6 W riting Leggi il testo e completa gli spazi coniugando al Past Simple i verbi tra parentesi. The Viking city Waterford is the capital of the South East and Ireland s oldest city. The Vikings, in fact, 1. (found) it in 914 A.D. and 2. (call) the place Waterford from the Old Norse word Vedrarfjordr, meaning windyfjorde or fjorde of the ram (a type of Viking ship), probably because of its position, on the estuary of the River Suir. Historical places, like the circular defence building called Reginald s Tower, are evidence of this colonisation in the central part of the city. However, in 2003 new archaeological excavations 3. (bring) to light a different Viking settlement, dated 8th and 9th century, at Woodstown, a place on the outskirts of Waterford. Among the various objects, they 4. (find) the grave of a warrior with his knife, shield and a sword deliberately broken before the burial. To the archaeologists the big question 5. (be) whether or not Woodstown was the original site of Viking Waterford. 6. the Vikings of Woodstown (abandon) their site and transfer to a new one, founding Waterford in the early 1000s? A small 9th century settlement also 7. (exist) near Reginald s Tower in Waterford. The answer may lie in two contemporary Viking settlements that 8. (be) on the west bank of the river: one at Woodstown and one at Waterford. We also must remember that the Vikings were rural and roaming people; later, they 9. (understand) the benefits of creating urban centres: as a consequence, we may suppose that the different small settlements were consolidated in one truly urban settlement at Waterford which 10. (become) known as Ireland s Viking City. USEFUL WORDS benefit = vantaggio; burial = sepoltura; evidence = prova; fjorde = fiordo; grave = tomba; outskirt = periferia; ram = ariete; roaming = nomade; settlement = insediamento; shield = scudo; sword = spada; warrior = guerriero; windy = ventoso. 49