What can a skeleton that was found under Dunnes' HQ tell us about life in medieval Dublin? EDEL MORGANreports
SUMMER LUNCHTIMES aren’t necessarily synonymous with tales of Viking plundering and carbon-dating skeletal remains. But if the packed exhibition space at Dublin City Council’s offices where Tales of Medieval Dublin was held yesterday is anything to go by there’s an appetite for medieval mystery and suspense all year round.
The Wood Quay venue – which, appropriately, is designed around a section of Viking city wall – is the backdrop to a series of free lunchtime lectures organised by the Friends of Medieval Dublin and the city council. Archaeologist Linzi Simpson told a rapt audience how the life, times and unsavoury demise of a Viking warrior – who probably came here on his summer break to capture slaves, loot and pillage – were reconstructed CSI-style using carbon-dating and isotopic analysis.
His remains were found in a gully during an excavation on South Great George’s Street, in central Dublin, in 2003 when Dunnes Stores’ headquarters was being built. One of four sets of Viking remains found in the area, his were considered the most significant because, apart from some partially severed limbs, the skeleton was the most complete. (It’s now on display at Dublinia.)
Forensics established this strapping 17- to 25-year-old was big-boned and, at about 5ft 8in, tall for the times. He had an overdeveloped right hand that osteologists say is consistent with much wielding of a battle axe, and his knees were also strong, “as if continually locked either in battle practice or battle”, said Simpson.
Despite his relative youth, he showed signs of scoliosis of the back from heavy lifting, so it’s likely he was a farmer, possibly in what is now Norway, most of the year, taking entrepreneurial plundering and pillaging expeditions to Ireland only during the summer months.
The fact that part of his lower legs and his left arm were missing indicate that he probably died in battle; carbon-dating estimates it may have happened around AD 830, although the absence of a weapon and the fact that his legs had been moved shortly after burial suggest he could have been the victim of a grave robber.
A fearsome warrior he may have been, but it seems he liked the finer things in life: an ornate bone comb and hare’s-head cloak pin were found near his skeleton. Simpson, a senior consultant and project manager with Margaret Gowen Co, says this shows his human side. “He was an individual and appreciated valuable objects, even
if they originally belonged to someone else.”
Not that we should shed too many tears. Simpson is unambiguous in her views on the Vikings. They may have given us coins and improved shipping, but “they were not nice people. They came over and gave us a hard time”, she says, adding that they used the Liffey as a motorway and that “the average Irish person would have been done for” if they came across him on a dark night.
One of the organisers of the event, Sparky Booker, a PhD student who is involved with Friends of Medieval Dublin, says they weren’t confident the lunchtime lectures would be a success. This was the second lecture in the series; Booker says the audience has been a mix of tourists, students and retired people, with members of Friends of Medieval Dublin making up about 20 per cent. “We were going to hold off until the school year, but this isn’t for academics, and in the summer people tend to have more time, the weather’s good and they can walk here from the office.”
The next lecture, The Merchant’s Tale, on August 17th, asks why Roger Cordwainer, mayor of Bristol, was such an important figure in Dublin life around 1200.
The lectures run monthly until December 14th. See fmd.ie
