Viking ships in peril due to funding shortage

OSLO - Norway's famed Viking ships, considered part of the country's most iconic cultural heritage, are in danger of "total breakdown" due to lack of funding, experts have warned.

Only three well-preserved vessels have been found in the country. All of them were excavated more than a century ago and are displayed at the Viking Ship Museum on Bygdoy, a peninsula near the city center of Oslo.

"They are in a poorer condition than we first believed," said Hakon Glorstad, director of the Museum of Cultural History and professor of archaeology.