Here silver from Baghdad, furs from the North and glass from the Rhineland came together. Hedeby was the pulsing trading heart of the North.
Anyone who sees the Vikings only as warriors overlooks perhaps their greatest achievement: trade. Its centre in the southern North was Hedeby (Haithabu), set on the narrow isthmus between the North and Baltic seas – today near Schleswig.
The location was ideal: goods could be carried over the short stretch of land from one sea to the other, avoiding the dangerous voyage around Jutland. So Hedeby became a transhipment point for goods from half of Europe and the Orient.
On the markets lay amber and furs from the North, glass and weapons from the Frankish realm, silk and above all silver from the Arab world. Payment was often by weight: people chopped silver coins and jewellery into hacksilver and weighed it on small folding scales. The trade in slaves was also part of the less glorious truth of this world.
In Hedeby, workshops of comb-makers, glass-bead blowers, smiths and amber-grinders crowded together. It was loud, cramped and international – one of the first urban settlements in Northern Europe. Around 1066 Hedeby was finally abandoned; its ramparts can still be seen today.
We link to the Hedeby Viking Museum and other find sites in our Library.