It was a seaworthy warship that could carry up to 45 men as a fast troop carrier. The Nydam boat is on display in the Nydam Hall of the State Archaeological Museum at Gottorf Castle in Schleswig.
The Nydam boat has a clinker-built hull with an original length of 22.84 metres and a maximum width of 3.26 metres. The overlapping planks were joined together with iron rivets, which gave the hull great strength. Woven woollen fabric and a tarry mass served as a seal. It was previously assumed that the planks were in one piece and extended along the entire length of the hull. However, more recent investigations show that most of the planks were made up of two parts. These were lashed together overlapping in one stage. Unlike the Hjortspring boat, for example, which is around 670 years older, the slim-built ocean-going vessel had a real bow that was pulled upwards and connected to the bottom plank. As with the Hjortspring boat, the oak frames were tied to pegs that were left in place during the hewing process. These so-called cleats also served as a support for the dykes (rowing benches).
The ship had no sailing gear and was designed to be propelled solely by oars, with the rowers sitting with their backs facing the direction of travel. The oarlocks were prepared and tied to the gunwale, so-called keips, which were decorated in different ways.
In 1997, two 1.3 metre long wooden posts with carved heads about 40 cm high were found. These were located near the site where the stem of the Nydam boat was found, so it is assumed that they were also attached there. There are also only assumptions about their function, such as that the head pieces protruding over the gunwale served as cleats for mooring the ship.
The crew of the boat consisted of 45 men, 36 of whom were oarsmen.
The felling date of the timbers of the Nydam boat could be dated dendrochronologically to the period between 310 and 320 AD. It is likely that the ship was sunk between 340 and 350 in what was then the Lake of Sacrifice. The origin of the wood indicates that it was built in Denmark, Schleswig-Holstein or Skåne.
The Halsnøy boat was found in 1896 on the island of Halsnøya in Fylke Vestland in Norway. It dates from the same period and is of similar construction.
Between 1859 and 1863, the Danish archaeologist Conrad Engelhardt undertook extensive excavations in the Nydam bog, around 8 kilometres from the town of Sønderborg. Shortly before the outbreak of the German-Danish War, Engelhard succeeded in finding the Nydam ship, which he reconstructed in the same year and displayed in the so-called Flensburg Collection (Flensborgsamlingen).
What makes the Nydam boat particularly interesting in relation to other finds is, among other things, the important role it played in the national conflicts between Prussia and Denmark, such as the German-Danish War and the First and Second World Wars. After the German-Danish War, the boat became Prussian property in 1864, along with other finds from the Nydam bog in Engelhard's Flensburg collection. In 1877, the Nydam ship was transferred to the Museum für vaterländische Alterthümer in Kiel as part of the Flensburg collection at the time and exhibited in the attic of the building. After the referendum on the reorganisation of the German-Danish border in 1920, the site belonged to Denmark, but the boat and other finds were located in Germany.
During the Second World War, the Nydam boat was removed from Kiel and stored in a barge in Lake Mölln, where it survived the war undamaged. In 1946, it was transported via the Kiel Canal, the Baltic Sea and the Schlei to the Schleswig-Holstein Archaeological State Museum at Gottorf Castle, where it has been on display in the specially created Nydam Hall ever since, despite Danish demands for its return after both world wars. In May 2003, the Nydam boat was loaned to the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen until March 2004, where it was exhibited in a specially constructed hall.
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