Owner: Testimony of the spade URL:http://inventerare.wordpress.com/ Join Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 17:06:46 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: This is a Swedish blog about Archaeology, Osteology and Cultural heritage. Site statistics:Click here
Some notes on Iron Age Dolmen or Fröböketype (Fröböketyp) grave 2007-04-29 18:01:43 A dolmen is a simple megalithic burial chamber with three or more uprights and one or more capstones, these are normally dated to the Stone Age but in Sweden we have one type that is dated to the Pre-Roman Iron Age or the Roman Iron Age (ca 500 B.C. - 400 A.D.). These are a lot smaller than the Stone Age ones, most often built by three or four upright stones and sometimes with a capstone. In older texts they sometimes are referred to as graves of the Fröböke type.
This burial type is almost only found on grave fields, in FMIS (the national database of ancient monuments) there are 33 hits on Iron Age dolmens, all but one are found at a grave field. The finds are geographically concentrated to the south west part of Sweden in west parts of Småland, Halland and south west part of Västra Götaland.
The Iron Age dolmens are quite small and often build by three flat blocks standing up and one used as a roof. The measurements of the blocks are ca 85-95 cm in height, 55-75 cm in breadth an
Testimony of the spade will host The Fourth Stone Hearth blog carnival on June 6th. 2007-04-29 12:19:39 The Fourth Stone
Hearth is a blog carnival that specializes in anthropology. The blog carnival is based on four lines of research; archaeology, socio-cultural anthropology, bio-physical anthropology, linguistic anthropology. Each of these four subfields is a stone in the hearth.
Four Stone Hearth is published bi-weekly, Wednesdays in odd-number weeks. If you would like to submit content to the next issue of the carnival, please send an email to: submit@fourstonehearth.net. Information can also be found at Aardvarchaeology
Coming up:
Anthropology 2.0 May 9th
Greg Landen May 23rd
Testimony
of the spade June 6th
For earlier carnival entries see: The Fourth Stone Hearth
Magnus Reuterdahl
Discover Islamic art at the Museum with no frontiers 2007-04-25 23:30:21 A new virtual museum has opened its gate: DiscoverIslamic
art. It is an impressive site. The website offers 18 exhibitions and displays more than 600 artefacts or pieces of art and more than 240 monuments from 40 museums, world wide. The exhibition stretches from the Umayyad dynasty (661 A.D.) to fall of the Ottoman in 1922. The initiative to the exhibition comes from the organization Museum
with no frontiers and has taken three years to complete.
Besides this I found this tool today to estimate what my blog is worth in US-dollars. Considering I only been at this for quite a short time I’m pleased with my value.
My blog is worth $1,129.08.
How much is your blog worth?
Magnus Reuterdahl
An update on current affairs 2007-04-25 00:46:16 The last few days I’ve been playing with the format of the blog trying to find a presentation I like. I think that I’m OK with this one at least for now. I hope that it will be a little easier to find links incorporated in the text this way and I hope it looks a little bit better.
Well the future will tell, won’t it?
I’m currently working on a post concerning Iron Age dolmens, hopefully it will be ready to publish in a day or two.
Meanwhile you can catch up on Monty Pythons view on Archaeology today.Best w.
Magnus Reuterdahl
Howard Carters notes 2007-04-23 20:54:59 Now available on-line: the notes, photos and drawings Howard
Carter made during his five seasons of excavations in the Valley of the Kings, in the beginning of the 20th century.
The search for Tutankhmun Magnus Reuterdahl
Read more:Carters
Runic texts in Dädesjö medival church 2007-04-23 20:14:42
The spectacular medieval paintings on the Dädejö church has gotten both national and international acclaim. Of the medieval church there is only the longhouse that stands today. On the outside of the church there are visible decoration in red on the outer walls, these are reconstructions of a décor from 1651. On the façade boats are intricate medieval figures engraved such as lions, dragons and other mythological creatures, this can be found on some medieval churches around Sweden another example is the church Kumlaby at Visingsö.
Within the church there are several interesting artwork from medieval times. On the inside walls and on the ceiling there are paintings dated to the 13th century, especially the artwork on the roof are spectacular since the ceiling never have been repainted. The paintings are based on the nativity Story; from the annunciation and birth of Jesus to the infanticides in Bethlehem, all the paintings are framed as medallions. In one of these the name Gabr Read more:texts
Castle ruins in Kronoberg county part 1 2007-04-23 12:13:09 During the surveys Kronoberg after the storm Gudrun I visited most of the 39 registered remains of castles and strongholds. Some of these are a treat, the most famous ones are probably the castle ruin of Kronoberg, Bergkvara and Toftaholm.
