Possible 1,400-Year-Old Temple Excavated in Eastern England

RENDLESHAM, ENGLAND—In the eighth century, an English monk and historian known as The Venerable Bede wrote of a king’s village at “Rendlaesham,” and of a temple equipped with both Christian and pre-Christian altars. BBC News reports that the site of a possible 1,400-year-old temple has been uncovered at Rendlesham in eastern England, which is located near Sutton Hoo, the archaeological site where East Anglian king Raedwald is thought to have been buried in A.D. 625. The possible temple structure measured more than 30 feet long and 16 feet wide, and had been built with substantial foundations. The excavation also uncovered evidence of a ditch that may have surrounded the royal village, traces of two other timber buildings, and a mold used for casting fine pieces of decorative horse harnesses similar to those unearthed at Sutton Hoo.

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Video Shows Fragments Falling from the Dome of Hagia Sophia

A still from a recently released video shows visitors rushing to take cover as fragments fall from the dome of Hagia Sophia. Credit: Daily Motion/BirGün

A video from 2022 that came to light recently shows fragments falling on visitors from the dome of Hagia Sophia, the former epicenter of Christian worship at Constantinople, today’s Istanbul.

The footage released by the Turkish newspaper, BirGün, raises serious questions over the safety of the former Orthodox Christian cathedral, now a mosque.

BirGün notably quoted officials as saying that “pieces are falling from the roof, due to the humidity created by the crowd, but no precautions are being taken”.

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More Than 100 Cultural Landmarks Have Been Destroyed During Gaza Airstrikes, Report Says

Israel’s repeated airstrikes on Gaza have destroyed more than 100 cultural landmarks and historic sites according to a preliminary report by the Catalonian NGO Heritage for Peace that was released earlier this month.

The airstrikes, which took place after the October 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,400 Israelis and involved the taking of 240 hostages, have “destroyed or damaged” roughly 45 percent of housing in Gaza, leading to what the United Nations has called a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

Historic religious sites, museums, and archaeological sites have been destroyed, the report says, noting that Gaza has been a cultural hub for every civilization that has conquered the region, from Egypt in the early 15th century BCE, to the Greeks under Alexander the Great, to the Roman and Byzantine Empires.

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Viking-era graves found in the heart of Gothenburg, Sweden

A report just published by the Gothenburg City Museum confirms that the graves found in Burgårdsparken this summer date to the Viking era.

Two graves discovered this summer in the center of Gothenburg by archaeologists from the City Museum date back to the Viking era, according to a Swedish-language report the museum has just published.

A first for Gothenburg 

These are the first such finds in central Gothenburg, Sweden's second-largest city. The location, the pretty gardens of Burgårdsparken, is close to Gothenburg's main football stadium, the Ullevi, where the 1958 World Cup Final was played. 

The chief archaeologist on the dig, Ulf Ragnesten, suggests that further investigations are required. The remains are protected by Sweden's Cultural Environment Act. 

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Medieval building discovered by archaeologists in Germany

Archaeologists working at Magdeburg’s Cathedral Square in eastern Germany have uncovered the remains of a large medieval building thought to be over a thousand years old. 

The archaeological dig, which is being carried out by the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt and the University of Heidelberg, only began last month but has already produced outstanding results.

For the first time, actual architectural remains were found in the form of two walls – the outer wall of a semicircular room (apse) and a wall base at its north end that runs west – which can be assigned to a building from the Ottonian period (919–1024). On the former outside of the building, both walls to the west have a sloping base made of plaster mortar, which was primarily used to protect against moisture. The outer wall of the apse appears to have been structured by half-columns or pilasters. It was part of the western end of the building, which extended to the east parallel to a cathedral that was built around the same time.

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1,400-year-old temple discovered in England

Sutton Hoo has been home to some of the most amazing discoveries from Early Medieval England. Now, archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a 1400-year-old, possible pre-Christian temple in the same area.

The discovery was made this summer near the village of Rendlesham in southeastern England, as part of digs conducted by Suffolk County Council’s Rendlesham Revealed community archaeology project. This comes from the same project that last year uncovered the remains of a large timber Royal Hall, confirming the location as a royal settlement of the East Anglian Kings.

This year’s excavations also uncovered evidence of fine metalworking associated with royal occupation, including a mould used for casting decorative horse harnesses similar to that known from the nearby princely burial ground at Sutton Hoo. The royal compound was found to have been more than twice the size that was previously thought, bounded by a 1.5 kilometre-long perimeter ditch that enclosed an area of 15 hectares (the equivalent to about 20 football pitches).

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Scandinavia’s Oldest Identified Ship Burial in Trøndelag “Rewrites History”

In Leka, a municipality in Norway’s Trøndelag county, archaeologists have uncovered Scandinavia’s oldest identified ship burial, dating back to around 700 AD.

This summer, archaeologists carried out a small survey of the 60-meter mound Herlaugshaugen, a site mentioned in Snorre’s royal sagas as the final resting place of King Herlaug.

