UNESCO World Heritage

What is World Heritage?

World Heritage is defined as natural and/or cultural heritage of Outstanding Universal Value (OUV). These are often buildings, cities, natural areas or cultural landscapes.

Being designated as a world heritage site is a blue stamp of a location's global importance and obligates to protect, preserve and spread knowledge of the place.

The five ring fortresses

The ring fortresses are a coherent group of fortified structures that were built in the period 975-980 across Jutland, Funen and Zealand. Each fortress was strategically located, not far from open water and near important land and sea routes.

Furthermore, all the fortresses are built on the basis of a characteristic, Nordic, architectural "master plan" based on precise geometric and symmetrical forms.

Together, the fortresses constitute the largest monuments remaining from the Viking Age and underline the presence of a new, centralized governance in southern Scandinavia at the end of the tenth century.

Their coordinated construction under Harald Bluetooth/Gormsson (regent 958-987), together with the expansion of Dannevirke and the construction of the bridge over Ravning Enge, plays an important role in the unification of the country and the official religious and social change from paganism to a unified Christian kingdom with a strong central power in the new Danish kingdom.

On 17 September 2023, King Harald Bluetooth's five ring fortresses were included in UNESCO's distinguished list of places of exceptional value for all of humanity. With the ring fortresses, there are now eleven areas on the UNESCO list for Denmark and the Commonwealth.

In addition to the ring fortresses, the list also includes Roskilde Cathedral, the Jelling monuments, Kronborg, Stevns Klint, the Wadden Sea, Christiansfeld, the Parforce hunting landscapes in North Zealand and in Greenland Ilulissat, Kujataa and Aasivissuit - Nipisat.

Aggersborg

Aggersborg is the largest of the ring fortresses of the Viking Age and must have been an impressive sight, especially from the fjord. An enormous structure with a rampart and palisade covered with timber.

The fortress was built by Harald Bluetooth in the late 970s and consisted of a 9 m wide and an approx. 4 m high circular rampart, pierced by four gates oriented to the corners of the world.

Fyrkat

Fyrkat has a distinctive location in the landscape at Hobro.

During the excavation of the fortress, the archaeologists found a burial ground with 30 graves with both men, women and children. A woman's grave stood out, as the woman was buried with a number of unusual jewelery and objects, which indicate that she was a völve - a pagan sorceress, who, among other things, known from Norse mythology.

Nonnebakken

As the only one of the ring fortresses, Nonnebakken was built into a contemporary city, and the fortress is important for Odense's development into a central Viking city. The city has roots in the Viking Age, as the name Odense means Odin's Vi - a sacrificial grove to Odin. It is also in Odense that the last Viking king, Canute the Holy, was killed in 1086 in the then Albani Church and later canonized. The skeletons of Canute the Saint and his brother Benedict lie today in the cathedral's crypt, which is open to the public.

Trelleborg

At least 500 of Harald Bluetooth's warriors fortified the Viking fortress Trelleborg. Trelleborg included an inner ring fortress with palisade and rampart, moat, bridge, gates, crossroads, 16 longhouses in four blocks, as well as an outer forefort with 15 longhouses and a burial ground.

Traces of a battle have been found at Trelleborg. Gates are burnt down, arrows are shot into the ramparts. Many weapons have been found and three mass graves with a total of 20 buried have been found.

Borgring

In 2014, a previously unknown Viking fortress was discovered. It was named Borgring.

Borgring is the least excavated and thus the most original of the five ring fortresses. Borgring was probably never completed, and can therefore be assumed to mark the end of Harald Bluetooth's vision of geometric monuments as symbols of a new era in his neo-Christian kingdom.