Kronoberg is situated a few miles north of Växjö. During the Middle Ages Kronoberg has been the mansion for the bishop of Växjö. The earliest written notion of this is a letter dated 1351 written by the bishop Tomas Johansson. Since then the castle is mentioned upon a number of occasions during the middle ages. Around 1540 the castle is expanded with an encircling wall as the king made the castle his. Some archaeological excavations were made during 1935-43 by Paul Boberg. The oldest part of the castle is the lower part of the round tower and a cellar. The archaeological excavations also found remnants of foundations to older houses made of wood and some kilns. It is easy accessible and has a parking lot for tourists. In the summertime there is Read more:Castle
It’s been a busy couple of days 2007-04-21 15:29:52 I am sorry to say that work has gotten in the way of me posting. I have been caught up in a small discussion of metal detectors on Martin Rundkvists blog Aardvarchaeology though.
Hopefully I will have completed a small piece on castle ruins in Kronobergs county that I aim publish tomorrow or on Monday. There are a lot of small ruins after castles or fortified farms from the middle ages in Kronoberg, some of them are well worth a visit.
Have nice weekend! I won’t, even though the sun shines and spring is in the air, since I’ll be stuck at work.
Magnus Reuterdahl
Read more:couple
The Yangshao project 2007-04-17 10:15:31 In 2003 me and a colleague, Johan Klange, started the Yangshao project with the intent to go to China, to learn more about Chinese archaeology in general and the Yangshao culture in particular. This has resulted in two fieldtrips, the first during January 2006 and the second for two weeks during the end of march beginning of April in 2007.
The fieldtrips have been made possible due to an exchange program between Stockholm University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in this case their archaeological department. Up to date we have been to China twice, in 2006 and in 2007. The second trip we did as part of a delegation with the Department of Archaeology and Classical studies at Stockholm University. The delegation was professor Anders Andrén (Head of the department), Dr. Jan Storå (head of the Osteological research laboratory), me and Johan Klange. The aim with this trip was to build as base for future cooperation and exchange between our departments. For me and Johan it wa
The legend of Vise and Vätte 2007-04-15 21:44:11 The legend of Vise and Vätte is really the legend of Visingsö. This story was published by Oscar Ljungström under the title ”Sagan om Visingsö”. The edition I got my hands on was printed by himself in1925, it was originally published in Göteborgs Handles- och Sjöfarts-Tidning (Gothenburg’s Commerce and Navigation paper) April the 25th, 1919.
There is a stone monument placed on the northwest shore of Visingsö. On the monument count Brahe wrote something like this in the 17th centuary: “Here our ancestors once hade a castle, Borga castle”. If you look out from the shoreline you will se a large rock in the water, and this rock is said to once have been palced in the centre of Borga castle. Though there probably never has existed a castle in this place there are several folklores telling us stories about it. Ljungström gives us one that I have translated and summarized:
Map of the northern part of Visingsö. Circled to the left is Borga sten (the
More thoughts about Iron Age Dolmens 2007-05-03 10:21:14 My interest for Iron Age dolmen started last year when a dolmen was rescue-excavated within the “Gudrun” project. During this time an excavation on an Iron Age grave field was carried out by Jonkoping County Museum some miles north of Kronoberg in an area called Torsvik. This grave field did not have any Iron Age dolmens but mainly consisted of stone circles (domarringar), round stone settings and square unfilled stone settings with ports.An idea that I got when I visited the excavations at Torsvik is that Iron Age dolmen and the square stone settings in some way was connected or expressed a similar idea. I’ve made a sketch of how the square stone settings looks like. They could be described as a form of “tarand” graves, which are normally found in the Estonia, Latvia and Finland, a few are found in Sweden as well, in Uppland and Södermanland. But in contrast to the eastern ones these are not built as cells with common walls, but as square rooms with wall Read more:thoughts
Väjxö III time around. 2007-05-02 11:46:16 Today my third season in Växjö begins. As with all first days there is a lot of “administrative” work to be done such as signing papers, getting keys, renting a car and so fourth.
Hopefully I will get a car till next week so that I can go out visiting the sites that we worked on last year.
As I wrote in a previous post, most of the work we did last year was rebuilding damaged sites, there some that we didn’t have money for and a few that we saw needed more work than we first had foreseen. Therefore one of my first priorities is to visit two sites to estimate wheatear we should do more or not. Thereafter I shall visit all the sites that we had work done on (ca 140), to try to describe the effect, good or bad etc. It is from these visits that I will try to show Kronoberg County from a cultural heritage point view. Within this project I will also do some small surveys, more about that later.
