Хайтхабу: Торговый центр эпохи викингов

Danish Viking Age trading settlement

Hedeby (, Old Norse Heiðabýr, German Haithabu) was an important Danish Viking Age (8th to the 11th centuries) trading settlement near the southern end of the Jutland Peninsula, now in the Schleswig Flensburg district of Schleswig Holstein, Germany. Around 965, chronicler Abraham ben Jacob visited Hedeby and described it as, "a very large city at the very end of the world's ocean." The settlement developed as a trading centre at the head of a narrow, navigable inlet known as the Schlei, which connects to the Baltic Sea. The location was favorable because there is a short portage of less than 15 km to the Treene River, which flows into the Eider with its North Sea estuary, making it a convenient place where goods and ships could be pulled on a corduroy road overland for an almost uninterrupted seaway between the Baltic and the North Sea and avoid a dangerous and time consuming circumnavigation of Jutland, providing Hedeby with a role similar to later Lübeck. Hedeby was the second largest Nordic town during the Viking Age, after Uppåkra in present day southern Sweden. The city of Schleswig was later founded on the other side of the Schlei. Hedeby was abandoned after its destruction in 1066. Hedeby was rediscovered in the late 19th century and excavations began in 1900. The Hedeby Museum was opened next to the site in 1985. Because of its historical importance during the Viking Age and exceptional preservation, Hedeby and the nearby defensive earthworks of the Danevirke were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2018. Hedeby is mentioned in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Marsh King's Daughter.

The Old Norse name Heiða býr simply translates to "heath settlement" (heiðr "heath" and býr = "yard; settlement, village, town"). The name is recorded in numerous spelling variants. Heiðabýr is the reconstructed name in standard Old Norse, also anglicized as Heithabyr. The Stone of Eric, a 10th century Danish runestone with an inscription mentioning ᚼᛅᛁᚦᛅ᛭ᛒᚢ (haiþa bu), found in 1796. Old English æt Hæðum, from Ohtere's and Wulfstan's accounts of their travels to Alfred the Great in the Old English Orosius. Hedeby, the modern Danish spelling, also most commonly used in English. Haddeby is the Low German form, also the name of the administrative district formed in 1949 and named for the site; in 1985, the district introduced a coat of arms featuring a bell with a runic inscription reading ᚼᛁᚦᛅ᛬ᛒᚢ (hiþa:bu). Haithabu is the modern German spelling used when referring to the historical settlement; this spelling represents the transliteration of the name as found in the Stone of Eric inscription; it was introduced among other variants in antiquarian literature in the 19th century and has since become the standard German name of the settlement. Sources from the 9th and 10th century AD also attest to the names Sliesthorp and Sliaswich (cf. thorp vs. wich), and the town of Schleswig still exists 3 km north of Hedeby. However, Æthelweard claimed in his Latin translation of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle that the Saxons used Slesuuic and the Danes Haithaby to refer to the same town.

Hedeby is first mentioned in the Frankish chronicles of Einhard (804), who was in the service of Charlemagne, as a place Charlemagne stayed in the summer of 804, at the end of the Saxon Wars. In 808 the Danish king Godfred (Lat. Godofredus) destroyed a competing Slav trade centre named Reric, and it is recorded in the Frankish chronicles that he resettled the merchants from there to Hedeby. This may have provided the initial impetus for the town to further develop. The same sources record that Godfred strengthened the Danevirke, an earthen wall that stretched across the south of the Jutland peninsula. The Danevirke joined the defensive walls of Hedeby to form an east–west barrier across the peninsula, from the marshes in the west to the Schlei inlet leading into the Baltic in the east. The town itself was surrounded on its three landward sides (north, west, and south) by earthworks. At the end of the 9th century the northern and southern parts of the town were abandoned for the central section. Later a 9 metre (29 ft) high semi circular wall was erected to guard the western approaches to the town. On the eastern side, the town was bordered by the innermost part of the Schlei inlet and the bay of Haddebyer Noor.

based on Elsner793Viking raid on Lindisfarne traditional date for the beginning of the Viking Age.804First mention of Hedeby808Destruction of Reric and migration of tradespeople to Hedebyc. 850Construction of a church at Hedeby886The Danelaw is established in England, following Viking invasion911The Vikings settle in Normandy948Hedeby becomes a bishopric965Visit of Al Tartushi to Hedeby974Hedeby falls to the Holy Roman Empire983Hedeby returns to Danish controlc. 1000The Viking Leif Erikson explores Vinland, probably in Newfoundland1016 1042Danish kings rule in England1050The Norwegian King Harald Hardrada destroys Hedeby1066Final destruction of Hedeby by a Slavic army.1066Traditional end of the Viking Age

Life was short and crowded in Hedeby. The small houses were clustered tightly together in a grid, with the east–west streets leading down to jetties in the harbour. People rarely lived beyond 30 or 40, and archaeological research shows that their later years were often painful due to crippling diseases such as tuberculosis. Al Tartushi, a late 10th century traveller from al Andalus, provides one of the most colourful and often quoted descriptions of life in Hedeby. Al Tartushi was from Cordoba in Spain, which had a significantly more wealthy and comfortable lifestyle than Hedeby. While Hedeby may have been significant by Scandinavian standards, Al Tartushi was unimpressed:
"Slesvig (Hedeby) is a very large town at the extreme end of the world ocean The inhabitants worship Sirius, except for a minority of Christians who have a church of their own there He who slaughters a sacrificial animal puts up poles at the door to his courtyard and impales the animal on them, be it a piece of cattle, a ram, billy goat or a pig so that his neighbours will be aware that he is making a sacrifice in honour of his god. The town is poor in goods and riches. People eat mainly fish which exist in abundance. Babies are thrown into the sea for reasons of economy. The right to divorce belongs to the women Artificial eye make up is another peculiarity; when they wear it their beauty never disappears, indeed it is enhanced in both men and women. Further: Never did I hear singing fouler than that of these people, it is a rumbling emanating from their throats, similar to that of a dog but even more bestial."

After the settlement was abandoned, rising waters contributed to the complete disappearance of all visible structures on the site. It was even forgotten where the settlement had been. This proved to be fortunate for later archaeological work at the site. Archaeological work began at the site in 1900 after the rediscovery of the settlement. Excavations were conducted for the next 15 years. Further excavations were carried out between 1930 and 1939. Archaeological work on the site was productive for two main reasons: that the site had never been built on since its destruction some 840 years earlier, and that the permanently waterlogged ground had preserved wood and other perishable materials. After the Second World War, in 1959, archaeological work was started again and has continued intermittently ever since. The embankments surrounding the settlement were excavated, and the harbour was partially dredged, during which the wreck of multiple Viking ships were discovered, including the Hedeby 1. Despite all this work, only 5% of the settlement (and only 1% of the harbour) has as yet been investigated. The most important finds resulting from the excavations are now on display in the adjoining Haithabu Museum.

In 2005 an ambitious archaeological reconstruction program was initiated on the original site. Based on the results of archaeological analyses, exact copies of some of the original Viking houses have been rebuilt.

A number of short archaeological films relating to Hedeby and produced by researchers during the 1980s are available on DVD from the University of Kiel's Archaeological Film Project. Most publications on Hedeby are in German. See Wikipedia's German language article on Hedeby.