Archaeological Border complex of Hedeby and the Danevirke
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How it came to be
Tree-ring dating shows that the main structure of the Danevirke earthwork was built in three phases between 737 and 968. It stands 3.6 to 6 metres high. In 808 the Danish king Godfred destroyed the Slav trading place of Reric and moved its merchants to Hedeby.
Lying between the Frankish Empire to the south and the Danish kingdom to the north, Hedeby linked the North Sea with the Baltic and became one of the largest trading towns of the Viking Age. A connecting rampart joined the semicircular rampart around the town to the Danevirke, and in 948 Hedeby became a bishop's seat. King Harald Hardrada of Norway burned the town during his conflict with Sweyn II of Denmark, West Slavs sacked it in 1066, and it was gradually abandoned. In the twelfth century King Valdemar the Great reinforced part of the wall in brick.
In the Second Schleswig War of 1864 the Schlei and the nearby wetlands froze, and the Danish army withdrew to Dybbøl without a battle rather than be outflanked. Johanna Mestorf began excavating Hedeby in 1900, and the site was inscribed in 2018.
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