On the photo you can see a snapshot from one of the methods we have been and
A report from Kronoberg part 1 2007-05-14 11:27:06 Since I started this season time just seems to fly away. Up on till today I have been roaming around the countryside of Kronoberg County visiting ancient monuments and sites that we tried to restore last year, this work will continue till the beginning of June.
I thought that I could share some photos and thoughts about some of the monuments. I’ll start with some stone cists from the southwest of Kronoberg.
RAA (Göteryd parish) 109:1. Photo: Magnus Reuterdahl 2007
Stone cists or cist pits within stone settings and cairns are normally dated to the end of the Neolithic period or the Bronze Age. The burial custom is collective, there are often more than one person buried in the same cist. Most burials from the Neolithic period aren’t cremated while those from the Bronze Age often are, the dead has often been buried together with ceramics and artifacts of stone and/or bronze. In this area of Sweden these cists are fairly common. In the parish of Göteryd there are 87 known st Read more:report
Sm 16 a rune stone in Kronoberg County 2007-05-20 14:45:21 This lovely rune stone (Sm 16) is to be found in the parish of Östra Torsås in Kronoberg County
in Nöbbele and is dated to the Viking Age (ca 790-1050). Most rune stones in Sweden are not from the Viking age but from the middle ages.
The inscription on this one is interesting as it is written in the verse meter of fornyrdislag. This metre, along with málaháttr is the most common in ancient German, Anglo-Saxon and Norse-Icelandic poetry, though it is not common upon rune stones. The most common inscriptions are transcribed into a formula that goes something like this; X erected this stone over X beloved father/mother/son/daughter. God save his/her soul/spirit. This type of inscriptions are normally dated to the middle ages.
The rune stone bears inscriptions on two sides, the south and the east. This picture (2006) shows the east side. Photo: Magnus Reuterdahl.
Since my visit in 2006 the runes has been repainted. (I will post a few more pictures (as soon as I’m back in Växjö).
Some Archeo-pornography 2007-05-23 11:49:46 As I am a bit tired I will just show some great cairns I visited today.
The first one is Raa 9 in Moheda parish that is one of the largest in Kronoberg.
The second is a grave field with three cairns, and here I am just a jealous guy, I also want at least one ancient monument in my backyard, these guys live on a grave field, it’s just not fair.
Have a nice day!
Magnus Reuterdahl
Photos: Magnus Reuterdahl
Ebba During -2007 2007-05-22 03:48:53 On the 15th of may 2007 one of the great profiles of Swedish osteology past away after a long battle with illness; Ebba During professor emeritus in Osteoarchaeology at Stockholm University. I am glad to have had a chance to befriend her and to have had her as a teacher. As a person she was warm and welcoming and as a teacher and mentor she was not only very good on her subject but also an inspiration and a support.
One of her last projects was the exhibition “Ansikte mot ansikte” (Face to face“) at the Wasa museum in Stockholm, an exhibition with the aim to show to know who the deceased of Wasa was.
She is also known for her work with another shipwreck; Kronan, a Swedish ship that sank in 1676, and of course for her work with the pitted ware site of Alvastra.
It will take time to adapt mentally to the fact that she is no longer with us. I will remember her smile, her humour and her commitment to each student and to the Osteoarchaeological research laboratory. My
the weekend cometh 2007-05-26 03:42:31 At last it’s Saturday and I am in Stockholm for a little rest. Yesterday I went on a long travel to the northwest parts of Kronoberg where I visited, among other things, the fortification of Tofta. It was built in 1657 by count Per Brahe and then reinforced by 1658, after the wars it was left to its fate. It is a really cool monument and it differs a lot from the prehistoric ones that I usually get to see.
I also got to visit the island Bolmsö and a couple of grave fields on it, and I went to see yet another grave field with Iron Age dolmens.
A more detailed report with pictures will come Monday or so but now it is time to be lazy.
Remember that Testimony of the spade will host The Four Stone Hearth blog carnival on June 6th, this week its on Greg Ladens blog. If you want to submit you blog please do so by e-mail to submit@fourstonehearth.net. You can also alert me via a comment if there is a good archaeology/anthropology blog that you think I should check out.
Magnus Reuterda
Iron Age dolmens and damaged grave fields 2007-05-24 13:05:31
Today I’ve been traveling around the municipality of Ljungby in Kronobergs County. As you can se on the picture above there is still a lot of trees from Gudrun that are still stored. Among the sites that I visited today there were a few that I thought I would present. These have two things in common; they are grave fields and there are Iron Age dolmens on them.
