26 Traditional Voyages to Study Viking Seafarers

Tracing sailors' paths during the Viking age finds clues to Norse navigation

- FRANZ LIDZ

LATE IN THE summer of 2021, Greer Jarrett set out on the first of 26 voyages to retrace the maritime paths taken by Norse sailors during the Viking Age, which lasted from roughly AD 800 to 1050. The Vikings, beyond their reputation as medieval bad boys — Pillage People, if you will — were accomplished traders who established commercial routes that stretched all the way to Baghdad. Their primacy relied on mastery of the seas.

Jarrett, a doctoral candidate in archaeology at Lund University in Sweden, was intrigued not only by where these ancient mariners started and wound up, but also the paths they took to get there. "The details of Viking Age trade are often limited to its origins and destinations," he said.