Archaeologists have discovered a huge Viking Age textile production site in Denmark that dates back more than 1,000 years and underlines the sophistication of Viking society.
Experts from the Moesgaard Museum said this week that the sprawling 100,000-square-meter (more than 1 million-square-foot) site features an area for processing flax as well as more than 80 pit houses – semi-submerged huts that were used as workshops and dwellings in Viking times.
It's located in Soften, 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of Denmark’s second-largest city, Aarhus, on the Jutland peninsula. The site dates back to the late Iron Age and early Viking Age, sometime between A.D. 600 and 950.
Archaeologist Liv Stidsing Reher-Langberg, who led the 10-month dig, said that "we have a clear focus on textile production, which makes this settlement different from other kinds of settlements of this period.”
Moesgaard Museum archaeologist Liv Stidsing Reher-Langberg holds a Viking Age glass bead unearthed in Aarhus, Denmark, June 22, 2026. (AP Photo)
