Meet Erika the Red: Viking women were warriors too, say scientists

Researchers re-create the face of a woman buried with an impressive collection of weaponry for a National Geographic documentary

Think of a Viking warrior and you probably imagine a fearsome, muscular, bearded man. Well, think again. Using cutting-edge facial recognition technology, British scientists have brought to life the battle-hardened face of a female fighter who lived more than 1,000 years ago.

The life-like reconstruction, which challenges long-held assumptions that Viking warrior heroes such as Erik the Red left their women at home, is based on a skeleton found in a Viking graveyard in Solir, Norway, and now preserved in Oslo's Museum of Cultural History. The remains had already been identified as female, but her burial site had not been considered a warrior grave "simply because the occupant was a woman", according to archaelogist Ella Al-Shamahi.

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