Last weekend, we made a quick trip to Stockholm, to celebrate the brother-in-law´s 70th birthday.
We also had some time to walk in quaint Sigtuna, one of the oldest towns in Sweden. We had fika at legendary café Tant Brun (= Aunt Brown), named after a literary figure in a Swedish children´s book.
Lovely day!
i like that copper pot.
ReplyDeleteis that a historical marker on the right in the 2nd picture? pretty scene.
Yes. The place is littered with them. This is really ur-Swedish ground, an outdoor museum, more or less. Lots of drawings of how it would have looked when ships came in from Hedeby, Scarthaborg, or someplace like that. It became a major marketplace when the sailing route to Birka disappeared, due to land rise in the 900´s.
DeleteUnfortunately we didn´t have time for more than a fairly quick walkthrough this time, or I would have had more interesting pictures and facts to share.
we have a native american historic site here in town, but we tend to think of the spanish sites in florida from the 1500s and the revolutionary war sites from the 1700s as early lol.
DeleteWell, I don´t know what your personal heritage is, but chances are, my history is your history. On Swedish iron age sites there has been finds from as far away as India, and plenty from old Rome. People got around then, too. I´m reading a book on the subject at this very moment.
Deleteso true, but over here the non-native historic sites won't generally go back further than the 1800's. it's funny to think when people are talking about historic sites in memphis, generally (except for chucalissa, where there are mounds from about 1500), the earliest is de soto's sighting of the mississippi river in the 1500s, and that's so general with no specific place for it known. specific sites are 1800s+.
Deletei've always found it fascinating that some people can easily go see sites in their countries dating so much earlier than we see around here. the wikipedia article you linked to dates the founding of sigtuna to 980! wow!
Yes, it is mindblowing. I grew up in these parts, used to play around an old neighbouring "viking" grave field with a flat rock with a runic inscription on it. Oh, here it is:
Deletehttp://www.svenskarunstenar.net/sormland/so188akerby.html
Much modern buildings don´t last so well in the ground, either. Watching Time Team (quiet sob) I have learned that it can be quite hard to find traces of old barack towns from the Great War, mining sites, and such. Much easier to dig a Roman villa or a Saxon roundhouse. Perhaps it´s our modern idea of progress: we expect something better to come along and replace anything we do.