Firstly the grave filed RAA 25 in the parish of Berga.
A small grave field with ca 40 erected stones (of which ca 10 still are erected) a small stone circle consisting of 13 “round” stones and one Iron Age dolmen (Järnåldersdös).
From left to right: An overview of the grave field Berga 25:1, the stone circle and the Iron Age dolmen.
The next grave field I visited with Iron Age dolmens is RAA 26 in the parish of Ljungby.
According to the older records there should be three Iron Age dolmens these have however in survey of 1999 been labeled as erect stones or stone cists, be that as it may after v Read more:damaged
A teaser about tomorrow 2007-05-30 09:51:01 Sorry to say but time is running out and I don’t really have time to post anything but this teaser: I visited the very beautiful grave field Kånna högar, the mounds at Kånna. And I have taken some photos of the graves. There is also an oddity present on this Iron Age grave field, a runic inscription from 19th century that I will present for you tomorrow
.Have a nice day
Magnus Reuterdahl
Disappointments and joys among ancient monuments and sites! 2007-05-28 05:00:43 As I wrote in my previous post I visited another grave field with Iron Age dolmen last Friday. I am sad to say that this grave field has been damaged in the process of reforesting. In Sweden it is not unusual to use a method with a forest harrow, this harrow goes down to depths over 10 cm and can create severe damage if made upon a grave field or other type of site. This is not allowed on ancient monuments or cultural sites. When I visited the grave field I could not see any traces of bones, coal or other types of artifacts in the soil, so we’ll have to hope the damages aren’t to great. This is a sad sight but all to usual, forestry takes it toll on our ancient monuments and cultural heritage. This an issue for the future as cultural heritage and forestry must live side by side and not on each others expense.
Here are some photos of the grave field (Angelstad 5:1). From right to left; An overview of the south part of the grave field, an overview of the north par
Viking Age rune carvers and literate settings in Scandinavia 2007-05-31 16:56:17 A dissertation I won’t miss is Magnus Källströms on June 1st. The subject is ancient Scandinavian languishes and the title is: Mästare och minnesmärken: Studier kring vikingatida runristare och skriftmiljöer i Norden (Masters and memorials: Studies on Viking-age rune-carvers and literate settings in Scandinavia ).
The thesis is written in Swedish with a summary in English, there is an abstract available in English.
The dissertation is at Stockholm University, lecture hall B4 at 10.00 am.
Sorry that this post is a bit late, I meant to have published this a few days ago. I will publish some comments regarding the thesis when I have had time to read it.
// Magnus Reuterdahl
Messages from the past 2007-05-31 03:26:16 As I promised in the teaser: rune stones from Ljungby municipality.Just south of Lagan in Berga parish is a rune stone (Sm 30) erected by the side of a road. The inscription on the stone translated into English is: … …-ulfr , his son, of men … (.. …ulf, son sinn, manna …)
On a grave field in Hamneda are two rune stones (Sm 32 and 33) erected in two mounds, earlier they had been placed in Hamneda medieval church. The church was demolished in the 1890’s the rune stones was moved here. The inscription on Sm 32 translated into English is:… these monuments in memory of Sveinn, his father. (.. [kum]l þessi eptir Svei[n], fôður sinn.)
And on the second one (Sm 33) the inscription translated into English is: … … these stones in memory of Þormarr, his brother. He … was of men … (.. … steina þessa eptir Þormar, bróður sinn. H[ann] … [va]r ma[nna] …).
On a small grave field (131:1) in Söd
Time to submit your post for the Four Stone Hearth blog carnival 2007-06-05 01:59:56 A reminder that it is high time to submit to the blog carnival, you do so by mailing a link to:
submit@fourstonehearth.net.
inventerare@hotmail.com
I need your links at the latest this afternoon.
Magnus Reuterdahl
Read more:Stone
Ancient monuments and sights in Hamneda 2007-06-04 04:49:53 Within and in the vicinity of Hamneda are many sites and monuments that are worth seeing. Most of these are grave fields but here are also rune stones, as I presented in an earlier post, the ruin of a medieval church and a royal farmstead (with the meaning that the farm belonged to the crown not that the King lived here).
Raa 41 in Hamneda parish. Photo Magnus Reuterdahl.
The grave fields Raa 41 and 43, also known as Elinge grave field, are separated by a road. On the north side on a small hill is Raa 41, it contains 27 graves; 24 mounds and three round stone settings. On the south side on yet a higher hill and down its hillside is Raa 43; it contains 62 mounds, whereof eight has a small groove around them, in Swedish fotränna, the size of the groove is consistent with a pair of feet, and five round stone settings. The grave field are dated to the Iron Age most probably the late Iron Age. On Raa 41 two rune stones (Sm 32 and 33) found in Hamneda medieval church are erected.
