628 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1891. 



In tbe Gokstad sliip fragments were found of three oaken boats with 

 their rudders, two mast-steps, one thwart, six triangular pieces of 

 board, a backboard, bottom boards, and two clamps with plugs. Al- 

 though too much broken up to permit of restoration, the fragments give 

 an idea of form and point to similarities with corresponding parts of 

 the mother ship. 



The boats are buOt of oak, uui^ainted, very sharp at the ends, and 

 consist of keel, framing, and planking. The keels are 7.7, 5.4, and 4.1 

 meters in length, respectively, and are, at each end, fixed immediately 

 to the stems — in the Gokstad ship an intervening piece forms the con- 

 nection ; the boards are connected to each other by iron rivets, and are 

 attached to the frames by either cord or trenails. The stems lie lower 

 than those of the ship and spring up to a point. 



The boats have no beams, but simply detached thwarts; nor have 

 they a mast partner, but are provided with a mast step similar to the 

 block, serving as sujiport to the stanchions in the Gokstad ship; the 

 mast appears to have passed through a thwart, as indicated by one 

 found with a cii'cular hole cut through it. The rudders are of the type 

 of the Gokstad ship, but are without the iron ring at the top, and only 



one of them had an iron cramj) at its head. 



••^ The bottom boards were fitted between the 



vJ\ frames and were put together in the cus- 



^^ jVi»..^.Mw;^ g!-^b^ ^p»5^ - tomary manner with connecting crosspieces 



^^^ P ^ - - -°- underneath ; triangular i>ieces were fitted in 



Fi„. 147. stem and stern. The oars resemble those 



EowLocK ON Boat Found in gok- of the Gokstud ship ; they were plied from 



STAD Ship. rowlocks nailed to the top of the gunwale. 



(From N. Nicolaysen, Langskibet fr;i Gokstail. ) -^ "^ 



(Fig. 147.) 



The boats are, in every respect, specimens of skillful and expert work- 

 manship, and, being the only specimens of this class of craft known to 

 exist from that period, they are of possibly still greater antiquarian 

 value than the ship itself to which they belonged. 



The Gloppen Boat.^ — During the excavation of a mound near the 

 Gloppen Fjord in Bergen district, undertaken in 1800, under the 

 auspices of the Bergen Museum, a large number of rivets were found 

 extending at regular distances in rows which were followed up in a 

 northwest and southeast direction, and, although of wood but few 

 remains were found completely saturated with iron rust so as to pre- 

 clude possibility of identification, the nails suggested the shape of a boat 

 which had been placed in the mound jiarallel to the shores of the fiord. 



The boat there buried appears to have had a length of 28 feet, by 

 40 inches in width; the lowest layer of nails was placed 4 feet below 

 tbe surface of the mound. It consisted of five boards on each side ex- 

 clusive of the top rail; it had six thwarts — distinguishable by large 

 rivets found in their places — placed at regular distances of 3^ feet, the 



^ Gustafson Gabriel: En baadgraav fra vikiugetiden. In Bergens Museums Aars- 

 boretniug f. 1890, No. viii. 



