:: N25 Waterford Bypass

Archaeologists planning Viking warrior grave with iron sword in situ.

Drawing of projected outline of the axehead prior to its reconstruction

Corrosion being removed from the sword handle using an electrically powered rotating abrasive disc.

Conservator Claudia Koehler removing iron oxide from the Viking sword.

Knife and sword handle (superimposed) following conservation treatment.

Conserved sword and spearhead at the Migrants Mariners Merchants exhibition.

Archaeology & History:

Viking Age Weapons in Woodstown

James Eogan, NRA senior archaeologist with the Southern Team, gives an account of the conservation work undertaken on weapons from a Viking warrior grave discovered on the route of the N25 Waterford City Bypass.

In April 2004, while excavating at Woodstown on the route of the proposed N25 Waterford City Bypass, Ian Russell and a team of archaeologists from Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd discovered a shallow, rectangular pit. It contained the corroded remains of a number of iron objects: a sword, a spearhead, an axehead, a shield boss (the metal projection at the centre of a shield that protects the hand of the person holding it) and a knife.

It is likely that these weapons, and some other metal and stone objects found in the same pit, were buried with the body of an important Viking warrior to accompany his spirit on its journey to the afterlife. Unfortunately, the acidity of the soil in this part of Waterford meant that none of the warrior’s skeleton survived. (A full account of the Woodstown site is given in a paper by Richard O’Brien & Ian Russell in Recent Archaeological Discoveries on National Road Schemes 2004, Archaeology and the National Roads Authority Monograph Series No. 2.)

This was a very exciting find as Viking warrior graves are rarely discovered in Ireland and only a few have been scientifically excavated. The National Museum of Ireland was immediately informed and staff from the conservation department came to the site and carefully lifted the objects from the soil, in which they had lain for over 1,000 years. They removed them to the Museum’s conservation laboratory at Collins Barracks in Dublin, where some preliminary cleaning and stabilisation of the objects was carried out.

In the summer of 2006, Susannah Kelly and Claudia Koehler at the School of Archaeology in University College Dublin, undertook a major programme of conservation of the objects taken from the grave.

When iron objects are buried in the ground, they begin to corrode; the sword, spearhead, shield boss, axehead and knife were covered in thick layers of iron oxides and were barely recognisable. The aim of the conservation was to stabilise the objects so that they would not corrode further, to clean them and, where necessary, to repair them so that they could be put on display in the Waterford Museum of Treasures as part of the exhibition Migrants Mariners Merchants: archaeological discoveries on the N25 Waterford Bypass, which ran from October to November 2006.

Prior to commencing the cleaning of the iron sword, Claudia examined the X-rays taken in the Conservation Department of the National Museum to decide on the best approach. She opted to use a variety of hand tools (including brushes and scalpels) to remove the corrosion from the surface of the objects. While the corrosion products obscure the original shape of the object, they can contain evidence of organic materials, such as leather, cloth and wood, which were in contact with the object when it was buried. The conservation of these objects was, in effect, archaeological excavation on a micro scale.

An electrically powered rotating abrasive disc enabled Claudia to carefully remove corrosion from the hilt guard at the junction between the hilt (hand grip) and the blade. Evidence of textiles was found in the corrosion on all the objects—this suggests that the objects, and the body of the dead warrior, were covered with a blanket, or some similar textile cover, before the grave was filled in.

After cleaning the axehead Claudia prepared the corner of the blade, where it had been broken, so that it could be reconstructed using a resin. The axehead had been broken after burial in the ground, but the conservation of the sword and shield boss showed that these items had been damaged deliberately prior to burial. This destruction of weaponry has been identified at other Viking warrior grave sites and seems to have formed a significant part of the burial ritual.

The micro-excavation carried out in the conservation lab revealed the mineralised remains of the sword handle. This was made from plates of wood bound with thread, which were then covered with a leather grip that was stitched lengthways along the handle.

The conservation that Claudia carried out stabilised this important group of Viking weapons, while the careful and methodical cleaning revealed details of the construction and use of the objects and the rituals that accompanied their placing in the grave of the warrior, who had owned them in his lifetime. This work also enabled the objects to be displayed to the public in the Waterford Museum of Treasures during the Migrants Mariners Merchants exhibition. The objects and the story of their burial and discovery was one of the main attractions for visitors to the museum. Now that the objects have been stabilised, they can form part of a more permanent museum exhibition in Waterford in the future.