Raa 4 Read more:Ancient
Sunday morning! 2007-06-03 06:03:30 Soon time to go back to Växjö, a ca 4,5 hour drive, after a nice weekend in Stockholm. During this week I will visit the northern parts of Växjö, Lessebo and Uppvidinge municipalities.Last week I visited Hamneda parish and the area around the population centre of Hamneda. In this area there are a lot of beautiful monuments and sites, among them the ruins of Hamneda medieval church, two rune stones (Sm 32 and 33), three prehistoric grave field and lots more. Tomorrow I will publish some photos of these
Another beautiful spot I visited last week was Piksborg, the ruins of a medieval stronghold/castle, that I also will right a post about.
Unfortunately I also discovered a few sites that have been damaged by the storm Per and through forestry.
This is a photo from 2005 when I came upon a sad site, a cairn used as a dumpsite!//Magnus Reuterdahl
Read more:Sunday
I’m free… 2007-06-08 08:11:55 I’m going on vacation to Germany for about a week or so. Hopefully I will have access to computers so I can update this blog. During my stay I will live on a couple of vineyards in the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer and in the Nahe district. Expect for the Riesling experience I hope to see some archaeological sites, museums or otherwise interesting places.
Magnus Reuterdahl
Read more:hellip
Hemmesjö old church and some cremated bone. 2007-06-07 11:17:01 One of my interests is medieval churches (foremost I like to crawl through the addicts and look at the roof constructions). One of the most beautiful medieval churches in Småland is the old church at Hemmesjö, in Hemmesjö parish. The most beautiful thing about it is its location, and I really couldn’t get a good photo so if you want to see it you’ll have to visit it.
I took a couple of photos on some details however, the first photo is taken from northeast and shows the apse. The next two photos are of the two entrance doors, here both the northern and southern entrance are in place and both are decorated with medieval smithery. The north door is said to have been the entrance for women and the south for men.
To the left the south door and to the right the north.
The entrance to the roof was as you can see not accessible for me at this time.
At the time I visited this church it was open which was a bit lucky as this is not always the case now days as too many churc
Four Stone Hearth XVI on Testimony of the Spade 2007-06-06 02:19:26 Welcome to this the 16th edition of the Four Stone
Hearth. It’s a pleasure to be part of the carnival and it has given me an opportunity to browse blogs earlier unknown to me. Here at testimony of the spade most posts have come to concern Krononberg county in the province of Småland in the south of Sweden as that is were I currently work. As most archaeologists surely know archaeology gives you an opportunity to work all over, this something you can read about in one of my other blogs Yangshao projektet. Normally the posts on this blog is in Swedish but I made an exception for this occasion.
When I started to look for interesting blogs I started out with my predecessors and then I gotten a few tips from here and there, thanks!
Lets start this festival…
…with a picture of cairn (Söraby 57:1).
Martin Rundkvist on Aar has sent us this contribution with the title Your folks my folks in prehistory. The post starts with the question of: Who made the rock carvings (in Read more:Testimony
, Spade
From Germany with love 2007-06-13 02:12:39 At the moment I am in a small city just outside Trier called Leiwen. So far I have seen the amphie theatre, the dom and the basil of Konstantin in Trier. A few days ago we made a stop at the medieval city Ribe in Denmark where we visted The Vikinig museum and walked throw the city.
I have had a problem with the transfer of my pictures to this computor so I’ll update in few days.
Magnus Reuterdahl
Read more:Germany
Back in the blogging groove 2007-06-18 11:04:36 Now I am back in Sweden but the computer I currently operate hasn’t got a SD-card reader and therefore I can’t yet show any pictures from my trip to Germany. As I mentioned I my previous post I and my girlfriend visited a few interesting sites, among them an amphie theatre in Trier we also visited the dome and saw the basilica of Konstantin which was build ca 300 AD.
A pic of the basilica of Konstantin in Trier.
We also visited the ruins of a Kyrburg castle in Kirn and the castle in Dhaun that is partly restored and hosts a hotel/hostel, both beautiful sites (More photos are coming!).
We also visited Ribe in Denmark, where we had a quick look at the Viking museum and walked through the old town with its historic and middle age buildings. Ribe is a beautiful town that I wished that we had more time for; we’ll make time for the next time we are in the neighbourhood. As well as Danevirke, Haithabu and the other interesting sites that is nearby. I at least got to see t
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