Hedeby

(Haithabu), a settlement that existed from the ninth to the mid–11th century in Denmark, in the southeastern part of the Jutland Peninsula, south of the modern city of Schleswig, in what is now the Federal Republic of Germany. Hedeby was one of the most important commercial centers of northern Europe during the period of Viking expansion, linking the countries of the Baltic and the East with Western Europe. A struggle for its possession was waged by the Danes, Germans, Swedes, Slavs, and Norwegians, which eventually led to the settlement’s destruction. Archaeological excavations, headed by the German archaeologist H. Jankuhn, beginning in the 1930’s, uncovered traces of a military, commercial, and artisan settlement, a harbor, and a fortification, which surrounded Hedeby.