Trelleborg near Slagelse has broken ground on a partial reconstruction of Harald Bluetooth’s more than 1,000-year-old Viking fortress, a project budgeted at around 60 million kroner.
The first spadeful was turned on Friday, DR reports. Museum director Anne-Christine Larsen told the broadcaster that the new structure will stand six meters tall. It will feel large when visitors stand directly in front of it, she said.
The project does not recreate the entire ring fortress. According to DR, it covers a section of the original site, including a moat with a bridge, a rampart with an oak palisade, and a gate. Three longhouses are also part of the plan.
Little remains visible of the original fortress today. The reconstruction is therefore being built outside the area designated as UNESCO World Heritage, on a site some distance from the protected ground. As reported by DR, that placement is intended to open up new ways of imagining daily life in the Viking Age.
Visitors to test life as a warrior
Larsen told DR that guests will be able to try out what it was like to be a warrior and a Viking. The aim is also to give visitors a sense of why Harald Bluetooth built the ring fortresses in the first place. The reconstruction is designed to convey that experience without risk to life or limb.
The Viking fortresses at Trelleborg are among the best known monuments from the period in Denmark. The Slagelse site is one of several attractions built around Denmark’s early medieval past, alongside institutions such as the Roskilde Viking Ship Museum.
Hopes for a doubling in visitors
The reconstruction, called Den Genskabte Borg, is expected to be completed toward the end of next year. Trelleborg hopes the finished site will draw up to 60,000 paying visitors in a season, DR reports. That figure would represent roughly a doubling of current attendance.
The project has been developed in cooperation between Slagelse Municipality and the National Museum of Denmark. The budget is around 60 million kroner, according to DR. The buildings and earthworks are being reconstructed at one-to-one scale.
Visualizations of the planned fortress were produced by Over Byen Arkitekter and published by DR. They show the palisade, the gate and the bridge across the moat, seen from outside the rampart. The images also show the longhouses inside the reconstructed section.
Trelleborg is one of the ring fortresses associated with Harald Bluetooth’s reign in the late 10th century. The site sits in West Zealand, near Slagelse, and is among the region’s established attractions. DR reports that construction is now underway.
