Five fortresses, five experiences

Five fortresses, five experiences

The five Danish ring fortresses – Aggersborg, Fyrkat, Nonnebakken, Borgring, and Trelleborg – are included in UNESCO’s World Heritage List because they together represent a unique period in world history, when Scandinavia went from pagan to an integral part of Europe’s Christian culture. The ring fortresses are the physical manifestation of the turbulence of the period and an engineering uniqueness that marks Denmark as a new unified kingdom.
All five fortresses were built between 970-980 AD during the reign of King Harald Bluetooth. Harald Bluetooth unified the kingdom and made the Danes Christian, but not without striking blows. To secure his position, he built military bases that could manifest his power both domestically and abroad.
The ring fortresses are thus part of the story of Harald Bluetooth’s ambitions to gather the kingdom and arm against the pressures of the Holy Roman Empire.

Aggersborg

Aggersborg is the first and the largest of Harald Bluetooth’s fortresses with 48 longhouses built inside the ring rampart. Built on a hillside at one of the narrowest places in the Limfjord, it appeared markedly in the landscape as an impressive building that could be seen from far away.
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Fyrkat

With a diameter of 120 meters, Fyrkat has a significant position in the landscape at Hobro. An earth rampart marks today where the ring fortress encircled the original 16 longhouses. The location of the houses is marked with white stones. One of them is now reconstructed outside the rampart.
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Nonnebakken

Nonnebakken was built as the only one of the fortresses near a city. The fortress is important for Odense’s development into a central Viking city. The Nonnebakken is partly hidden beneath the city. The site thus houses the traces of 1000 years of changing events with traces from the prehistory, the Viking fortress and a medieval nun monastery to the fields of modern times and today a vibrant metropolis.
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Trelleborg

Trelleborg is the first of Harald Bluetooth’s fortresses to be found. Trelleborg is the best preserved and fortified ring fortress and contains 31 longhouses. The fortress also has a burial site that contains at least 135 graves with 157 dead.
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Borgring

In 2014, a till then unknown Viking fortress was discovered. It was named Borgring. Borgring is the least excavated and thus the most original of the five ring fortresses.
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