The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1984, Blaðsíða 33

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
31
Each time-car seats four people and is
automatically guided through the display. A
commentary in one of four languages is relayed
into each car to explain all that visitors are
experiencing.
reawakened and made to live and breathe
again, while beyond the concrete walls of
the Viking Centre, the rest of the city still
sleeps, buried under modem York.
When the Trust’s archaeologists first
realized the unique importance of the
Viking remains that were being revealed in
Coppergate, straight away they began to
think how their discoveries would even-
tually be displayed to the public. They
wanted to do justice to the artefacts and
information they were uncovering, and also
to the half million people who visited
Coppergate, eager to find out more about
the Vikings. Should the finds be whisked
straight off to a museum gallery — or was
there another way?
Soon the answers were suggested by the
finds themselves. These included whole
timber buildings remarkably well-preserved.
If these were to go on display they would
first need to undergo a long and complex
chemical process to stop them from de-
teriorating once taken out of the wet soil
that had preserved them for so long. They
would then need a display area large
enough to allow them to be seen as
buildings, not just pieces of wood, and also
a very precisely-controlled environment to
prevent the wood drying out or cracking.
No existing museum gallery could ac-
commodate such needs.
Beetles
In addition the Trust had to consider the
thousands of small everyday objects found
in the dig and all the information from bugs
and beetles, soil analysis and animal bones.
To the archaeologist trained to recognise
what it meant, all this was beginning to
build up into a remarkably vivid and
colourful close-up picture of what it was
like to live in Viking Coppergate. How
could we convey that to the men, women
and children who nowadays visit York in
their millions? The answer was blindingly
obvious: actually to recreate this picture, so
that visitors could see, hear and experience
it for themselves.
Viking Coppergate lies deeply buried
below the modem street. Where better to
recreate the ancient street than where it
used to be? What more appropriate resting
place could be found for the Viking age
houses than on the dig site itself, where
they had lain for a thousand years? With
modem building technology and the co-
operation of the developers, Wimpey
Property Holdings pic, it could be done.
Underground
The York City Council recognised the
quite extraordinary possibilities in our
scheme — a Viking city beneath York —
and gave it enthusiastic support. In a
basement display area under a new shop-
ping complex the timber buildings could be
re-erected as found, beside their recon-
structed counterparts. Of course, there
were all sorts of problems. The cost was
very high. Humidity control for the precious
buildings and finds had to be arranged.
Very strict fire regulations applied. One
of these required that the density of people
in any part of the museum at one time must
be strictly controlled. In order to comply
with this, the Trust came up with the idea
of small electric time-cars which would