The Gokstad ship was built around 890 AD, at the height of the Viking period. It was a fast and flexible ship that was suitable for voyages on the high seas. A large burial mound called the kings mound was situated at the farm of Gokstad in Sandefjord municipality of Norway. In autumn 1879 the two teenage sons on the farm were bored and started to dig into the mound. A ship was said to lie in the burial mound, and it was this that the boys found. .