Norse & crosses! How the Vikings liked to play board games
THEY are best known as raping and pillaging warriors who slaughtered or enslaved those who had the misfortune to run into them.
But it turns out that Vikings were also partial to the gentler pastime of board games. Evidence for this has been found in a field in Lincolnshire, where a metal detectorist has dug up an extremely rare complete set of Viking gaming pieces.
Retired miner Mick Bott, 73, discovered pieces of the early board game ‘hnefatafl’, which has similarities to chess and helped soldiers to learn battlefield strategy. The set was found in Torksey, where Vikings formed a winter camp in 872AD.
Mr Bott dug up all 37 pieces – 12 defending pieces of turreted form, 24 conical attacking pieces and a king, which has a copper decoration. They are now going on sale – it will be the first time a complete set has been auctioned.
They come with a custom-made board and the set is expected to fetch £1,000 with London-based Dix Noonan Webb.
Mr Bott and his friends have found coins, brooches and lead weights dating to the 9th century during two decades of detecting at the site.
‘It was later on after showing many of our finds to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge that the experts realised that this was the Viking winter camp of 872-3AD,’ said Mr Bott, from Worksop, Nottinghamshire.
The strategic site was on high ground surrounded by marshes and bordered by the
River Trent. A Dix Noonan Webb spokesman said the counters were initially thought to be lead weights but were then found to be similar to game pieces in Oslo Museum.