a period of less than three months, from May 21 to October 10, 1935. Rosenberg's and Mikkelsen's notes complement each other well. Rosenberg was more the specialist in his writing, using more colloquial language, while Mikkelsen's reflections are more emotional and focused on the discovery of the ship. According to his journal entries, Rosenberg at first believed that the iron pieces found with the ship did not belong to the stem, while Mikkelsen believed that they did. Mikkelson was relieved when Rosenberg changed his mind regarding the iron-pieces and concluded that they indeed belonged to the stem. The iron-pieces turned out to be spirally-rolled iron bands, which must have been placed as ornaments on the wooden stem, now dissolved. The spirals lay in a line for a length of roughly 60 cm. Rosenberg and Mikkelsen agreed that the stem, with its ornamentation, was meant to symbolize the mane on an animal, a dragon in particular, whose head had rotted away. Both larger and smaller longships typically had loose “stemterminations” carved into the shape of dragon-heads. Viking ships depicted in Viking-Age and medieval pictures do not always exhibit dragon-heads, and it is uncertain under what conditions such ornamentation was permitted on a ship. Large longships from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries—dreki (plural for drekar)—belonged to the king only. It is possible that the right to bear a dragon-head on one's ship was a royal privilege or a symbol of royal ownership. Smaller longships may have belonged to wealthy and influential persons, perhaps with a military or administrative association or obligation to the king, while larger longships belonged to the king himself. A dragon-ship may have been used in the campaigns of Harald Bluetooth. After Mikkelsen found the north stem, they dug a little deeper to the north of the south stem's spirals, where they found iron nails lying at intervals of 25 cm from each other. These nails formed the eastern “gunwale edge” or top edge of the side of the boat. However, they did not find the nails on the western edge. Excavating continued near the south stem, as they searched for nails on the western side of the ship. According to Mikkelsen, some wood or bark layers there survived. While digging from the west part towards the middle of the ship to search for timber, Rosenberg noticed that the wood of the strakes was extant only where it had