As a result of the excavations at High Street, Wood Quay and in the Temple
Bar area we have a good idea how Viking Age Dublin would have looked. The settlement
was situated on higher ground beside where the river Poddle entered the Liffey.
The town was surrounded by an embankment of earth, gravel and mud which was
topped by a post-and-wattle palisade. This was replaced by a stone wall before
the end of the Viking Age.
The streets of the town were surfaced with gravel and stones, wattle mats or
split logs. Plots and yards were divided from each other by low post-and-wattle
fences. The lines of these plots changed little over the years implying respect
for property and continuity. The overall impression of the town is that it was
an ordered place whose layout and defence were overseen and regulated.
Houses
The foundation remains of about two hundred houses of tenth and eleventh century
date have been excavated in Dublin. The surviving remains included bedding materials,
fireplaces and their ash, roofing materials.
All the houses were rectangular in plan and nearly all had walls of post-and-wattle.
Nearly all were thatched with straw. In most cases the roofs were supported
on posts which were located inside the house. Most had hipped roofs rather than
gabled roofs.
Dr. Pat Wallace in his examination of the houses of Dublin distinguished five
different house types. Three-quarters of all the houses excavated belonged to
type one. This was a house whose floor was divided into three sections - a wide
centre aisle with a raised bedding area on each side. There was a doorway in
each end of the house. The fireplace was in the centre aisle.
The floors were built up of gravel, wood shavings and paving stones. Wooden
floors were also found. The bed areas were raised up on sod foundations and
were of brushwood topped with straw or grass. These beds were used as seats
during the day. Roofs were usually made of barley straw, attached to a layer
of turves which lay on a mesh of wattles.
This house type was found at the earliest, tenth century, levels at Wood Quay
and existed until the end of the Viking Age.
Clothing
A typical well-off Viking woman wore a long woollen or linen chemise under
a woollen dress. The dress was suspended from a pair of shoulder straps, each
adorned with a domed oval brooch. A necklace sometimes linked the brooches.
A shawl or cloak was worn outside and was fastened at the throat with another
brooch.
A typical well-off Viking man wore a shirt and trousers. The trousers could
either be broad or narrow. A simple brightly-coloured tunic was worn over all.
Shaggy woollen cloaks, furs and hides were sometimes worn. A large number of
silk caps and neckerchiefs were found in the Dublin excavations.
Dublin Vikings commonly wore flat, low shoes which were without heels and were
laced with thongs. Belts were commonly worn by both men and women. Knives, purses,
combs were suspended from these belts.
Jewellery
Many amber and glass necklace beads, pendants, ear-rings and finger rings
were found during the excavations. Silver was the raw material most prized by
the Vikings. Dublin jewellers made armlets, pennanular, thistle and kite-shaped
brooches from it. Bronze kite-shaped brooches were also made and worn.
The native Irish ringed-pin became very popular among the Vikings and
examples of it have been found at all the great Viking centres abroad including
the site at L'anse Aux Meadows in Newfoundland.
Polished bone pins were also worn, possibly in the hair and to fasten
clothes. These often had highly decorated heads.
Crafts.
There is evidence that craftsmen of the same type tended to work close together
in certain areas of the town. Leather workers seem to be concentrated in the
High Street area, amber jewellers and wood workers in Fishamble Street. Fishermen,
boat builders and merchants are most likely to have been concentrated along
the waterfront.
Model or toy boat from Winetavern Street, Dublin.
Wood-workers
A range of workers worked with wood. Shipbuilders made and repaired ships of
all size, short coastal vessels, ocean-going trading ships and speedy warships.
Builders also worked in wood. The carpentry was simple but effective with few
complicated joints being used. The wall and fence makers wove fences, pathways,
bed bases, mats, screens and door panels. Wattle was the plastic of the Viking
Age.
Coopers made the barrels, kegs, buckets and churns which have been found. Turners
used a pole lathe by which they could rapidly rotate a cutting edge. They made
wooded bowls, cups, dishes, ladles and spoons. They also probably made wooden
troughs, trays and other containers.
Wooden tools and ornaments mere often decorated. This was sometimes very simple
consisting of criss-crosses or triangles. Important wooden items were sometimes
elaborately decorated. Stylised animal heads, serpents were often carved onto
walking sticks crooks, ship's fittings and other important pieces.
Workers in Antler and Bone
Red deer antler was generally used in comb-making though cattle horn was also
used. Single and double-sided combs were made.
Research suggests that combmaking was a specialised occupation in Dublin and
that craftsmen who made other items in antler, bone, horn and walrus ivory operated
separately. They made items such as spindles, pins, needles, spoons, buckles
gaming pieces and ice-skates. The leg bones of birds were used to make whistles.
The Blacksmith
The blacksmiths made and repaired weapons and tools for almost every other
craftsman. They probably operated some distance from town because of the danger
their great fires would have posed to the houses.
They made swords, spearheads, battle axes and arrowheads. Chains, lockable
collars, keys and padlocks were also produced. For other craftsmen the blacksmith
produced axes, chisels, shears, awls, files, hammers, tongs and knives. He made
harness pieces for horses.
Non-ferrous Metalsmiths
These worked in bronze, lead, silver and gold. The metals were shaped in stone
or clay moulds or sheet-metal was hammered.
Personal ornaments were commonly made by these smiths as were items for weighing
scales. Trial pieces in bone were used to copy designs which were later transferred
to metal.
Textiles
Hundreds of examples of cloth and thread were found at Viking Dublin as were
implements used in their production. Needles of all shapes and sizes, linen
smoothers, iron shears for cutting cloth have been found. Whorls, spindles and
weavers swords were found. No looms were found but small stone cylinders are
thought to be loom weights.
Amber-workers
An amber-worker's workshop has been identified. Hundreds of flakes and rough
unworked lumps of amber were found but few implements. Jet was also worked in
Dublin.
Leather-workers
Hundreds of leather objects have been found in Dublin but few of the implements
used in their production. Great numbers of shoes have been found and also scabbards,
satchels and knife sheaths.
Sources
Patrick F Wallace `Dublin in the Viking Age' in Michael Ryan (ed), The illustrated
archaeology of Ireland (Dublin 1991).
Howard B. Clarke, Proto-towns and Towns in Ireland and Britain in the Ninth
and Tenth Centuries in H.B. Clarke, M. Ní Mhaonaigh and R. Ó Floinn (eds), Ireland
and Scandinavia in the Early Viking Age (Dublin, 1998).
Breandán Ó Ríordáin, The High Street Excavations in Viking Congress
7.
P.F. Wallace, Aspects of Viking Dublin, 1. Houses, 2. Clothing and Personal
Ornament, 3 . The Town, 4. Commerce, 5. Dublin in 988, 6. Crafts (Dublin,
1988).
P.F. Wallace, The Viking Age Buildings of Dublin, 2 parts (National
Museum of Ireland, Medieval Dublin Excavations 1962-81, series A, 1, Dublin,
1992).
