In the year 1934, while dredging upstream the River Scheldt near the village of Appels in the region of Flanders, an extraordinary ship’s figurehead (see featured image above) was recovered. It is dated around the year AD 400. Among scholars, there seems to be agreement that it is Germanic and that it originates from the southern North Sea coast. Hitherto, no people or country has claimed to be the rightful owner of this remarkable piece of carved wood. Of course, the descendants of the northern raiders considered it. Alas, Vikings only started their raiding operations four centuries later. So, these newbies couldn’t have been it. Well, today (July 31, 2021) it has been claimed. Indeed, by the Frisian people.
If you look at the terrifying and somewhat unsettling sculpture, imagination starts running wild. Picture twenty to thirty warriors in a ship. Rowing way up the River Scheldt in the dead of night. Perhaps a Raubschare ‘warband’ of three ships. Men tough as Nails. All shielded. Carrying a long saex ‘long knife’ and a spear. Some even had an iron helmet. “Iesenere mannen in de houten schepen,” (‘iron men in the wooden ships’), as the last surviving skipper of the traditional rescue rowboats along the Dutch North Sea coast, Jan IJes Teerdstra from the Wadden Sea island of Schiermonnikoog, described his rowers in the year 1976 (see note 4).
Last winter around the year 400, on the distant shores of the Wadden Sea, Frisians carefully prepared their raid through the area of Sincfala and the River Scheldt. Thanks to trade contacts and previous lootings, they had gathered precise information about the treasure to be found, calculated how many warriors were needed in order to have supremacy in battle, figured out the navigation on the meandering river, etc., etc. Now it was early spring and these filibusters carried out their cunning plans and made the attack. In a boat carrying the nickname Sterke Yerke III perhaps (see note 5). Rowing from the Wadden Sea coast up the River Scheldt in the region of Flanders would have taken them about ten days.
The figurehead of Appels is made of oak wood and is 149 centimetres long. It is estimated that the ship to which it belonged had a length of eighteen metres. Furthermore, the figurehead was dismountable. Maybe when raiding, it was mounted. Much like a lion whose ears flatten when it attacks, and like the black Jolly Roger flag with its skull image centuries later.
The unique piece is kept on the wrong side of the English Channel, namely in the British Museum. Soon, a request will be filed with the British Government to return this piece of national heritage to the Frisians. Possibly, Prime Minister Boris Johnson will challenge the request. But the Frisians have excellent credentials. Let’s go through them:
In our blog post Our civilization – It all began with piracy, we already described how, from the second century onward, the peoples of the southern North Sea coast engaged in full-swing piracy and how it was the basis for a new common North Sea culture. From their homelands north and east of the limes (i.e. the border of the Roman Empire), thus outside Roman control, they pillaged the Roman coasts south of the River Rhine on both sides of the Channel, the coast of East England, and the coast of Brittany. In the course of the third century, the Romans responded by creating the litus Saxonicum – which was basically a series of coastal defensive structures and the deployment of several naval bases. Eventually, all with no avail in stopping the widespread piracy.
The zenith of piracy happened in tandem with strong, natural erosion of the southern coast of the North Sea, from the town of Nieuwpoort in Belgium to that of Esbjerg in Denmark. Due to sediment exhaustion of the sea, the North Sea became ‘high-energetic’ from the second or third century onward, and started eating away and degenerating the southern coastal zone (Tys 2002). The unreliable sea filled its stomach and veins with more sediment again. Dune rows protecting the coast were breached, and the salty sea carved itself deep into the fresh interior, swallowing dunes, barrier islands, and masses of peat- and woodlands.
It is also in the third century that the Frisians started migrating south, into the river deltas of the Meuse, Waal, and Scheldt. They also moved upstream the River Scheldt. Near the village of Zele in the region of Flanders, typical hand-shaped Frisian ware vessels have been excavated, dating from this period. Furthermore, it was, in fact, Frisians and not Franks who revolted against Emperor Constantius I in the area of the River Scheldt in the year 293. The Romans, however, were successful in crushing the rebellion and deported both the Frisians and the Chamavi to the interior of Gaul (Dhaez 2019). By the way, the Romans called these rebellious Frisians praedatores ‘looters’.
This is our plea and it should suffice. Now, Boris, hand over the damn piece of ancient wood. Before big apples become angry!
