The Norse sagas tell of many splendid Viking ships that sailed to far-off lands. Yet in the mid-19th century no one had actually seen such a ship with their own eyes. That all changed in 1867 when the first Viking ship dating back to AD 900 was discovered in Tune, near Fredrikstad. In 1880 yet another Viking ship was found in Gokstad, near Sandefjord. In 1904, a third ship, the Oseberg ship, was excavated from a large burial mound near Tønsberg.
The museum building
The excavation of the Oseberg ship was led by Professor Gabriel Gustafson. In 1913 he proposed to build a museum for the three ships at Bygdøy. The museum was designed by the Norwegian architect Arnstein Arneberg and is one of his signature works. Building of the hall for the Oseberg ship was completed in 1926 and the halls for the ships from Gokstad and Tune opened in 1932. After much delay, partly due to the Second World War, the building of the last hall was completed in 1957. This hall houses most of the other finds, mostly from Oseberg.
The Ingstad statue
The sagas tell us that the Viking Leiv Eiriksson was the first European to discover America. Helge Ingstad was an adventurer and Anne Stine Ingstad was an archaeologist. together, they wished to find archaeological evidence of the Viking voyages to America. After many years of searching, they came upon evidence of dwellings at L’Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland in Canada. The site resembled the remains of the Norse dwellings in Greenland and Iceland. This encouraged the couple to commence an archaeological dig.
Between 1961 and 1968, Anne Stine Ingstad led an international group of researchers who investigated the site of several buildings. Among the smaller finds was a circular bronze pin of a type used by the Vikings to fasten their cloaks. Carbon 14 testing of charcoal, bone and peat dated the finds to around the year 1000. The sagas' stories of Viking voyages to America were thus confirmed.
The statue of Anne Stine and Helge Ingstad that stands in front of the Viking Ship Museum was made in 2001 by the sculptor Nils Sigurd Aas. He is considered to be one of the most versatile sculptors in the history of Norwegian art. A similar statue stands at L’Anse aux Meadows. This was a gift to the people of Canada from King Harald V and Queen Sonja.