The Oseberg ship is known as one of the finest surviving artifacts from the Viking age, with origins dated back to the 800s. The ship has been displayed in the Viking ship museum in Oslo since 1926. The nearly 100 years on museum display along with the over 1000 years it was buried has weakened the structure of the ship. To slow down the deterioration, several research projects has been initiated, among them the project ''Saving Oseberg''. A part of ''Saving Oseberg'' is contributing to the planning of a new museum for the ship. As a basis for the planning, the ship has been monitored with photogrammetry. This is intended as a way to visualise the deformation and displacements of the ship due to seasonal changes in indoor temperature and humidity. In this thesis the photogrammetry data from the hull of the ship was used to make a finite element model, and through this model calculate the average strain on each element. The method was based on a previous research project conducted on the Swedish warship Vasa by a research group at the Division of Applied Mechanics at Uppsala University. The measurements of the ship was formed into a hull by Delaunay triangulation. The strain was approximated as a Green strain and evaluated using isoparametric mapping of the elements. Through the nodal displacements, the strain was evaluated by approximating the elements as tetrahedrons and calculating the average strain from these elements between the measurements. The result showed an oscillating behavior of the displacements, proving the proposal of seasonal depending displacements. The measured principal strains also matched to the corresponding relative humidity fluctuation during the year. The strain magnitude was relatively even throughout the ship, mostly varying between ±0.4% but certain areas were more subjected than others. A few elements on the starboard side showed very large strains through most of the measurements, this seemed very unusual and was probably the result of inaccuracies or errors in the data. Though the ship is subjected to relative small strains and permanent displacements after annual cycles, the mechano-sorptive strains may lead to accumulated deformation and eventually failure in the weak parts of the wood or at the high stress concentraion parts. In addition, the cyclic strain even in elastic range may cause fatigue failure in any material which could pose a large threat for the future conservation of the ship.

Genom arkeologins historia har skepp studerats som symboler för makt, status och krig. Även om skeppen studerats väldigt mycket inom dessa aspekter har relationerna och nätverken runt skeppens produktion och underhåll fallit i skymundan. Målet med uppsatsen är därför att studera dessa relationer ur ett holistiskt perspektiv, och att försöka tolka hur dessa relationer i sin tur påverkat skeppets roll i gravsammanhang genom att använda Osebergsskeppet som grund för studien. Tidsramen som satts är yngre järnålder, detta för att kunna tolka skeppens symboliska värde effektivt. För att göra det immateriella greppbart används entanglement-teori, och kvantitativa uträkningar för naturliga- och mänskliga resurser används som hjälpmedel för detta. Studien visar att allt rörande skeppet är intrasslade med varandra, och att en kollektiv agens av samhället var nödvändig för produktion och senare underhåll av skeppen. Skeppens symboliska värde är också format av dessa relationer, och det är möjligt att det är dessa relationer som lett till skeppens roll i gravseden under perioden. / For much of the history of archaeology ships have been studied as symbols for power, wealth, and warfare. Even though viking-age ships have been studied immensely in these regards the relationships and the network of organization around the construction and maintenance have not received as much attention from archaeologists. The aim of this essay is therefore to study these relationships in a holistic view, and to try to interpret how these relationships affected the ships’ place in the funerary sphere using the Oseberg ship as the basis for this study. The timeframe for the study is set to late iron-age since the study of symbolism needs a longer timeframe to be interpreted effectively. To get the intangible to become tangible the entanglement theory is applied, and quantitative estimations on natural- and human resources are used as support to do so. The study shows that everything surrounding the ship is entangled, and that a collective agency of the communities was necessary for the production and maintenance of the ships. The symbolic meaning of the ship is also formed by these relationships, and that it might be these relationships that gave the ships a place in the funerary sphere during the period.