Note 1 – The figurehead of Appels was part of the Maertens de Noordhout Collection. This collection contained five more wood-carved dragon or animal heads, in the Dutch language called snekkenkoppen. Between 1930-1950 six such heads were found in the upper valley of the River Scheldt. Besides Appels, two heads were found at Hamme, one at Moerzeke-Mariekerke, one at Wetteren, and one at Zele. The head of Moerzeke-Mariekerke is dated ca. AD 350, and of Zele ca. AD 690. Concerning the three pieces of Hamme and Wetteren, to this day we have no idea how old they are. The British Museum acquired the three heads of Appels, Moerzeke-Mariekerke and Zele. More recent research dates this head between ca. 390-550 – which happens to be the age of Beowulf and King Finn. The head of Moerzeke-Mariekerke is, therefore, also interesting in the context of this blog post. Strictly speaking it is unclear whether the snekkenkoppen belonged to a rowboat. For all we know they might also be a piece of furniture, or you just name it (Hofman 2024).
Note 2 – In our post A Frontier known as Watery Mess: the Coast of Flanders, you can find more information about the presence of the Frisians down there.
Note 3 – Do not get confused, a replica of the figurehead has been made in Flanders, that is somehow associated with Vikings. The ship carrying the replica received also a Scandinavian name, namely Nøkkvi. As explained in this blog post, it is really impossible and irresponsible to link this figurehead to the Vikings. They were not even crawling in diapers by then.
Note 4 - We made reference to traditional rescuing boats along the Dutch coast with the purpose of visualizing how those raiders were organized and they rowed in a small boat at sea.
Another skipper and lifeboatman was Jan Bijl ‘Jan Axe’ (1857-1937), who is considered one of the bravest so-called Blauwe Zeeridders ‘blue sea knights’. His parents originating from the region of Westfriesland and he himself stationed in the port town of Den Helder in the north of the province of Noord Holland. During his life, Jan Bijl saved in total 252 shipwrecked sailors by rowing through the hell of the wild sea. Sometimes in recue operations of three days. “Jan fought with the sea, which is sometime furious and insane as a beast. False and unreliable” (Dekker 2017).
Note 5 – The name Sterke Yerke III in this blog post refers to the name of the raft made by four Frisian guys from the town of Leeuwarden in the province of Friesland, and with which they crossed the Atlantic Ocean from the port town of Harlingen to the island of Bonaire in the Caribbean in the year 1979. Movie Waterworld for real.
Suggested music
The Stone Roses, Fools Gold / What the World is Waiting For (1989)
Further reading
Bruce-Mitford, R., Ships figure head in the Migration Period and Early Middle Ages (1970)
De Graeve, A., Het vergeten deel van de collectie Maertens de Noordhout boven water gehaald. Studie naar de vroegmiddeleeuwse rivierdeposities in de Scheldevallei (2010)
Dekker, E., Door de hel van de woeste zee. Een van de dapperste ’blauwe zeeridders’ staat centraal bij Stichting Westfriese Families (2017)
Dhaeze, W., The Roman North Sea and Channel Coast Defence. Germanic Seaborne Raids and the Roman Response (2019)
Fontijn, D., Economies of Destruction. How the systematic destruction of valuables created value in Bronze Age Europe, c. 2300-500 BC (2020)
Haan, de A.C. (ed.), Roeiend redden. Het roeireddingwezen van Texel tot Schiermonnikoog (1976)
Hofman, F., De toepassing van X-stralen Computer Tomografie op houten archeologische artefacten (2024)
Hollevoet, Y. & Roeyen, van J.P., Germanic Settlers at Sint-Gillis-Waas? (1992)
Knol, E., Twee eeuwen reddingwezen aan Friese kusten (2024)
Loveluck, C.P. & Tys, D., Coastal societies, exchange and identity along the Channel and southern North Sea shores of Europe, AD 600-1000 (2006)
Tys, D., De inrichting van een getijdenlandschap. De problematiek van de vroegmiddeleeuwse nederzettingsstructuur en de aanwezigheid van terpen in de kustvlakte: het voorbeeld van Leffinge (2002)
This is great to read, you do a fantastic job at capturing history while remaining funny! I am Frisian and British and glad to read this!