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In 1934, while dredging the River Scheldt near the village of Appels in the region of Flanders, workers unearthed an extraordinary ship’s figurehead (see featured image above). Dated to around AD 400, scholars generally agree it is Germanic in origin and hails from the southern North Sea coast. Yet, to this day, no people or nation has laid rightful claim to this remarkable carving. The Vikings may come to mind, but they only began their raids four centuries later—so, these n

"If you don't care about your own history, you may as well leave the classroom." Words from the geography teacher at high school Simon Vestdijk in the port town of Harlingen in 1988. We, the two Frisian bastards , were about sixteen years old and in the fifth grade of VWO, i.e., pre-university education. The annoyed words were addressed to two giggling girls from the villages of Arum and Witmarsum , sitting in the back of the classroom. The teacher had already opened the door

If you want to track down who killed the whale, the Frisia Coast Trail region is the place to start. Stop people on the streets along this southern North Sea littoral and ask whether they know anything, and you will likely hear: “I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know nothing.” Politicians and officials—say, in The Hague—will lament that they have no recollection of the affair. Better call them all Ishmael. In this blog post, we set out the unvarnished truth: how the peoples l

The peoples of islands and archipelagos do not let others dictate how to live their lives. One of those archipelagos that meets these criteria as well is the Wadden Sea. For centuries, it is from here that sea explorers, tax evaders, sturdy Arctic whalers, self-righteous women, pirates, privateers, and other vagabonds have come. An archipelago that the Sea Beggars and the earliest trouser-wearing women call home. Even the first atheist of modern times comes from this archipel

Although the conversion of the Woden-devoted Frisians was a slow and cumbersome process that only succeeded in depth in the tenth century, Frisia subsequently turned into the richest ecclesiastical area of Europe. Nowhere else on the Isles and the Continent were there this many monasteries and churches packed together. Even though nearly all monasteries have been dismantled with the advent of Protestantism, to this very day, nowhere in the world can one find as many high-medi

Hjoggum vér með hjörvi —'we swung our swords'—as all the stanzas of the twelfth-century epic poem Lay of Kraka begin, the tale of Ragnar Lothbrok’s death. When reading about the famous deeds of great Viking warriors, little attention is given to their moments of failure. Little is written about where and when those glorious men and women died. As it turns out, the coast of Frisia is one great Viking graveyard. It is here, in the (still) smelly blue mud, that legendary heroes

New York City, the Capital of the World. They call it a lot of things: Gotham, the Big Apple, the Empire City, Modern Gomorrah, even Baghdad-on-the-Subway. And of course, Times Square proudly calls itself the Center of the Universe—although the true center of the world is the village of Aegum. And in the middle of all this noise, lights, and skyscraper swagger, portraits of two quiet men from seventeenth-century Friesland—villagers from Peperga and Koudum—hang proudly in two

About 2,000 years ago, a tragedy unfolded. A sixteen-year-old girl, who had suffered from scoliosis during her young life, was killed. Her red hair was shaved off on one side, she was stabbed at the base of her neck on the right shoulder, and strangled with a woollen rope. After this, she was placed in the bog. It all happened near the Celtic fields in what was then the territory of the Old Frisians, near the current village of Yde in the province of Drenthe. It was not inves

The Pesse Canoe. The world’s oldest known water vessel was discovered near the village of Pesse in the Dutch province of Drenthe. Dated to between 8040 and 7510 BC, it predates even the great cradles of civilization such as Egypt and Mesopotamia. Yes, you read that correctly—feel free to go back and check the date. The Pesse dugout canoe is carved from Scots pine, measuring about 3 meters in length and 45 centimeters in width. Its front is left thick and solid, giving it a ki

In 2004, archaeologists made a remarkable discovery at the early medieval burial ground of Solleveld, just south of the city of The Hague: a boat grave. It lies almost exactly two hundred kilometres in a straight line due east across the North Sea from the legendary ship burial at Sutton Hoo. With this extraordinary find, the Netherlands joined the select group of nations known for ship burials—a distinction not to be taken lightly. National pride soared. The discovery also e

When, on a moonlit night, you stand atop the dyke at Lake Lauwersmeer and gaze out over the water, you might just catch a glimpse of the...

