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Hedeby (, Old Norse: Heiðabýr, German language: Haithabu) was an important Danes 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 Ibrahim ibn Yaqub visited Hedeby and described it as "a very large city at the very end of the world ocean."
Due to its unique position between the Frankish Empire and the Danish Kingdom, 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 River 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 Viking 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".
Since 2018, Hedeby has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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.
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 Elsner | |
| 793 | Viking raid on Lindisfarne – traditional date for the beginning of the Viking Age. |
| 804 | First mention of Hedeby |
| 808 | Destruction of Reric and migration of tradespeople to Hedeby |
| c. 850 | Construction of a church at Hedeby |
| 886 | The Danelaw is established in England, following Viking invasion |
| 911 | The Vikings settle in Normandy |
| 948 | Hedeby becomes a bishopric |
| 965 | Visit of Al-Tartushi to Hedeby |
| 974 | Hedeby falls to the Holy Roman Empire |
| 983 | Hedeby returns to Danish control |
| c. 1000 | The Viking Leif Erikson explores Vinland, probably in Newfoundland |
| 1016–1042 | Danish kings rule in England |
| 1050 | The Norwegian King Harald Hardrada destroys Hedeby |
| 1066 | Final destruction of Hedeby by a Slavic army. |
| 1066 | Traditional end of the Viking Age |
Hedeby played an important role in the international Viking slave trade between Europe and Byzantines as well as the Islamic world. People taken captive during the Viking raids across Eastern Europe could be sold to Moorish Spain via the Dublin slave trade or transported to Hedeby or Brännö in Scandinavia and from there via the Volga trade route to Russia, where Slavic slaves and furs were sold to Muslim merchants in exchange for Arab silver dirham and silk, which have been found in Birka, Wolin and Dublin;The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 3, C.900-c.1024. (1995). Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p. 91 initially this trade route between Europe and the Abbasid Caliphate passed via the Khazar Kaghanate,The World of the Khazars: New Perspectives. Selected Papers from the Jerusalem 1999 International Khazar Colloquium. (2007). Nederländerna: Brill. p. 232 but from the early 10th-century onward it went via Volga Bulgaria and from there by caravan to Khwarazm, to the Samanid slave market in Central Asia and finally via Iran to the Abbasid Caliphate.The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 3, C.900-c.1024. (1995). Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p. 504
The following indicates the importance achieved by the town:
A Swedish dynasty founded by Olof the Brash is said to have ruled Hedeby during the last decades of the 9th century and the first part of the 10th century. This was told to Adam of Bremen by the Danish king Sweyn Estridsson, and it is supported by three found in Denmark. Two of them were raised by the mother of Olof's grandson Sigtrygg Gnupasson. The third runestone, discovered in 1796, is from Hedeby, the Stone of Eric (). It is inscribed with Norwegian-Swedish runes. It is, however, possible that Danes also occasionally wrote with this version of the younger futhark.
While Hedeby primarily served as a trade emporium, archaeological evidence demonstrates that it had produced many goods locally. Discovery and analysis of excavated artifacts reveal that tools such as spindle whorls, spindle rods, loom weights, and bone needles were standardized products. The distribution of these various tools demonstrates that there was a wide range of textiles produced at Hedeby, ranging from coarse fabric for sailcloth and outer-garments, to fine worsted wool fabric for higher quality clothes. More than 340,000 pieces related to comb making, tools for working leather, remains of ironworking and goldsmithing, and mercury from fire gilding were also found. There was also evidence found for the presence of a glass furnace active in the site from the period of 850 to 900. A total of 7,700 decorative beads have been unearthed in Hedeby, although it is likely that a small percentage of those were produced in situ. The presence of these artifacts at the site indicate that Hedeby had a robust local economy that produced a wide variety of goods, likely for domestic use and for trade at the sites markets.
Analysis of some of Hedeby’s burial sites provide evidence for the existence of an aristocracy. Graves that are lavishly furnished with jewelry, commodities, weapons and armor set apart from more humble inhumation sites indicate an established degree of stratification among Hedeby’s society.
The trade and production of beads was tied to a robust fashion within Hedeby. Beads made of varying materials such as carnelian, rock crystal, amber, jet, silver, brass, bronze, and mosaic glass have been found in the harbor excavation sites, burials, and throughout the settlement. Dating of these finds reveals that there was a change in style roughly every 10–35 years within the settlement.
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:
In 1066 the town was Looting and burned by West Slavs. Following the destruction, Hedeby was slowly abandoned. People moved across the Schlei inlet, which separates the two peninsulas of Angeln and Schwansen, to the growing town of Schleswig. Hedeby’s royal tolls and levies were transferred to the town by the monarchy.
The exact location of the site was rediscovered by Sophus Muller in 1897. Archaeological work began at the site in 1900 after the rediscovery of the settlement with small-scale excavations by Johanna Mestorf. Excavations were conducted for the next 15 years, and additionally in 1921. These early efforts would result in over 350 small trenches being dug, and the discovery of a burial site within the rampart dating from earlier in the site's history, they were led by Wilhelm Splieth and Friedrich Norr.
Further excavations were carried out between 1930 and 1939 by Nazi Germany’s Ahnenerbe, the pseudoscientific organization within the SS under Herbert Jankuhn. The results of Jankuhn’s discoveries were never published in detail. What has been published shows that this period saw the digging of several trial trenches, discovering a group of ten chamber burials, a cremation burial site, and two inhumation graves.
Excavation in 1956 found more inhumation and cremation burials south of the rampart, which prompted many large-scale excavations. Klaus Raddatz, Heiko Steuer, and Konrad Weidemann investigated much of the cemetery site at that time, but their findings have not been published in detail.
In 1963, Torsten Capelle and Kurt Schietzel conducted further work on the site, they were the source of the youngest find at the site, with an excavated well dated to 1020 A.D. by dendrochronology.
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. 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 Hedeby Viking Museum.
In 2002 a large scale geophysical project was started by teams from Marburg, Munich and Vienna. Over the course of three weeks, a total of ca 29 ha in and around the semi-circular rampart were analysed using Magnetometer, Magnetometer and ground-penetrating radar.
Further work continued in 2003 when the Archäolgisches Landesmuseum began a metal detector survey with the help of the Bornholmske Amatørarkaologer and a group from Schleswig-Holstein. Throughout their work, 11,500 metal finds were collected and catalogued with a D-GPS system.
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 built.
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