Herlaugshaugen is one of the country’s largest burial mounds. In the late 1700s, it was excavated three times. According to reports, findings included a type of wall, iron nails, a bronze kettle, animal bones, and a seated skeleton with a sword.

“Unfortunately, these findings disappeared already in the early 1920s. The skeleton was once displayed at Trondheim Cathedral School as King Herlaug, but no one knows where it ended up,” explained Geir Grønnesby, project leader from NTNU Science Museum.

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Oldest Scandinavian Ship-Burial Identified Re-Writes History – Amazing Find That Predates The Viking Age

 

Under this mound at Leka in Trøndelag, archaeologists have found a ship grave from before the Viking Age. Credit: Robert Fry /NTNU Science Museum

Scientists took samples of the wood around the nails on the boat to date the shipwreck. Rogaland has some ship graves from the late 7th century, but this one is even older.

The ship is from the Merovingian period (550-800 C.E).

Geir Grønnesby, project leader from NTNU Science Museum, told NRK that the vessel predates the Viking Age, and challenges existing beliefs about the region's maritime and trading history.

Not only does the amazing discovery push the ship burial tradition quite far back in time, but it also offers evidence that the region was familiar with advanced maritime capabilities much earlier than previously thought. Obviously, people were in contact with foreign part of the world much earlier than one expected. "Because when one builds somewhat large ships, it is usually because one is going to travel a distance with them,” Grønnesby said.

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American Vikings?

For a thousand years, legends claimed that Vikings settled in North America. In my book American Vikings: How the Norse Sailed into the Lands and Imaginations of America, I explore the evidence for this in the literary sources and archaeology; and, also, in the way this idea has fed into the cultural DNA of North America and especially the USA.

What’s in a word?

First, a matter of terminology. “Viking” is something you did rather than what you were. In Old Norse, going “viking” involved taking part in muscular free enterprise. However today, in popular usage, “Viking” has come to describe both those involved in raiding expeditions, as Scandinavians originally used the term, and Scandinavians generally during the “Viking Age” (as it was never used in the past). Nevertheless, it is now the label-of-choice for most people. However, we need to remember that Scandinavian merchants and settlers would not have thought that it applied to them, since it was not what they did. Many modern experts prefer the term “Norse” to that of “Vikings” as a group term, but I have used “Norse” when describing the language or culture (as in “Norse mythology”), but “Viking” for the people and the period (as in the “Viking Age”) in reflection of popular usage.

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Viking Bracelet Made 1,000 Years Ago Found in Farmer's Field—'Real Shock'

The piece of a Viking Age silver bracelet was found in a farmer's field in Innlandet County, Norway, on October 28.
It is thought that the object may have been used as currency at the time.

The day before finding the silver bracelet, Strande uncovered the coin in the same field. The artifact was likely in circulation between the 10th and 11th centuries.

"I've found objects from the Viking Age before but nothing like these," he said.

After finding the artifacts, Strande took exact GPS coordinates and pictures, as well as notifying a local archaeologist. In Norway, the law requires people to hand over any objects older than the year 1537 to the government in exchange for a finder's fee.

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A Finnish Man Inspecting a Pipe Trench Discovered a Christian Burial Site Dating Back to the Swedish Crusades

Crusade-era mortuary is located in the yard of the house on the left.
Photo: Juha Ruohonen / University of Turku, archaeology.

A man who was inspecting geothermal pipes in Salo, Finland, unwittingly uncovered a Christian cemetery dating back a thousand years to the time of the Swedish Crusades.

The first discovery came in August, after days of heavy rain, when the local landowner spotted a shaft of iron sticking out of the ground. It turned out to be a 12th-century sword with a cross-guard and a three-sided knob, known as a pommel.

The landowner contacted an archeologist at the University of Turku who investigated the site alongside another archaeologist from the Turku Museum Center, responsible for assembling and conserving the region’s cultural heritage. Believing the sword was not an isolated object, the researchers began excavating the site in September with a team of archaeology students.

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Exploring the Mästermyr chest discovery and its Viking-era tools

Unearthed in a onetime peat bog near Gotland, Sweden, the Mastermyr chest is a cache of Viking artifacts showcasing advanced early medieval craftsmanship and technology. Source: The Swedish History Museum, Stockholm (CC BY-SA 2.0)

You know the scene. A horde of ravenous Vikings are rushing off their longship and about to destroy, burn, plunder, and pillage an unsuspecting medieval village. 

Whilst this scene has occurred multiple times throughout the world, from the Iberian Peninsula to the eastern shores of the Black Sea and everywhere in between, this is only part of the story of the Viking Age. 

The societies that produced Viking warriors also excelled in creating great works of art and advanced naval technology, bequeathing to us priceless cultural artifacts from runestones to the Norse sagas. 

Thanks to recent generations of historians, we are beginning to look afresh at people from Viking societies. 

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