A Viking House?

A possible Viking raiders’ house

This broken line of rocks in a Portuairk bay may look like no more than the remains of an old wall, but it’s of some considerable interest to the local Ardnamurchan Community Archaeological group.  A recent visit by archaeologists from Archaeology Scotland suggested this structure might be the remains of a temporary Viking house.

When Viking raiders stopped for a short time on a foreign coastline, they would build a house by raising walls the shape of their boat, and then turning the boat upside down on them as a roof.  That this curved line of rocks is about 18m long may, therefore, be significant: the most common Viking raiding ship, the snekkja, was usually about 17m long, and carried some forty men and their cox.