The Viking´s longhouses

The Vikings have mainly been ruling over Norway, Denmark and Sweden and lived in special houses, called longhouses. These houses had been approximately 13-18 m long and 3,5-7 m wide, depending on how wealthy the people living there were. The longhouses from the earlier times of the Viking Age, which means 400 – 600 AD, were two nave houses, one in the middle and one on each end of the building. The longhouses have been constructed out of wooden planks in a way called “laft”. Thereby the logs are put together horizontally, with moss in between. On the outside of these inner wood buildings were stone walls to keep it as warm as possible inside the house, as well as to protect the wooden walls from the wind and weather and make the domicile more stable. The roofs of the houses where exceptionally long and peaked, one has been even found with a 53 degree angle, and the walls were comparatively low. Moreover the roof has been covered by grass. The inside of the longhouses has been divided into different areas, but there was no real separation between animals and people to generate additional warmth. Nevertheless there was some kind of entrance and working place, fire place, living area and an area for the animals.

Beside the two nave houses, longhouses with three naves have been developed later on as an improvement to the older ones. They were constructed with two parallel rows of standing beams and thereby offered additional space and rooms. It now consisted of a storage room, different living quarters, an entrance area, a gathering room and again some space for the animals. Through the still remarkably high land long roof, there was one big room in the middle of the house and two smaller ones on each side. 

The largest longhouse has been found in 1983 in Borg, at the Lofoten Islands. It was 83 m long and 9 m high, but has been extended since its building process in 500 AD when it measured 57 m. The Vikings have been clever, since they built the house with the short side in the direction of the wind. People have been living there approximately until 950 AD. Today a big museum, the Lofotr Viking Museum, occupies the space right next to the debris´ of the original longhouse. The museum does not present a copy of the original longhouse, but has been designed by an architect since no one knows what the house once looked like. 

 

http://www.lofotr.no/novus/upload/tab1/Historien/.595x334/Kjell%20Ove%20Storvik-Borg-2873.jpg