An Interview with Professor E.K. Emilsson (original) (raw)

A Personal View on the "Samenes historie fram til 1750" by Lars Ivar Hansen and Bjørnar Olsen

Scandinavian Journal of History, 2005

This long-awaited book surely deserves a serious professional review by a specialist in the past of the non-Germanic inhabitants of the Nordic part of Europe. Therefore, I hesitated when I had been approached by one of the editors of the "Scandinavian Journal of History" asking me to write a paper about this first of the planned two-volume edition.

The skeid and other assemblies in the Norwegian 'Mountain Land'

In Glørstad, Z. T. and Loftsgarden, K. (ed.) Viking-Age Transformations: Trade, Craft and Resources in western Scandinavia, 2017

The mountainous regions and valleys of southern Norway are sparsely populated, with relatively few villages or urban centres. This must have been even more so in the Viking Age and Middle Ages. In this article we argue that seasonal meeting places were therefore of great importance. From historical times a number of such places are known. Place names, written sources and oral tradition indicate the prevalence of assembly sites during a time span stretching from the late Iron Age up to the nineteenth century. They go by different names, such as skeid, stevne, ting or marked, which evidently pertain to a fairly broad spectrum of seasonal meetings with somewhat different focuses. However, they share a number of common features, serving as an arena for social interaction, competitive games (leik) and feasting as well as exchange of commodities.

From the Farm of Oslo to the Townyard of Miklagard

Archaeological research on the medieval town of Oslo from 1970 and onwards has resulted in profound changes in the understanding of the origin and earliest development of the town. The description by Snorri Sturlasson in Heimskringla of the foundation of Oslo by King Harald Hardrada around 1050 was for a long time the main source providing a chronological basis for the origin of the town (Hkr. vol. 3, 153; Fischer 1950, 3-4). Archaeological excavations of areas with ordinary urban habitation and the discovery of graves dated to around AD 1000 have given evidence of earlier occupation (Eide 1974; Schia 1987a; Molaug 2007; Nordeide & Gulliksen 2007). The identification of the king’s palace and the king’s church, St Mary’s, in the south of the town has given a topographical basis for the idea that the town developed towards the north from a primary centre in the south (Christie 1966). The excavations in 1987-1989 on the site Oslo gate 6 in the north of the town, however, shows that the earliest development of the town was much more complicated (Schia 1991a; Molaug et al. 2000; Molaug 2008) (Fig. 1). This article presents some of the evidence from these excavations, along with evidence from other excavations in the northern part of medieval Oslo, primarily the ones in the modern street of Oslo gate just west of Oslo gate 6 in 1987-1988 (Smedstad 1991) and in Arups gate 30 m north of Oslo gate 6 in 2007 (Martens 2010). Based on this presentation, some theories on the role of this area in the late Viking Age and early medieval period are discussed, as well as the background of the nature of habitation from this period.