But there is more to the Vikings, as an exhibition at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall, in Falmouth, southwest England, shows.
Ships were vital to Viking expansion. They explored and colonised, using seas and rivers as the highways to amass huge wealth and power through raiding and trading.
That power was built on their boatbuilding and seafaring skills, which enabled them to sail across the Atlantic’s icy waters to Newfoundland and Iceland, through the Mediterranean to Istanbul and as far east along the River Volga as Ukraine and Russia.
However,
