Vikings did not wear horned helmets.
Texts of the period never mention them; the image was born in the 19th century, popularised above all by stagings of Wagner's operas such as the Ring (1876).
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More amazing facts
- 793 · 794 The Viking Age and Japan's Heian period began a year apart: Vikings sacked the monastery of Lindisfarne in June 793, and in 794 the Japanese court moved to its new capital, the future Kyoto.
- 794 · 1868 Kyoto (Heian-kyō) was Japan's capital for more than 1,000 years — from 794 until the emperor moved to Tokyo after the Meiji Restoration.
- 800 When Charlemagne was crowned emperor in 800, Borobudur — the world's largest Buddhist temple — was being built on Java.
- 800 The Slavic word for 'king' comes from the name Charles — Charlemagne's, or perhaps his great-grandson Charles the Fat's: Latin Karolus became Russian korol', Polish król and Slovak kráľ.
- 800 Lowercase Latin letters go back to the handwriting of Charlemagne's scribes.
- 800 Charlemagne, patron of a great revival of learning, probably never mastered writing himself.