With a generous donation of DKK 975.000 from AP Møller and wife Chastine Mc-Kinney Møller's Foundation for General Purposes, Museum Vestsjælland is ready to convey maritime world heritage.
From and including February 2025, it will be possible to see a completely unique find at Holbæk Museum. The boat, which was found at Gislinge near Holbæk, has not previously been exhibited.
The donation from the AP Møller Foundation makes it possible to exhibit and communicate the boat, the craftsmanship and the history surrounding one of the world's best-preserved clay-built boats from the transition between the Viking Age and the Middle Ages.
Museum director Eskil Vagn Olsen: "There has generally been good support for the project both locally and from foundations. With the great donation from the AP Møller Foundation, we now have the financing for the exhibition and activities in place. I am very grateful for the support. It is fantastic that we get the opportunity to bring such an important part of history home to Holbæk and Vestsjælland. And I'm looking forward to being able to show the boat off to our guests"
The hostage boat
The Gislinge boat will be the center of the exhibition "The last Viking ship?", which tells about life at Holbæk Fjord in the period when the Middle Ages took over after the Viking Age. The boat was built around the year 1130, and is one of the world's best-preserved clinker-built vessels from its time. The National Museum owns the boat and is on long-term loan to Museum Vestsjælland.
With exhibition, dissemination and supplementary activities, the museum wants to reach out to more and new target groups and create such good experiences and activities that the visitors want to come back and recommend the museum to others. The idea of the exhibition is to build a bridge between life at Holbæk Fjord a little over a thousand years ago and life today, so that the distance between past and present is shortened and citizens and museum visitors of today can reflect on the life and conditions that the inhabitants of the past lived under.
Brick building
Clink building is a shipbuilding method where the wooden planks overlap each other and are joined with nails to form a strong and flexible hull. The Viking ships are the best-known examples of clinker-built boats. The method has been used in many historical periods and shipbuilders still use it today. In 2021, brick building was included on UNESCO's list of the world's inalienable cultural heritage.
Facts about the Gislingebåden
Origin: Years 1130 to 1180
Found: 1993 at Gislinge
Use: Transport and fishing
Length: 7,7 m
Width: 1,5 m
Draft: 0,25 m
Load capacity: 1 ton
