Obituary: Dr Richard Hall - Archaeologist whose work revealed a more human side to Scotland’s Viking invaders

ARCHAEOLOGIST Dr Richard Hall was one of the world’s leading experts on the Vikings, the Scandinavian warriors who left their mark on Scotland, England and Ireland, mostly between the eighth and 11th centuries.

In his books, essays and lectures around the UK and beyond, he pointed out that, though the Vikings may have come to these shores to loot and pillage, many were enchanted – not least by Scottish lassies – settled here and gave up the sword to become part of local farming and fishing communities.

Despite the Vikings’ traditional image – Hagar the Horrible, horned helmets and all – they were a huge part of Scottish history, and many, if not most, Scots probably have some Viking blood.

Born in England and brought up in Ulster, Hall, who has died of cancer, sourced much of his material from the National Museum of Scotland, the Orkney Museum and the Museum nan Eilean in Stornoway.

Interviewed for The Scotsman in 2007, he said some of the best archaeological finds revealing the Vikings’ past were made in the Highlands and islands of Scotland. “Over the last few years, there’s been a great deal of interest in the Western Isles,” he said. “Viking cemeteries on Lewis have been found, and there have been some important excavations. South Uist has seen the discovery of house sites which show us where people were living in the Viking age.

“If you go to Colonsay, you go in the knowledge that on the beach at Kiloran Bay in the 19th century a remarkable Viking burial of a warrior with horses was found. It’s a beautiful and evocative landscape, and I think that’s true of many of these areas in the Western Isles, and the Northern Isles too.”

In Orkney, he said, you can “see the finest collection of Runic inscriptions in the Viking world, recording how people took shelter and telling of buried treasure. There are even lewd comments about the local ladies.”

Hall’s theory, since backed up by historians worldwide, was that the Vikings first looted Scottish monasteries – for there lay the glittering booty – but lingered for a wee dram or three and were seduced, as so many foreigners have been since, by the Scottish landscape and women.

In one of his books, Hall noted that some of the best- preserved Viking sites can be found at the southern tip of mainland, Shetland.

Aerial photographs in the book show, on the very edge of the land, the ruins of a 16th-century residence given what Hall describes as a “Vikingised” name of Jarlshof by Sir Walter Scott in his novel The Pirate. The land has traces of ancient buildings from the Bronze Age onwards, with Viking age longhouse buildings built further from the sea. The site is looked after by Historic Scotland.

Richard Andrew Hall was born in Ilford, Essex on 17 May, 1949, but, because of his father’s job, grew up in Belfast.

He attended the Royal Belfast Academical Institution before gaining an archaeology degree at Queen’s University in the city, his dissertation being on Viking sites in Ireland. His digs and research led him to believe, as he did for the rest of his life, that the Vikings had had what we might nowadays call “a bad press”. They may have sailed to Scotland and beyond seeking riches to take home, but they became enamoured with their conquered territory – and, of course, its women.

At the age of 25, Dr Hall was hired by the York Archaeological Trust and would spend the rest of his life in the Yorkshire city, making his name by uncovering its Viking past. It was in 1976 that he began excavations that would show that York – “Jorvik” as the Vikings called it – had been a Viking stronghold and that, far from simply looting, they had stayed on to help build the city into what it is today.

Adding a PhD from the University of Southampton to his CV in 1985, he would become the trust’s director of archaeology until his death.

Dr Hall was the driving force behind the Viking dig in York’s Coppergate, which uncovered wooden houses, textiles, shoes and other 1,000-year-old Viking artefacts.

His work led, in 1984, to the foundation of the Jorvik Viking Centre in the cathedral city, now one of the UK’s most visited tourist attractions where you can see, feel, even smell what it was like to be a Viking. The centre brings archaeology into life and is a not-to-be-missed experience for children and adults alike.

“I remember vividly coming down on the opening morning,” Dr Hall recalled, “to be met by an enormous crowd … people had come down from Aberdeen and up from Kent.”

Dr Hall’s best-known book, Exploring the World of the Vikings (2007), is considered the definitive work on the Viking age. “Archaeology has shown that these people [the Vikings] took over by the sword initially, but most settled, adapted, indulged in trade and soon became part of the local communities of farmers and fisherfolk,” he wrote.

Dr Hall is survived by his wife, Dr Ailsa Mainman, assistant director of the York Archaeological Trust, and two teenage sons. PHIL DAVISON