18 



Haakon Schetelig 



[No. 



fixed by wooden nails. In this way the whole ship is divided into 

 two parts ; the one, destined to be under the water and consequently 

 the most important, is constructed with special care and labour; the 

 other, above water, is to be regarded only as a lighter superstruc- 

 tion on the first. All the ships and boats which we know from 

 the viking-age seem to have been constructed in this manner, which 

 is still used in the modern boats of Western Norway. 



Very different from these ships are the boats found in the moss 

 of Nydam 1 ). Here the inner frame-work consists exclusively of the 

 frames, each made of a single piece of wood following the section 

 of the vessel from one gunnel to the other (fig. 11). All the boards, 

 from the bottom to the edge, are attached to the frames in the 



Fig. 11. Section of the boat from Nydam. 



same manner, by bindings laid through cleats, worked out of the 

 boards. Evidently a very primitive construction compared with the 

 viking-ships. — Moreover, in the boat from Nydam the cleats are 

 placed in couples, and consequently the surface of the board is 

 always kept away from the frame. In the ship from Gokstad — 

 cited as the best known specimen from the viking-age — the boards 

 are provided with single cleats which, being put into incisions in 

 the frames, permit the board to touch the frame with its upper 

 edge. Naturally in this point also, the latter construction will prove 

 much more perfect and solid than the one we saw in the boat from 

 Nydam, and the differences between the two are so important, that 

 they cannot be explained only as the consequences of various uses 

 (the Gokstad-ship having been a såiling vessel, the Nydam-boat 

 only built- for rowing); they must no doubt be regarded as charac- 

 terising different stages of the progressive development of ship- 



*) Prof . Engelhart : Nydam Mosefund, pl. I — IV. 



