Literatura científica selecionada sobre o tema "Moesgård"

Daggers from the Middle AgesOn entering the front door to Moesgård’s 226 year old main building, some of the first objects to meet one’s eyes are two magnificent white mineral cabinets in Louis XVI style. These beautiful cabinets are among the oldest pieces of furniture at Moesgård. They originate from Christian Frederik Güldencrone’s time (1741-88) and contain now – as then – a mineralogical collection (fig. 1). In a lower drawer of one of the cabinets there are, however, two daggers that have nothing to do with this collection and which must have been added on a later occasion.The types of dagger which will be dealt with here are the kidney dagger and the so-called lansquenet dagger mentioned below. They have their origins in the ­Middle Ages and they are, due to their form, closely linked with the military equipment, especially the plate armour, increasingly in vogue during the 14th century. When the dagger became part of the knight’s armament it was in order for it to be used in hand-to-hand fighting. With its strong and rigid blade, the dagger could be pushed between the plates of a fallen knight’s armour, enabling the final and decisive coup de grâce to be given (fig. 2). The military zenith of the dagger was in the 14th-15th centuries.Daggers are often difficult to date. Many have been recovered from bogs and lakes and a great number do not have any associated information about their origin. As a consequence, the typological chrono­logies that have been produced are rather coarse-grained and are mainly based on pictorial sources and collections of historical weapons (fig. 3).One of the daggers is a double-edged kidney dagger, listed as No. 6 in the catalogue (fig. 4). The length of the dagger is 30 cm, of which 10.5 cm comprises the grip and 19.5 cm the blade. The grip is made of root wood, while the blade is of iron. The blade is rather slender, no more than 1.4 cm at its widest. No smith’s stamp or mark is ­visible. Below each kidney, ­traces of a now missing quillon-plate can be seen; this was often curved or wing-shaped. The guard had been attached to the kidneys by way of two sprigs. At the end of the hilt, a knob or boss has been carved out of the root wood and between the boss and hilt runs a bead which is now somewhat effaced. X-­radiography reveals that the dagger has no real tang.The kidney dagger was quite often depicted in medieval times. An illustration in the so-called “Kristina Psalter”, thought to have been produced in Paris about AD 1230, is usually recognised as the oldest image of a kidney dagger. The dagger referred to is, however, very difficult to recognise as a kidney dagger; it is more probably of the high medieval dagger type – the cultellus. More certainty surrounds another rendition of a kidney dagger – that seen on Duke Christopher’s sepulchral monument from the AD 1360s in Roskilde Cathedral. This is usually regarded as Denmark’s oldest, securely dated kidney dagger (fig. 5). Another example to which attention is always drawn is the dagger shown at Valdemar Atterdag’s side on a fresco from about AD 1375 in St Peder’s Church in Næstved (fig. 6). The Moesgård dagger is dated to the period from the last quarter of the 14th century to the end of the 15th century.The kidney dagger has an interesting cultural history, not exclusively involving the art of war. Daggers become part of the rather dandified men’s fashion of the 15th century where the dagger was worn at front, hung on a belt. As can be imagined, it is no longer the kidneys one thinks about when seeing the dagger! This was also clear at the time; in England the dagger was referred to as the ballock dagger and in France dague á couilettes (fig. 7).The other dagger from the Moesgård cabinet is a so-called lansquenet dagger, listed as No. 17 in the catalogue. Like the kidney dagger this is a double-edged weapon (fig. 8). It is reminiscent of a small sword with short, straight or slightly bent quillons. The length of the dagger is 36.5 cm, of which the grip comprises 11 cm and the blade 25.5 cm. At the end of the tang a cone-shaped pommel with spiral grooves can be seen; this feature is repeated in the quillon terminals. Between quillon and tang, and between pommel and tang, narrow bronze casings can be seen – the last remnants of the lost grip. The double-edged blade, which has a maximum width of 2.1 cm, has a very strongly accentuated back; the cross-section between back and blade is almost concave.During the 15th century the composition and structure of armies gradually changed so that, with time, the heavily armoured cavalry were replaced by lighter infantry, armed with spears, swords and halberds. The infantry became more professional and in Germany, in the 15th century, were referred to as mercenaries; it is probably here that this type of dagger originated. There are several types of the so-called lansquenet dagger; variation is seen primarily in the shape and construction of the guard, but also the shape of the grip. Information from better preserved examples of the type, to which the Moesgård dagger belongs, suggests that the missing grip was probably of wood and was baluster-shaped. The