and mirror on how Viking Age tales and artifacts would possibly resonate as we speak. From writing quick tales about girls in Viking society, to an exploration of the function of animal interactions in tradition, to a examine of the influence of Viking commerce with the Islamic world, the tasks mirrored a variety  of pupil pursuits.

Delvaux mentioned he hopes college students will take away a broad perspective on tutorial inquiry, past the particulars of the Viking Age. “I need college students to go away with a greater understanding of what it means to be human and to be higher interrogators and inquirers and researchers of all aspects in life.”