Viking Age: Did you mean...?

One of the major motivating factors in the European Age of Exploration was the search for direct access to the highly lucrative Eastern spice trade. In the 15th century, spices came to Europe via the Middle East land and sea routes, and spices...

The Bronze Age Aegean in the eastern Mediterranean encompassed several powerful entities: the Minoans on Crete; the Mycenaeans on mainland Greece, and the Cypriots on Cyprus. These cultures are often examined separately, and thus the ample...

The Baroque era, which lasted from roughly 1580 and 1780, was a time of enormous contrasts: Opulence and innovation, on the one hand; death and crises, on the other. Ongoing religious wars and the opening of global trade networks led to mass...

The best-known vision of the Norse afterlife is that of Valhalla, the hall of the heroes where warriors chosen by the Valkyries feast with the god Odin, tell stories from their lives, and fight each other in preparation for the final battle...

The Danish conquest of England was not a singular event, but a series of large Viking invasions of England between 1013 and 1016, which eventually overthrew the native English dynasty. As a result, four kings from the House of Denmark ruled...

The Roman army fought many conflicts throughout its long history, though perhaps none so indelible as the Pyrrhic War from 280 to 275 BCE. This war between Rome and a league of Greek colonies in southern Italy led by the city of Tarentum...

Map showing the routes allegedly taken by the Great Viking Army that invaded the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms in 865 CE, under leadership of such chieftains as 'Hingwar', 'Hubba', and 'Halfdene' (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 870-871 CE). These figures...

Situated near Höfn on the east coast of Iceland is what looks like a genuine and immaculately preserved Viking village; in fact, it is a reconstructed Viking village built in 2010 CE for a film that was never filmed. Though obviously not...

Reconstructed Viking boats near the site of Birka on the island of Björkö in Sweden. Birka was an important trading center and strongly fortified town in the Viking Age which flourished from the 8th through the 10th centuries CE. Along with...

There are few more iconic images than that of a mighty Viking warrior, a hulking berserker with a horned helmet cleaving foes in two with a mighty axe. But history actually paints a different picture of Vikings than what modern media has...