Ny Björn Gustafsson

Visby’s annual Medieval Week is upon us yet again - but I stick to “Vikings”…

Once again I fail to recognise even the smallest spark of reciprocal stewardship in the attitude towards research among British heritage institutions - i.e. to increase knowledge and combat ignorance.

Do they seriously think that I earn money from doing small finds research in my spare time!?

Some nice summer reading for those who haven’t seen it

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

A good spot this time of year. Spent quite a few summers working out there in the 00’s.

I finally received my copy of the book. LOADS OF READING! 🥳

Vi pratade om just det, dottern och jag, bara häromdagen - att det var länge sedan vi hörde något av Konstapeln (apropå myror, som Konstapeln givetvis absolut inte är rädd för…).

Call for Papers from @em-ehx.bsky.social and I for IMC Leeds 2026: 'New Perspectives on the Viking Diaspora'. Send us a title and abstract by 18 August! @imc-leeds.bsky.social #IMC2026 #Medievalists #Medievalsky #EarlyMedieval #VikingStudies

A letter from 1951 by Ella Kivikoski, answering a question by Nils Åberg (including a photo). The letter has survived for almost 70 years in Åberg's personal copy of Kivikoski's book on the Finnish Iron Age (first edition), currently cared for by the library of Campus Gotland, Uppsala University.

An interesting side effect of the great tradition to donate books to research libraries:
In a book, by Finnish archaeologist Ella Kivikoski, which once belonged to the Swedish archaeologist Nils Åberg I found a personal letter from her to him concerning an artefact.
Åberg died in 1957.

Fragment of a side - "corner post" - fitting from a Viking-period box brooch, found 2024 in a settlement deposit at Kärrmans in Kräklingbo parish.

An (almost) complete box brooch from Nygårds in Västerhejde parish, Gotland. Lower corner post fittings are marked to show where the find from Kärrmans once sat on a complete brooch. Photo: Ola Myrin (CC BY 4.0)

Late box brooches are among the most exquisite examples of jewellery craftsmanship in the Gotlandic Viking Period. Bronze, silver, gold and niello in shapes that occur to have been heavily standardized.

Last year a fragmentary side fitting was found at Kärrmans on eastern Gotland.

#FindsFriday

Yes please. Even if it is not surprising that they occur in Finland (it is one of the standard types, found from England to Bulgaria), it is always good to keep track of new find sites!

As a Swede I can easily handle Norwegian and Danish. Icelandic is harder but often ok - but when it comes to Finnish I'm totally lost.

Hence it took until today for me to learn that there IS a Viking-period sword chape of the "Valleberga type" from Finland, found in 2014!

finna.fi/Record/museo...

Herslev metal goad with a figure of a horse attached, an x-ray showing the goad’s construction, and a reconstruction of the zoomorphic spur it was once part of . Photos by Museum Vestsjælland. Figure by Leszek Gardeła

The ‘visual grammar’ of the Western Slavic animal style in Poland, with horses, cattle and snake figures on jewelry and horse equipment. Image design Leszek Gardeła.

#OpenAccess
Gardeła, L., & Borake, T. L. (2025). "The Spur Goad from Herslev: tracing the Legacy of a Western Slavic Rider in Viking Age Denmark."
urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=...
On #VikingAge zoomorphic spurs and #Slavic iconography from Poland.
#IronAge #Medieval #Archaeology

Good thread Trix!

A new (or at least unregistered) Gotlandic hillfort for #HillfortsWednesday. 🥳

A natural ridge has been utilized in the S and in the N is a steep 4 m slope. In between these are two sets of parallel ramparts and in NW, by the slope, is a flat burial cairn.
Quite hard to spot in the wild...

#LiDAR

Preserving the Past in the Plough Zone Together: Hobby metal detecting in Innlandet County as a case of good practice within the Norwegian legal framework This article presents and discusses the practice of Norwegian metal detecting from the perspective of Innlandet County. The authors perceive hobby metal detecting in Norway as an essentially good thin...

intarch.ac.uk/journal/issu...

New book on southernmost Gotland.

Yes, I always laugh so hard I’m at risk inflicting myself a full flip-top when I hear of Largs and Viking battles - in the flamin’ 13th century!

Medieval French monks used seal-skins to bind their books; revealing unexpected Viking trade

Whoever threw ”Viking” into the description of a (really fab!) study explicitly said to include samples dated from 1135 to 1250 CE? 💩

Norse ≠ Viking; especially not the Norse who lived several decades into the 12th century and onwards…

www.arch.cam.ac.uk/news/medieva...

Indeed! Won’t be particularly surprised if they go full Byzantine on each other, i.e. blinding, castration & Co…

Trump administration imposes sanctions on four ICC judges in unprecedented move President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on four judges at the International Criminal Court, an unprecedented retaliation over the war tribunal's investigation into alleged war crimes by U.S. troops in Afghanistan and over the court's issuance of an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The U.S. follows Russia's example by targeting ICC judges. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

Martin Gelin: Despoter och diktatorer har förstått att kultur är säkerhetspolitik I tider av militär upprustning drar man ofta ner på kultur. Men historien visar att det är just då som mjuk makt är som viktigast, skriver Martin Gelin.

Det går inte att tala om beredskap och resiliens och samtidigt skära ner i den viktigaste demokratiska infrastrukturen: public service, stöd till medier, kultur, museer, universitet och forskning, bistånd, diplomati och demokratifrämjande projekt.

Skriver lång essä i DN om mjuk makt i en hård tid:

two penguins are standing next to each other with their arms up in the air ALT: two penguins are standing next to each other with their arms up in the air

Kabooom!

“Fragment av föremål, platser, kroppar och ord - en vänbok tillägnad Torun Zachrisson”. Occasional papers in archaeology 89, 2025. Edited by Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, Anna Kjellström, Cecilia Ljung & Linda Qviström. Photo: Linda Wåhlander

Last week the long in the making Festschrift for Dr Torun Zachrisson was finally presented to her. 84 short but sharp papers in her extremely wide sphere of interest.

My contribution cover stylistic influences in jewellery between Anglo-Saxon England and Gotland in the Viking Period.

'Truth and integrity were the foundation of her research, in a field fraught with sensationalism and speculation.'

Dr Majvor Östergren has now received the Order of the Polar Star (Knight 1st Class) from the King Carl XVI Gustaf for "For significant efforts to protect Gotland's cultural heritage".

Gissa poeten utan att gåggla (ledtråd: utkom 1946…)

New Special Volume of the journal Viking available open access - Telling Different Stories. Combining perspectives on the Viking Age: journals.uio.no/vikingspecia...

A medieval building on northern Gotland, before an after “conservation”, i.e. fitting it with a completely new outer facade.
Original integrity of monuments wasn’t a big issue in the 1920’s…

Sara upptäckte gravplundringen: ”Får inte gå ostraffat” - P4 Västmanland 50 plundringshål har hittats på Anundshög utanför Västerås. Den som upptäckte det första hålet var arkeologen Sara Wisén Saveca.Det när hon visade runt ...

Brainless looters have systematically metal-detected one of the more important monument sites in mid Sweden - Anundshög.

Terrible, on several levels - for heritage protection, but also a slap in the face for the law-abiding Swedish detectorist movement.

www.sverigesradio.se/artikel/sara...

Nytt nummer av Karlsöbladet ute nu; husorgan för alla karlsövänner!

Jag bidrar med en artikel om Västergarns Utholme, Karlsöarnas nordliga lillasyster.

storakarlso.se/wp-content/u...