Reric

Reric or Rerik was one of the Viking Age multi-ethnic Slavic-Scandinavian emporia on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, located near Wismar in the present-day German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Reric was built around 700, when Slavs of the Obodrite tribe settled the region. At the turn of the 9th century, the citizens of Reric allied with Charlemagne, who used the port as part of a strategic trade route that would avoid areas of Saxon and Danish control. It was destroyed in 808 AD by the Viking king Gudfred, whereupon the tradespeople were reportedly moved by the king to the Viking emporium of Hedeby near modern Schleswig.
The location of Reric was long disputed. Older theories suggested Oldenburg, Lübeck, Mecklenburg Castle, and Alt-Gaarz, renamed Rerik in 1938. Since the 1990s, Reric is thought to be identical with an archaeological site near Groß Strömkendorf, located on the eastern shore of the Bay of Wismar. This version is based on results presented by the University of Kiel and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's State Department for Archaeology, who partially excavated about 20 hectares of the site between 1995 and 1999.

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