The Viking color palette

Viking Age colors recreated

In collaboration with researchers from the National Museum of Denmark, Lejre Land of Legends is behind a research project on the colors of the Viking Age. And there’s a lot going on. The colors that is. Even though most finds from the Viking Age may look a bit colorless at first glance, the researchers’ analyses show that the Viking Age was quite colorful.

Today, we can’t see what paint layers in the Viking Age looked like. The paint remains we see in finds are degraded and darkened. But we can analyze the type of paint and pigments used based on the sparse finds. A larger palette may well have been used in the Viking Age than the one we know today, but the palette used is based on what we know at present.

Read the researchers’ report on the Viking Age color palette

The Viking Age palette shown in NCS color map. Photo: The National Museum of Denmark, Line Bregnhøi.

The Viking Age palette. Photo: The National Museum of Denmark, Line Bregnhøi.

Seminar focused on the colorful Vikings

On 9 September 2016, Lejre Land of Legends, in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen, held the seminar ‘Colorful Vikings’. It was an exciting day packed with new knowledge, interesting insights and presented findings that do not necessarily point in the same direction.

You can also read more at videnskab.dk, who were on the spot during the seminar and have collected a few of the points.

Read the article ‘Viking Age colors create furor among researchers’

Watch video recordings of the researchers’ presentation at the seminar ‘Colorful Vikings’ (YouTube)

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