The largest exhibit in North America showcasing Medieval Warriors and Seafarers
21 October 2017 | TMA
The Royal Ontario Museum will be showcasing a blockbuster exhibit on Medieval warriors and the lives of the Old Norse people. The exhibit will include discussion and artefacts that will explain topics of religion and daily life in the Ancient Civilization curriculum. The Viking exhibition will showcase about 500 original objects that date from the 8th to the 11th centuries that are housed at the Swedish History Museum and other artefacts from outside the Scandinavian countries that have been rarely displayed for a wide audience. With these displays, there will be interactive stations for children and adults that will help visitors experience the Viking culture. Furthermore, the ROM will feature two reconstructed Viking boats: 13-foot Arby and the 32-foot Eik Sande. The boats are made using processes and materials from the Viking culture (https://www.rom.on.ca/en/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/vikings-the-exhibition)
There will be a nod to Canada in the exhibit as the Vikings arrived in the Newfoundland area before Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot). This station and section of the exhibit will showcase archeology and discuss the history of the Vikings in Canada on the East Coast with objects from L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland; Baffin Island, Nunavut; and the famous Beardmore sword belonging to the ROM.
The exhibition is a joint venture between and produced by The Swedish History Museum in Sweden and MuseumsPartner in Austria. It runs November 4, 2017 through April 1, 2018 with a descriptive audio tour.
Teachers may find the two short videos produced for this exhibt helpful. One includes a talk on weapons with Robert Mason, an archeological scientist at the ROM, and another on the topic of L'Anse aux Meadows, discussed by Craig Cipolla of the ROM curator of North American archeology, that can help make the connections to Canada in the classroom. The videoa are 45 seconds, but provide images from the exhibit that students can explore more when visiting the museum.
How to cite this blog:
TMA staff, “Vikings at the Royal Ontario Museum: The largest exhibit in North America showcasing Medieval Warriors and Seafarers,” Teaching the Middle Ages, October 21, 2017; revised 2022, https://www.teachingthemiddleages.com/post/vikings-at-the-royal-ontario-museum.