Viking ship burial mounds in Norway could move a step closer to UNESCO World Heritage status after the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage (Riksantikvaren) recommended adding seven monumental ship-burial landscapes to Norway’s tentative list, a prerequisite for any future nomination.
Seven Viking ship burial mounds Norway wants to list
Riksantikvaren’s recommendation covers seven ship-burial mounds from the Viking Age, spread across several regions:
- Gjellestad (Østfold)
- Storhaug (Rogaland)
- Myklebust (Vestland)
- Herlaugshaugen (Trøndelag)
- Borrehaugene, Oseberghaugen and Gokstadhaugen (Vestfold)
The agency argues that the mounds and their surrounding landscapes are “without parallel” and represent some of Norway’s most important Viking Age cultural environments. The sites are also presented as evidence of power, long-distance connections and early state formation, positioned along what sources describe as the historical sea-route known as norðrvegr (“the way north”), a term that later became associated with the name Norway itself.
What Norway’s tentative list means in the UNESCO process
A place being added to a tentative list does not mean it is a World Heritage site. It is an inventory of cultural and natural heritage a state may decide to nominate in the coming years.
If the Norwegian government chooses to place the ship-burial mounds on the tentative list, the next steps would involve building a full nomination dossier: defining boundaries and buffer zones, setting out conservation measures, and demonstrating the property’s “outstanding universal value” under UNESCO’s criteria.
In practice, UNESCO nominations are often multi-year projects. They also require coordination between national authorities, regional administrations, local municipalities, museums, and research institutions—especially for serial sites that include multiple locations.
Why the ships in museums are not part of the nomination
A key point in Riksantikvaren’s proposal is that the nomination concerns the burial mounds in their landscapes, not the famous ships preserved in museums.
The Oseberg ship and the Gokstad ship were excavated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and are now conserved and displayed away from their original findspots. Under UNESCO’s rules, this matters: nominations are assessed as sites and cultural landscapes, and the integrity and authenticity of the property are evaluated based on what remains in situ.
The recommendation therefore focuses on the mounds and their wider contexts—how they are placed in the terrain, how they relate to waterways and settlements, and what they reveal about Viking Age social organisation and belief systems.
From the failed 2015 bid to Denmark’s 2023 breakthrough
Norway has tried before to bring Viking heritage into the UNESCO system through international cooperation. In 2015, a transnational nomination titled “Viking Age Sites in Northern Europe” was considered by the World Heritage Committee, which deferred the case and asked participating countries to broaden and clarify the scope of the nomination.
Since then, several partners have pursued separate routes. Denmark secured World Heritage status in 2023 for the Viking-Age Ring Fortresses—Aggersborg, Fyrkat, Nonnebakken, Trelleborg and Borgring—inscribed as a serial property representing a coordinated late-10th-century system of military architecture.
Norway’s current approach is more tightly defined: instead of trying to represent “Viking Age” broadly, it concentrates on a distinct class of monuments—ship-burial mounds—and the landscapes that made them politically and symbolically powerful.
Conservation challenges and what happens next
Riksantikvaren also highlights that the state of preservation is challenging for several of the sites and that stronger conservation efforts are needed to secure them for future generations. Recent investigations and renewed research have added new findings and data, including work at Herlaugshaugen and Myklebust.
The next decision now lies with the Norwegian government, which will determine whether to place the selected sites on Norway’s tentative list and whether to initiate the longer UNESCO nomination process.
If Norway proceeds, the bid would add to a wider Nordic trend: countries are increasingly using World Heritage nominations not only to recognise key historical landscapes, but also to strengthen long-term protection frameworks in the face of development pressures and climate-related risks.
