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Article: The Ancient Mariners: Forget the horned helmets: the Vikings were traders as well as raiders, remaking Western Europe--and sailing to America.(Science and Technology)
- Article from:
- Newsweek
- Article date:
- April 3, 2000
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Looting! Raiding! Marauding! Yeah, it's a kick of a way to make a living, not to mention liven up a monotonous farming existence, but look at what it did to the poor, misunderstood Vikings. Some overwrought scribe writes in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that their A.D. 793 raid on Lindisfarne monastery in northeast England (considered the start of the Viking age) "miserably afflicted the inhabitants" with "fiery dragons... flying in the air" as "the heathen" engaged in "rapine and slaughter"--and the world forgets that the Vikings spurred urban development in northern Europe. And just because the Vikings realized how much portable wealth lay around (they extorted six tons of ...