Outreach

A major objective of the project is to share our research and results with both the wider academic community and the public. An academic seminar series is already running at Uppsala, and over the coming years we will be organising workshops, conferences and public lectures. Numerous publications are planned, including the cemetery reports from Valsgärde and Salme, and peer-review journal papers that will be available on Open Access. The first of these have already appeared and will be followed by many more.

Our public outreach also includes interactive events organised at sites such as Gamla Uppsala, with re-enactors and craftsworkers, and we hope to make reconstructions of some of the burial finds from the boat graves. The Uppsala University spin-off company Disir Productions is creating geolocated apps for tablets and mobiles, enabling visitors to sites such as Gamla Uppsala to literally walk through computer generated reconstructions of the Iron Age past. The technique is known as 'augmented history', and similar apps are being developed for Valsgärde and related monuments.

Lastly, all the core members of the project team are involved in television consultancy on Viking documentaries for several international broadcasters, reaching very large audiences indeed. In particular we have filmed Real Vikings for History Channel in Canada and the US, which links directly to their Vikings drama series. Through the medium of one of the most popular current gateways to Viking culture, we work with cast members at actual archaeological sites and in museums, discussing the reality behind the fiction.

 
 
Ulla Moilanen, Post doc. University of Helsinki and Museum Centre Vapriikki, Tampere
Date: 25th of May 2023
Time: 10.15 – 12.00
Place: Uppsala Eng/2-0024 – Campus Gotland Gotl/A30

The Sountaka burial:

In October 1968, a bronze-hilted sword was found in Hattula Suontaka, Finland. The sword led to the discovery of a Crusade-period grave, which has since become famous for its unusual combination of artefacts. The jewellery in the grave suggests that the deceased was wearing a typical female costume of the period. Still, the deceased was laid in the ground with a sword or two. Over the past decades, various interpretations have been proposed for the burial. The grave has been suggested to be a double burial of a man and a woman, or a female sword grave and, therefore, evidence of powerful female leaders or female warriors in Late Iron Age Finland. However, new research challenges earlier interpretations. This presentation will discuss the new findings and the worldwide media attention they provoked.
 
 
Welcome!
Neil, John & Charlotte

Poster