sheath for a this type of dagger was often rather special, being made of wood and having a circular or oval cross-section and often several rows of horizontal beading. Some examples are iron-plated and heavy, and could be used as clubs in self-defence. The Moesgård dagger is dated to the 16th century, probably towards the end of the century.One further dagger, or rather the grip from a dagger, will also be dealt with here. This artefact was not, however, found in Dahl’s mineral cabinets but during an excavation alongside Århus Å in 2002. The degraded grip is made from a bovine metatarsal, carved to resemble twisted rope. It is listed in the catalogue as No. 7 (fig. 9). The grip is 10.3 cm long. The bone has been split lengthways and only the hint of one kidney is preserved. The artefact is dated to the latter half of the 15th century. The actual prototype for this piece is to be found among the magnificent daggers with grips fashioned from twisted bars of precious metal. In the earlier literature this type is dated to the 14th century but the ­evidence now indicates that it belongs to the latter half of the 15th century.Is a catalogue of the kidney and so-called lansquenet daggers from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, which are either kept at museums in the Århus area or were found within Moesgård Museum’s area of archaeological responsibility. The main part of the collection is kept at Den Gamle By in Aarhus, and some of these daggers were previously published by A. Bruhn in 1950. Eighteen kidney and mercenary daggers are catalogued; further to these are six daggers, which cannot be assigned more precisely to type. Seven daggers are of unknown origin. It should be noted that 10 out of the remaining 17 daggers were found either in a lake, watercourse or bog. This significantly high proportion is probably not just due chance but no real investigation has ever been carried out into this phenomenon. Only two of the daggers were found during actual archaeological excavations.Lars Krants LarsenMoesgård Museum

Søren H. Andersen reaches 60Søren H. Andersen has always been full of go, whether he was lecturing the students, working in the field, or crossing the museum. yard. It is the research of the early Stone Age that has benefited from his g reat energy and effort, which also made him the most frequent contributor of articles to this yearbook.Since his first article in Kum 1965, Norslund. A coastal settlement from the early Iron Age, written together with C. Malmros, he has given us more than fifty scholaly articles in both a Danish and international contexts. As a guest professor and guest lecturer at universities all over the world, Søren Andersen has been invited to share his research and comprehensive knowledge of the longest prehistoric period in Denmark with students and colleagues.The early Stone Age was revived, clarified, and differentiated through Søren Andersen’s almost forty years of work, as it clearly emerges from the new edition of Sesam’s Danmarkshistorie, volume 1, about the early Stone Age, in which he gathers the threads. Localities such as Norsminde, Brovst, Ringkloster, and Tybrind Vig are som e of Søren Andersen’s large-scale investigations, which have already become early Stone Age research classics.A cohort of students has been trained in archaeology by Søren through his engaged lectures and as participants in some of his numerous excavations throughout the country. With great generosity he invited archaeology students to have their first field archaeology experiences on his excavations, which were always characterized by high spirit s and a firm work discipline.In the book Århus Arkæologi, which was published a couple of years ago, Søren Andersen writes that as a boy, he had only two things in his head: “either to become an airforce pilot, or to study archaeology”. It was a major gain to Danish archaeology that he chose the latter. Today he is leading The National Museums Centre for Maritime Archaeology in Roskilde, and is also there search chief at the National Museum – both jobs that demands a full-time commitment – and among other things a member of the Danish Research Council for the Humanities. However, he keeps up the speed and still finds time to visit Moesgård, preferably on Monday mornings on the way from his home in Skanderborg to his jobs on Zealand. Moesgård was his place of work from 1967. The first couple of years he was employed as a museum keeper. He was then attached as an assistant lecturer and later as a lecturer at the University of Aarhus until 1997, when he took up his office as a senior researcher at the Centre for Maritime Archaeology.From the beginning, Søren Andersen made his influence felt on the development at Moesgård, on the university part as well as the museum. Not only archaeology students, but also the public enjoyed his teaching abilities, as he was the driving force behind the museum’s exhibition on the early Danish Stone Age. His cooperation with amateur archaeologists across the country is legendary, and the Open University has enjoyed his fiery soul and narrative skills.In spite of the many work burdens, Søren is always read y to lend a hand – writing the preface of an exhibition catalogue or discus­sing future exhibition plans – and he is still an active member of the board of Jutland Ar­chaeological Society.Jan Skamby MadsenMoesgård MuseumTranslated by Annette Lerche Trolle

