BRONZE AGE SHIPS STILL SAIL

IN THE
SCANDINAVIAN CENTER

A large, cloth print hanging in the Scandinavian Center is crowded with images of
long and short objects with upended fronts and backs, atop which are dozens of “pegs”
standing upright. Between them are wheels of various sizes with spokes, and lines, pairs
or groups of round circles. Only as one begins to distinguish one element from another
do the images begin to make sense. This is a fleet of ships of a kind unknown today,
between which sun disks spread their light. But, what kind of ships are these, of what are
they made, and why are they depicted in so strange a way?

The source of this picture is far away not only in distance but time. Spread across
huge, glacier-polished, granite rocks in Bohuslän, western Sweden, are nearly four-
thousand year old rock carvings of ships peopled by warriors and shield-bearing giants.
When one first visits these petroglyphs in Tanum and Kville, one is almost overwhelmed
by their dramatic quality and beauty. Most of these ships have peculiar double-bow
runners that project beyond the “stem” and “stern,” that is, the front and back ends of the
ship. The upper runners extending up in a graceful curve. The transition from the bottom
runner to the stem and stern is almost at a right angle. Archaeologists suggest that these
glyphs are boats covered with hides, perhaps, calfskin, where the runners are the frames
and the vertical lines along the ships are ribs. While the artistic conventions and the
medium of granite preclude exact representations of the crafts, the images hold enough
information to make this suggestion plausible. Similar pictures occur in Norway at
Skjomen (in Ofoten), Rødøy (Tjøtta, Helgeland), and Evenhus (Frosta, Trøndelag).

Such boats are known in the Arctic seas, especially among the Inuits (or,
Eskimos). The umiak, or “women’s boat,” has a skeleton of wood ribs clad with skin,
usually of seals. These boats are from thirty to thirty-six feet in length, are without a
deck, and are always rowed by women. Carrying a number of passengers and goods, they
were used to travel to hunting grounds over five hundred miles away and back, putting in
each night to pitch camp on shore. While it is not certain that the petroglyphs of Tanum
represent frames and skin, we know that other ancient, Arctic tribes used skin for
clothing, shelters and even boats, and one might suggest that Bronze Age Scandinavians
were doing the same.

Who these sailors are, why they are sailing, and to what destination they are going
will never be known. Perhaps they are bound for war, or parading in a ceremonial
regatta, or following the sun to their desired paradise. Ancient Scandinavia presents us
with many such mysteries. But that they have continued their voyage for four thousand
years is enough to give us pause. These energetic, adventuresome ancestors dared the
waters in their flimsy crafts and endowed the generations following them with the skill
and will to traverse the globe, so that Bronze Age ships still sail in majestic splendor even
in far off southern California.

Ernst F. Tonsing, Ph.D.