Viking Heroes Exhibition

VIKING HEROES
Conquerors, explorers, founders and kings
From February 10 to December 29, 2024

Viking! This word has long been fearsome, depicting the Nordic populations as terrible plunderers, eager for conquests, battles and barbarism. This inaccurate historical image is all the more anchored since the beginning of the Middle Ages provides only very rare archaeological evidence of the presence in France of these men and women from the North. From Normandy to Paris via the Seine, Val d'Oise is only a land of passage. However, its historical borders are closely linked to a Viking past.
If History tends to paint the portrait of the Vikings as intrepid warriors, pop culture today seems to give a more heroic and sympathetic image to these conquerors and explorers of the North, starting with Rollo, the Viking leader who founded the Normandy. But what makes a hero or heroine? His power, his bravery or his determination?
In this fascinating exhibition, discover some heroic celebrities of the Viking world like Canute the Great - the first emperor of the North Sea, Thorbjorg Little-Volva - an influencer of the Viking Age, or Hastein - the cruelest and feared Viking in Frankish land. Historical and archaeological evidence invites us to explore the concept of heroism in the Viking era and to confront it with our vision which associates the pushing of mental and physical limits with self-improvement.
An exhibition designed by the Jorvik Viking Center and adapted by the Val d'Oise Archaeological Museum.
Proposed as part of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Olympics 2024