A newer method of measurement has helped scientists date some stave churches more accurately than in the past. The method shows that several stave churches are older than the dates previously attributed to them.
“A very rare and exciting find,” says NTNU University Museum archaeologist Raymond Sauvage.
“Vessels like these were imported from the Roman Empire and confirm that this was an area of status and wealth during Roman times,” says archaeologist Merete Moe Henriksen.
Regular protective treatment of rock carvings and paintings has done a good job protecting this important part of Norway’s cultural heritage. But according to the current schedule, the unique programme will end next year.
The richly decorated portal at Urnes stave church has often been interpreted in light of paganism. That’s wrong, according to a new stave church study.
Norway conserves archaeological finds from 1537, but not when they’re from 1538 or later. That means we know less about people’s everyday lives during the last 481 years.
Finn-Kirsten Iversdatter was the last person to be executed for witchcraft in Central Norway, but her story was mostly forgotten. Until now.
Which method works best for archaeologists when surveying an area? In the case of a recent archaeological survey in Halden municipality, georadar turned out to be good enough to discover a Viking ship.
Archaeologists at NTNU have discovered the remains of a Viking house from the early Middle Ages. It is a “very rare find,” says project manager Merete Moe Henriksen.
Church art from the Middle Ages reflects the dramatic societal changes that were underway during this period. Artists changed the way they depicted Christ from a regal figure with a crown of gold to a suffering Christ with a crown of thorns.
An estimated three million shipwrecks lie in seabed graveyards around the world – with as many as 1000 of them around Svalbard. Each of them has their own unique story — one that’s made much more accessible with new technology.
Norwegian churches in the Middle Ages were decorated with embroidered tapestries that told Bible stories almost like a comic series. The Høylandet tapestry is the only one of its kind that has survived the march of time.
A Madonna figure from Grong municipality is one of the best preserved and special church sculptures in Norway from the Middle Ages. She looks like a sweet, friendly girl who’s been asked to model for the sculpture.
One of Scandinavia’s finest collections of church art from the Middle Ages lay hidden and forgotten in Norwegian churches for centuries. Indeed, this long forgetting is precisely what preserved the unique church art.
Some people may have heard about the magical phenomenon of gand. When life seems to be against you or you’re plagued by one misfortune after another, you might jokingly say that you’ve been ‘ganda’ if you’re Norwegian. But what did gand really look like and why do we associate it with the Sami people?
For centuries, perhaps millennia, people and birds have interacted with each other. The tradition of eiderdown harvesting from this northern duck is still practised.
Not too many people are able to identify birds by examining a single feather. But a number of folks need to know that sort of thing, and it can actually save lives.
So you think people in present-day Sweden and Norway are different from each other? It turns out that would have been closer to the truth some 9500 years ago.
We’ve always heard that Stone Age people lived in caves. It turns out that’s not the case. They often lived in earthen huts, which they reused and kept up rather than building new ones.
The oldest known bear bones from northern Scandinavia have been discovered in a limestone cave. But the cave also contained a mystery.
Norway minted its own coins during much of the Middle Ages. But the coins didn’t always impress outsiders or even the Norwegians themselves.
The secrets of St Olav’s shrine and Nidaros Cathedral have drawn pilgrims for nearly a thousand years. Curious researchers have also made the journey, eager to solve the mysteries locked up in the cathedral’s stones.
What was supposed to be a simple excavation to allow for the expansion of a church cemetery turned into a treasure trove of historic artefacts, including a decorative fitting from a book “imported” by Vikings from Ireland.
Archaeologists from NTNU have unearthed Bronze Age graves ahead of planned road construction in Melhus municipality.