The 'First Lady' of the village of Grou in the province of Friesland, the Netherlands, also named Grytsje of Grou. Archaeologists found her in January 2018, in the village of Grou at Halbertsmaplein Sq. Her grave is dated mid-eighth century. She received the title First Lady because until this find, it was not known people lived at Grou at all in the Early Middle Ages, already. Grou is situated in the center of the province of Friesland, on former peatland bordering the clay-

R1b/Hg1/Eu18; R-M213; R-M9; R1b-M45; R-M207; R-M173; R-M343; R-L278; R-L754; R-L389/R1b1a1; R-M415; R-P297/R1b1a1a; R-M269/R1b1a1a2; R-M520; R-L23; R-M412; R-L11; R-S21/U106/M405/ R1b1a1a1a2a1a1... Knock Knock… Wake up Neo… Follow the White Rabbit…| These serial numbers, arranged in chronological order, represent groups and subgroups of people who genetically share a common ancestor. Pulling on these protein strands is like tumbling down the rabbit hole: they lead from the Ol

The earliest evidence of Frisian merchants—or kāpmon in the Old Frisian language—engaging in the slave trade dates back to the first half of the seventh century. No less an authority than the Venerable Bede, the Father of English history, recorded this criminal activity. He described a merchant operating in the markets of London who also dealt in slaves. As Fleming (2010) puts it: “Frisian slavers in hopes of swapping luxury goods for a little human flesh.” In this blog post,

High in the majestic Alps, in Switzerland’s Bernese Oberland, many men, women, and children have witnessed the dreadful sight of dead Frisians marching home under the cover of darkness. The path they follow is known as The Frisians’ Way , a ghostly route linking the Haslital —the Hasli Valley in the Bernese Oberland—to the distant shores of the North Sea, once the heart of ancient Frisia. The dead do not speak the word ‘friend’ and simply enter when they want to pass through

Latið meg ei á Frísaland fordervast! This is the Faroese language, and its translation is: 'Do not let me perish in Friesland!' It is a cry of a Faroese young woman when she was being kidnapped by Frisian pirates somewhere in the Middle Ages. The question of this blog post is not about how on earth it was possible that the youth on the Faroe Islands had such a bad image of Friesland or Frisia. No. Instead, we will review the old Faroese sagas about Frisians. Faroese oral ac

Frisia could easily claim the title: land of Atlantis. 19 inhabited islands and 244 villages drowned along the old Frisian coast trail in the past 1,500 years. We bet there are more out there... Atlantis emerged in the writings of Greek philosopher Plato. That was around 350 BC. In two of his dialogues, the "Temaeus" and the "Critas", he mentions the lost city. Atlantis was not only known for its mysterious civilisation, but even more for its cataclysmic destruction some 7,

The arrival of the Romans in north-western Europe at the beginning of the Common Era, with the River Rhine as their northern frontier, marked the starting point for five centuries of widespread piracy. These raids affected not only the coasts of Britannia and northern Gaul but rippled as far as the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. The heartland of this piracy was the coastal region stretching from the Lower River Rhine to the River Elbe, including parts of the inland—roughly

Is the seaport Maasvlakte the gateway to north-western Europe? No? How about Europoort? Still no? What about the Botlek port area? Or the town of Vlaardingen? No again? Surely it must be the city of Rotterdam then! Wait—neither? Alright, last guess: since you guys only talk and brag about Frisia, could it be the town of Vreeswijk, the so-called ‘Frisian wic’? Sorry to disappoint the reader. None of these options is correct. The town in question is Dorestad—sometimes, and mor

On March 25, 2020, the coronavirus pandemic was climbing towards its second peak. There was uncertainty about how destructive the pandemic was going to be in the long run. How many family members and loved ones would it take? It was a phenomenon of chaos and destruction that confronted us with the limitations of an engineered world. Some people exclaimed that it was a punishment from God. Others said it was Nature making us pay for the demolition of the planet. Yet others den