The Oseberg Viking Ship is unrecognisable. The ship is wrapped in steel beams and covered with a dust cover.
The same goes for the other Viking ships in the old Viking Ship Museum at Bygdøy.
Norway's national treasures are ready to be moved.
The Oseberg Ship has been on display here since 1926. The steel cradle the ship now stands in, called the rig, secures the ship while the new museum is being built.
After that, it will support the ship on its journey to its new, much more modern harbour.
This is what the Oseberg Ship looks like now, wrapped in a steel rig and a cover. This is the stern, meaning the back of the ship.(Photo: Lasse Biørnstad / sciencenorway.no)
Two cranes will lift the ship
In the ceiling above the ultra-modern steel rig and the very unmodern wooden ship, which was built around the year 820 – more than 1,200 years ago – a giant steel beam has been installed.
"It's a track for two cranes that will lift the ship," David Hauer tells sciencenorway.no.
He is a conservator at the Museum of Cultural History and is mainly responsibility for making sure the ships are safe during the move. He has been working on this for years.
Once everything is ready, the ship will travel roughly 100 metres along the track before reaching the platform where it will be permanently displayed in the new Viking Age Museum.
Could something go wrong?
What happens if the beam falls onto the ship?
"That would be terrible, but the rig would absorb most of the impact," says Hauer.
This is just one of countless considerations and evaluations that have been part of the years-long effort to secure the Viking ships ahead of this final journey.
"It's of course nerve-wracking to move Viking ships. But with the preparations we've made, there's very little uncertainty involved. This is going to go really well," says Hauer.
All three Viking ships will be moved in a similar way. During the move, the ships will be closely monitored to detect vibrations, shifting loads, or deformations.
This is the Oseberg Ship during its move from the Museum of Cultural History to the Viking Ship Museum in 1926. Things are quite different in 2025.(Photo: Museum of Cultural History)
Over 1,000-year-old timber
The wood used to build these ships was remarkably well-preserved thanks to the soil conditions in the burial mounds.
Still, the ship was partially reconstructed and rebuilt after its excavation in 1903.
All three Viking ships are made of oak. According to the Museum of Cultural History, the excavated wood was treated with linseed oil and a substance called creosote, derived from coal tar, before reconstruction.
Several other well-known finds from the Oseberg burial mound were preserved using a different method in the early 1900s, called alum conservation. This has made the objects extremely fragile and they must be handled with great care.
This includes, for example, the sleds from the Oseberg find. These are also part of the relocation project.
"The Viking ships were relatively well preserved and, fortunately, were not treated with alum," says Hauer.
Still, the material is highly unpredictable, with fragile areas and unstable properties. It has been studied for years to determine how much it can handle, Hauer explains.
Here is the track in the ceiling that will carry the Oseberg Ship.(Photo: Lasse Biørnstad / sciencenorway.no)
Project manager at the Museum of Cultural History, Göran Joryd, lifts the dust cover that shields the Oseberg Ship. Part of the rig is visible here.(Photo: Lasse Biørnstad / sciencenorway.no)
"How the wood behaves forms the basis for everything happening here. Both how the rigs are built and where the moving route goes," says Hauer.
When the Viking ship is handled, the parts will shift slightly.
"When we lift the rig, the ship will undergo small deformations and be exposed to vibrations," he says.
This has been planned for, so that any stress remains within safe limits for the ship during transport, according to Hauer.
An Oseberg-shaped hole
The rig holding the priceless ship weighs 50 tonnes. It will be moved along the track at a maximum speed of 4.2 millimetres per second – about 25 centimetres per minute. The ship is expected to be moved into place within a day.
The move involves taking the ship through the wall of the old Viking Ship Museum.
For now, the track ends in an Oseberg-shaped arch in the wall. But this outer wall will be opened, and a track with similar metal frames will be constructed all the way to the new exhibition site.
This was not the original plan. Initially, the rigs were supposed to be transported on floor-mounted tracks, but investigations showed that this was not a good solution.
"The floor can't handle the weight of the rig," says Hauer.
