At the end of the 8th century a wave of violence hit the coastal settlements of Northern Europe; Viking raids.  They blundered; they killed indiscriminately.  And with each attack the stories grew.  It �s a though the gates of hell had been thrown open.  Their leaders were legendary even in their own time.  Ivar the boneless, Erik the red, Harold blue tooth; men who made their name through savagery.  Our investigators are setting out to discover the world they lived in.  They �ll build a picture of a culture steepe3d in bloodshed and yet highly sophisticated.  They�ll reconstruct the wood fortress of Harold Blue tooth; first king of all the Vikings.  They�ll find the hidden traces of a warlord city buried beneath modern streets.  And they �ll examine the key piece of technology that set the Vikings apart from all other forces.  With these long ships the Vikings were able to redraw the map of Europe.  Ships likes these took Viking explorers like Erik the red and Leif Erikson further than anyone had ever gone before.  Using the latest research and graphic technology; we will rebuild an extraordinary civilization and bring back the lost world of the Vikings.  

Killers, bandits, barbarians, pagans.  Though the Viking culture died out more than a thousand years ago; it �s reputation lives.  Investigators Jonathan Foyle and Helena Hamrow want to uncover the truth about these extraordinary warriors and the world they came from.  Helena Hamrow is an archaeologist from the university of Oxford and studies Europe�s ancient cultures.  One of the genuine great mysteries about this period is why the Vikings emerged when they did.  What made them suddenly want to raid and ultimately colonize in the way that they did.  Jonathan Foyle is an architectural historian.  He decodes buildings as a way of understanding the cultures that produced them.  Part of the Viking experience is living with the raw material the earth and the fire and the wind and the water.  They �re very much people who live with the elements.

Historians put a precise date on when the Viking campaign of terror started:  793 AD.  They began with an act that devastated sacrilege.  Jonathan has traveled to Lindisfarne on the coast of north eastern England.  A monastery stood here.  In its time one of Christianities most sacred and celebrated shrines.  We �ve inherited a picture of the Vikings as being blood thirsty savage pirates, and that reputation was born in Lindisfarne.  Word of what the Vikings did here would spread quickly throughout Europe.  Richard Oram explains.  This is the first attack on a major, major centre.  This is the place where all hell is let loose for the first time.  And psychologically this was the one that pushed people over the edge of believing that apocalypse was on them.  The attack was a surprise.  The first anyone knew of the Vikings was when their long ships appeared on the horizon.  And for the monks at the monastery; the very idea that their sanctuary should be attacked was beyond belief.  Yet as Jonathan finds out it �s clear that the Vikings knew exactly what they were doing.  So what�s in it for the Vikings?  Loot, movable wealth to start with; all the nice bits of blingy metal working things like that.  They �re also after slaves.  Slaves are a great commodity.  The monastery was famed for its wealth and its treasures.  Its only protection was faith; the belief that no one would dare desecrate holy ground. 

By the way check it:

In bold is what I �m not sure of.

They don �t have defenses; this is a monastery.  So presumably they have a wall around the monastic enclosure something maybe like that.  They �ve got, yes, a boundary that runs round the whole place; it marks out the sacred place on the interior from the world outside.  But it �s really just a demarcation line.  Climbing to the highest point on the Island; Jonathan and Richard try to build a picture of the community that the Vikings set about destroying.  Well, what would the Vikings have seen here well over a thousand years ago?  Well absolutely nothing like this.  None of the stone buildings that you see now; nothing at all of that kind.  And of course there �s no other houses here; this is a monastic community.  But where you �ve got the Parish church across there, and the priory church here; this would have been the site of the monastery sacked by the Vikings.  But instead of stone buildings think mainly of timber.  And this is how the simple wooden structures of Lindisfarne would have looked on that day in 793.  A model of Christian simplicity; these modest buildings nevertheless contained a treasure trove of riches.  Making them a perfect target for the heathen Vikings.  

This is a place that �s poorly defended that �s made of flammable material and it wouldn �t have taken much effort for the Vikings; 3 or 4 or 5 ship loads of men with axes to come and take apart this entire... Absolutely not, there �s nothing here to resist them and if they had a will to destroy they could have easily just raised it from the face of the Earth.  Viking attacks were fast.  Approach at speed then strike, kill, plunder, burn.  Lindisfarne was left in flames and the blueprint for a Viking raid was set.  The monk; Alkrin who was at the emperor�s court over in Europe is writing letters of condolence; he �s heard about the terrible things that have happened here.  And so basically it gets put down in a written record and that fixes it for all time as "The great event".  Now what �s their opinion of these fair haired strangers causing so much damage?  They must have been petrified.  Well basically they �re just looking on them as the hordes of antichrist.  This is a Pagan force; they �re slaughtering God �s men.  They �re utterly barbaric.  They are ruthless blood thirsty killers.  The Lindisfarne raid was the first of many.  But where did the Vikings come from?  Where did they return with their spoils?  Archeologist Helene Hamrow is in the Swedish capital Stockholm on the trail of the looted Christian relics that came from Lindisfarne and elsewhere.

She wants to find out about the Viking homeland and the culture that produced that savagery.  At the national museum, she meets with curator Kit Anderson to see the loot for herself.  We have quite a lot of objects; objects from the Arabic world there, Western European objects.  How did they get to Sweden?  If we have unique objects; if they come from a very special context like a church or a monastery or something like that; then you would think that it would be plunder.  That is also a unique object and that must have been a result of plunder.  It looks suspiciously like the top of a Bishop �s crosier.  Yes it is.  We have to imagine that some poor Irish Bishop was mugged and his crosier taken from him.  Yes, like some sort of souvenir.  This sacred symbol of a Bishop �s authority stands in stark contrast to many of the other finds.  Among the museums most prized possessions; are numerous swords; the most prestigious of all battle weapons; the blade of a long sword could be worth up to as many as 16 dairy cows.  A sword wielding warrior was a man of the highest status.  Behind the scenes at the museum; Kit shows Helene more disturbing archeological remains.  Evidence of not just animals but Human sacrifice.  This is part of a skull and skeletons.  A grave containing 3 individuals; 2 of them with their head chopped off; so they must have been Human sacrifice.  How do we know they were sacrificed?  Because, there you can see it on the bones actually.  So there some cut marks on the vertebrae: good heavens.  Human sacrifice obviously would have been quite a sort of shocking practice to the early Christians.  well it must have been.  I mean this is obviously suggestive of quite a different kind of ideology and world view, and why did they ??? Were these people criminals or had they done something wrong, were they being punished?  No I don �t think so, that was the highest offering you could give the Gods.  So if you wanted to go one better than a horse or a cow you would actually sacrifice a maybe slave or a ... Yes.  Human sacrifices were part of the burial of a great warrior or Chief.  Much of what we know about...