Archaeological Border complex of Hedeby and the Danevirke

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The Archaeological Border Complex of Hedeby and the Danevirke: A Key Site for Understanding Viking Age Trade and Society

The Archaeological Border Complex of Hedeby and the Danevirke, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018, offers a unique insight into the economic, social, and historical developments in Europe during the Viking Age. Located in the Schleswig-Flensburg district of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, this site consists of two distinct but interconnected components: the ancient trading town of Hedeby and the Danevirke, a line of fortifications that once separated the Jutland Peninsula from the rest of the European mainland.

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UNESCO Description of the World Heritage Site

The archaeological site of Hedeby consists of the remains of an emporium – or trading town – containing traces of roads, buildings, cemeteries and a harbour dating back to the 1st and early 2nd millennia CE. It is enclosed by part of the Danevirke, a line of fortification crossing the Schleswig isthmus, which separates the Jutland Peninsula from the rest of the European mainland. Because of its unique situation between the Frankish Empire in the South and the Danish Kingdom in the North, Hedeby became a trading hub between continental Europe and Scandinavia and between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. Because of its rich and well preserved archaeological material, it has become a key site for the interpretation of economic, social and historical developments in Europe during the Viking age.

UNESCO Justification of the World Heritage Site

Criterion (iii): Hedeby in conjunction with the Danevirke were at the centre of the networks of mainly maritime trade and exchange between Western and Northern Europe as well as at the core of the borderland between the Danish kingdom and the Frankish empire over several centuries. They bear outstanding witness to exchange and trade between people of various cultural traditions in Europe in the 8th to 11th centuries. Because of their rich and extremely well preserved archaeological material they have become key scientific sites for the interpretation of a broad variety of economic, social and historic developments in Viking Age Europe.

Criterion (iv): Hedeby facilitated exchange between trading networks spanning the European continent, and – in conjunction with the Danevirke – controlled trading routes, the economy and the territory at the crossroads between the emerging Danish kingdom and the kingdoms and peoples of mainland Europe. The archaeological evidence highlights the significance of Hedeby and the Danevirke as an example of an urban trading centre connected with a large-scale defensive system in a borderland at the core of major trading routes over sea and land from the 8th to 11th centuries.

Encyclopedia Record: Hedeby

Hedeby was an important Danish Viking Age 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's ocean."

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