Transporting the ships across the floor would also have been more expensive because it would have required extensive work to make the floor capable of bearing the load, if it was even possible, according to Hauer.
"When you move across the floor, the floor shifts. That can cause the ship to twist," he says.
When the rig is suspended from cranes in the ceiling, it is secured at two points. That prevents twisting in both the rig and the ship. The rig also moves less than it would if it were on a trolley on the floor, explains Hauer.
"Surprisingly, we actually gain some advantages by suspending the ships from the ceiling," he says.
The final cost increased
Around 2021, the estimated cost for moving the ships and the three sleds was about 269 million NOK (25 million USD), based on using floor-mounted tracks.
But that was before Statsbygg knew what was actually required to carry out the move, says Lars Christian Gomnæs. He is the project director at Statsbygg, the developer for the new Viking Age Museum.
After deciding to suspend the ships from ceiling-mounted rails, the cost for the move itself was estimated at 549 million NOK (50 million USD). This was reported by NRK in 2024 (link in Norwegian).
On top of that, there is an additional 220 million NOK (20 million USD) for securing the ships and sleds during the construction of the new museum.
Gomnæs tells sciencenorway.no that this estimate has not changed over the past year.
This is what the museum looked from above in autumn 2024. The roof is now closed.(Photo: Nicolas Deck / AF gruppen)
Monitoring for vibrations
Several metre-tall columns with vibration dampers are holding the Oseberg Ship rig in place.
Right outside the building is an active construction site, with heavy machinery in operation. The work causes vibrations, but the shock absorbers keep the ship isolated from any outside disturbances.
The shock absorbers do not rest on the floor – they go all the way down to the foundation of the old Viking Ship Museum. Sensors on the ship and the rig are designed to detect even the slightest movement.
When the vibrations become too strong, alerts are triggered.
"We've received thousands of alerts about vibrations," says Hauer.
David Hauer examines one of the huge shock absorbers that will protect the ship safe from vibrations coming from the construction site.(Photo: Lasse Biørnstad / sciencenorway.no)
Work has been halted
When the vibrations become too intense, the work is stopped. This has happened a few times in recent years.
"We take that as a good sign. If we hadn't received any alerts, something would be wrong," says Hauer.
He explains that every activity involving the ship – such as suspending it from the ceiling with the rig – must go through a thorough risk assessment, evaluating both the likelihood and the potential consequences.
These assessments receive different colour codes depending on the level of risk, and all must be evaluated by the museum.
"And there are some red risks. Suspended loads can fall. That's why there's always a small probability that it could happen," says Hauer.
During June, they will run a test rig through this path. If everything goes as planned, the actual relocation of the ships will take place in September.
So far, everything is going according to plan, according to Lars Christian Gomnæs at Statsbygg.
The Oseberg Ship, as it looked after the excavation in 1904.(Photo: Museum of Cultural History)
Earthquake
Eventually, the Oseberg Ship will be placed on its own platform in the new section, which is connected to the old Viking Ship Museum.
"One of the main reasons for moving the ships is to have control over the environment and humidity," Göran Joryd, project manager at the Museum of Cultural History, tells sciencenorway.no.
That was not the case in the old building, which was built in the early 1900s.
This is the platform the Oseberg Ship will be moved to.(Photo: Lasse Bjørnstad / sciencenorway.no)
Over the decades spent in the old Viking Ship Museum, the Viking ships have developed damage, deformations, and cracks. The ships would eventually have collapsed under their own weight if no action was taken, the Museum of Cultural History writes on their website (link in Norwegian).
This is hwhat the Oseberg Ship is expected to look like when the museum opens in 2027.(Image: Ralph Appelbaum Associates / Tamschick Medie+Space)
The Oseberg Ship's hull-shaped platform is designed to be shockproof and vibration-resistant. It will keep the ship isolated from vibrations caused by the thousands of visitors expected to pass by.
At the same time, the platform will keep the ship safe even in the event of a so-called 500-year earthquake, says Joryd.
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