In 1903 a Norwegian farmer, Oscar Rom, dug into a mound in one of his fields and found what has come to be called the Oseberg ship.
By the thirteenth century, we know that timbers from earlier ships were cleft and later they were sawn but the art of cleaving wide long boards for shipbuilding was lost for 800 years.
A team headed by Thomas Finderup, who built the large replica viking ships at Roskilde,Denmark, has developed what they believe to be methods used by shipwrights of that bygone era.
Currently the team is building a replica of the Oseberg ship. It is built entirely of cleft and hewn oak, no saws are used. You can follow this process on the Traditional Crafts Blog of the Heritage Crafts Association.
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