Vikings vs Norsemen - who wins?

When did Vikings become more used than Norsemen?

The terms are de-facto synonyms, but I had a feeling (let's be generous and call that a hypothesis) that Norsemen was more commonly used in the past, but that at some time Vikings had shot to popularity and dominated since.

To test the hypothesis I turned to the Google Book N-gram Viewer. Here are the results.

As you can see Norsemen was as frequently used or more used than Vikings up until about 1919. From that point onwards Vikings grew the more common term and the gulf widened substantially from the 1940s onwards.

Why? I don't know, but perhaps there were som influential books or films published around 1919 and in the 40s? And that helped to popularise the term Vikings. This is another investigation, and a more complex one.

The Borgia mappa mundi

A little test of a mappa mundi, the so-called Borgia map.



Courtesy of the Royal Library of Sweden.

Pro blogpost embed

New report shows nine European museums in world's top 20

A report out last week lists the world's 20 most visited museums in 2016, with nine of them based in Europe. The Louvre is Europe's highest entry, third behind the National Museum of China in Beijing and the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.

Item embed test

Astronomers from BL Add 24189, f. 15

Miniature of astronomers on Mt Athos, above, studying the stars with astrolabes and quadrants and, below, inscribing strange characters in the dust with sticks. Image taken from f. 15 of Illustrations for Mandeville's Travels (index Voyage d'outre mer, Itinerarium).

Gallery embed test

Art Nouveau posters

Art Nouveau posters from the famous art movement. The latter half of the 19th century saw an increase in print media and advertising. Explore more in exhibition Art Nouveau - A Universal Style

Test of using embedly to generate exhibition embeds

Industrial Photography in the Machine Age

This exhibition explores fascinating industrial photography from the machine age. We travel back in time to the factories, cities and workshops of the early 20th century, and discover beautiful images in unexpected places. It is the first exhibition in a series entitled The Pleasure of Plenty, showcasing the visual opulence and richness of historical photography.

Wikidata SPARQL embed test

Testing, testing....

BL player embed test

Testing, testing... 1,2,3

Google Maps embed

Testing CNRS-CREM embed

Testing, testing...



...1,2,3

Testing the Knight Foundation storymap

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3. Embed pattern stolen from Washington Post. Seems to work ok.