In 1957, an archaeological discovery was made that would change our understanding of the Viking world forever.

Just to the north of the Viking Age capital of Denmark, Roskilde, within the long fjord that stretches out from the suburbs of

modern-day Copenhagen to the Straits of Kattegat to the north.

A group of sports divers came face to face with not one but five mostly intact longboats

from that long-gone-by time time, dating from a thousand years before.

It took five long years for the necessary administration and organizing to be fully carried out.

But by 1962, a section of the channel was dammed and drained, revealing

there in the muddy waters, Denmark's early medieval past in all its glory.

Surviving only because they were purposely sunk there by 11th century kings

as a makeshift fortress against enemies from the sea.

Viking ships had been found before this time,

and have been found since, in Scandinavia, France, Scotland and the Irish Sea, along with related types in England,

Germany, the Netherlands and all over the shores of the Baltic.

But these were mostly ship burials, sometimes elaborately constructed ceremonial craft, rather than conventional vessels used for

day-to-day tasks. The boats found at Skoldelev, still being analyzed and reconstructed today,

were never meant to be discovered, surviving through a mere accident of history, and thus giving us a unique insight

into the realities of the Viking world. Literacy was rare during those murky centuries, so much so that

that time is often referred to as the Dark Ages.

And it wasn't until at least a century after its close that chroniclers such as Saxo-Gramaticus

in Denmark and Snorri Stirlerson in Iceland began to write down the tales and oral traditions long told by their

ancestors. These sagas talked of great heroes, of unspeakable villains, of epic journeys beyond the edge

of the known world, and huge, magnificent vessels fit for kings,

...