Cecilia Ljung

Nyckelord

• viking age
• burial archaeology
• urban archaeology
• christianisation
• picture stones
• early christian grave monuments
• rune stones
• middle ages

Biografi

Cecilia Ljung has been affiliated with the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History since 2024. Between 2016 and 2024 she was employed first as a postdoctoral researcher and then as a researcher at the Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies at Stockholm University, where she also defended her award-winning thesis Under runristad häll. Tidigkristna gravmonument i 1000-talets Sverige (Resting under rune-inscribed stones. Early Christian grave monuments in eleventh century Sweden) in 2016. Ljung was a visiting scholar at the Department of Archaeology, University of Reading in 2009 and has a master’s degree in Archaeology as well as one in Viking and Early Medieval Studies from Uppsala University. She has a background within development archaeology and has worked at Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis (SAU), the National Heritage Board and Sigtuna Museum.

Ljung is currently editing a Routledge Handbook of Death and Burial in the Viking Age together with Alison Klevnäs. She is also a co-editor of the journal Situne Dei: https://arkiv.sigtunamuseum.se/publikationer/situne-dei/

Forskning

Current research projects:

2025-2028: "Transforming heaven and earth: local communities and the end of life in the conversion to Christianity in east-central Sweden (950-1250 CE)", funded by the Swedish Research Council. PI, in collaboration with Alison Klevnäs and Astrid A. Noterman. This project aims to understand how local communities at the end of the Viking Age responded and contributed to the radical socio-religious transformations brought about by the conversion to Christianity. It will study the diverse ways families and communities took care of their dead through funerary rituals and monuments and how changes in their practices enabled the reconceptualization of life and death. Transformation will be traced from the microbiology of buried individuals to collective action that shaped the spiritual and commemorative landscape. The project shifts focus from simple causal models, where Christianisation has primarily been seen as an elite-controlled process, to the perspective of local communities as they adopted - or resisted - new ways and values.

2025-2028. "The Linguistic Landscape of Runestones", funded by the Swedish Research Council, with Per Holmberg, Gothenburg University as PI. Interdiciplinary research collaboration that investigates the practice of carving and erecting rune stones in the Viking Age from a spatial perspective, as a way of creating linguistic landscapes. For more information see: https://www.gu.se/forskning/runstenarnas-sprakliga-landskap

2024-2026: "Early Adopters: the search for Gotland’s first churchyard burials", funded by Berit Wallenbergs Stiftelse. PI, in collaboration with Alison Klevnäs. This project analyses the diversity of the late Viking Age mortuary landscape on Gotland, with focus on the early adopters of churchyard burials, exploring the encounter with Christianity from the perspective of local society.

2024-2026: "Östra Aros – I skuggan av Gamla Uppsala" (Östra Aros – in the shadow of Old Uppsala). Research collaboration funded by the Swedish Research Council based at Upplandsmuseet with Torun Zachrisson as PI. The aim of the project is to an activate and revitalize research on the early history of Östra Aros (today’s Uppsala) based on a source pluralistic perceptive.

2022-2024: "Perceptions of a Pagan Past. Prehistoric spolia in medieval Scandinavian churches, with an emphasis on Gotland". Funded by the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation. The project analyses the reuse of picture stones in Gotlandic churches and the medieval islanders’ perceptions of the past. See: https://www.su.se/english/research/research-projects/perceptions-of-a-pagan-past?open-collapse-boxes=research-project-description,research-project-members

Previous research projects:

2017-2020: "Skärningspunkt Sigtuna – de första människorna i Sveriges äldsta stad" (Intersection Sigtuna - the first people in Sweden's oldest town) funded by the Swedish Research Council. Research collaboration with Torun Zachrisson (PI) and Anna Kjellström. The project investigated the impact of social and religious communities, as well as long-distance relations, on early urban life in Sigtuna based on the burial record.