Northern Emporium, Volume 2: The Networks of Viking-Age Ribe

Glass beads, comb-making waste, pieces of wine barrels and even musical instruments have survived beneath the streets of Ribe. Finds from excavations in 2017–18 give this eighth- and ninth-century Danish trading settlement a busy material life. Northern Emporium, Volume 2, edited by Søren M. Sindbæk, brings together the specialists who studied those objects and asks what they reveal about the people who made Ribe an early urban centre.

Some goods reached the town from surprisingly distant places. Pottery and glass arrived from western Europe, iron and stone from Scandinavia, while certain beads and coins travelled through networks extending towards the Middle East and Indian Ocean. Studies of workshops, imported vessels, textiles, runic inscriptions and wooden objects show how trade was sustained by craftspeople, residents and visitors, not just cargo moving through a harbour. Ribe emerges as a meeting place built through repeated contacts across the Viking world and beyond.