In the Garden of EdenThe covers of the first three volumes of Kuml show photographs of fine Danish antiquities. Inside the volumes have articles on the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in Jutland, which is to be expected as Kuml is published by the Jutland Archaeological Society. However, in 1954 the scene is moved to more southern skies. This year, the cover is dominated by a date palm with two huge burial mounds in the background. In side the book one reads no less than six articles on the results from the First Danish Archaeological Bahrain Expedition. P.V. Glob begins with: Bahrain – Island of the Hundred Thousand Burial Mounds, The Flint Sites of the Bahrain Desert, Temples at Barbar and The Ancient Capital of Bahrain, followed by Bibby’s Five among Bahrain’s Hundred Thousand Burial Mounds and The Well of the Bulls. The following years, reports on excavations on Bahrain and later in the sheikhdoms of Qatar, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi are on Kuml’s repertoire.However, it all ends wit h the festschrift to mark Glob’s 60th anniversary, Kuml 1970, which has three articles on Arab archaeology and a single article in 1972. For the past thirty years almost, the journal has not had a single article on Arabia. Why is that? Primarily because the character of the museum’s work in the Arabian Gulf changed completely. The pioneers’ years of large-scale reconnaissance and excavations were succeeded by labourous studies of the excavated material – the necessary work preceding the final publications. Only in Abu Dhabi and Oman, Karen Frifelt carried on the pioneer spirit through the 1970s and 1980s, but she mainly published her results in in ternational, Englishlanguage journals.Consequently, the immediate field reports ended, but the subsequent research into Arab archaeology – carried out at the writing desk and with the collections of finds– still crept into Kuml. From 1973 , the journal contained a list of the publications made by the Jutland Archaeological Society (abbreviated JASP), and here, the Arab monographs begin to make their entry. The first ones are Holger Kapel’s Atlas of the Stone Age Cultures of Qatar from 1967 and Geoffrey Bibby’s survey in eastern Saudi Arabia from 1973. Then comes the Hellenistic excavations on the Failaka island in Kuwait with Hans Erik Mathiesen’s treatise on the terracotta figurines (1982), Lise Hannestad’s work on the ceramics (1983) and Kristian Jeppesen’s presentation of the temple and the fortifications (1989). A similar series on the Bronze Age excavations on Failaka has started with Poul Kjærum’s first volume on the stamp and cylinder seals (1983) and Flemming Højlund’s presentation of the ceramics (1987). The excavations on the island of Umm an-Nar in Abu Dhabi was published by Karen Frifelt in two volumes on the settlement (1991) and the graves (1995), and the ancient capital of Bahrain was analysed by H. Hellmuth Andersen and Flemming Højlund in two volumes on the northern city wall and the Islamic fort (1994) and the central, monumental buildings (1997) respectively.More is on its way! A volume on Islamic finds made on Bahrain has just been made ready for printing, and the Bronze Age temples at the village of Barbar is being worked up. Danish and foreign scholars are preparing other volumes, but the most important results of the expeditions to the Arabian Gulf have by now been published in voluminous series.With this, an era has ended, and Moesgård Museum’s 50th anniversary in 1999 was a welcome opportunity of looking back at the Arabian Gulf effort through the exhibition Glob and the Garden ef Eden. The Danish Bahrain expeditions and to consider what will happen in the future.How then is the relation ship between Moesgård Museum and Bahrain today, twenty-three years after the last expedition – now that most of the old excavations have been published and the two originators of the expeditions, P.V. Glob and Geoffrey Bibby have both died?In Denmark we usually consider Bahrain an exotic country with an exciting past. However, in Bahrain there is a similar fascination of Denmark and of Moesgård Museum. The Bahrain people are wondering why Danish scholars have been interested in their small island for so many years. It was probably not a coincidence when in the 1980s archaeologist and ethnographers from Moesgård Museum were invited to take part in the furnishing of the exhibitions in the new national museum of Bahrain. Today, museum staff from Arab countries consider a trip to Moesgård a near-pilgrimage: our collection of Near East artefacts from all the Gulf countries is unique, and the ethnographic collections are unusual in that they were collected with thorough information on the use, the users and the origin of each item.The Bahrain fascination of Moesgård Museum. was also evident, when the Bahrain minister of education, Abdulaziz Al-Fadl, visited the museum in connection with the opening of the Bahrain exhibition in 1999.Al-Fadl visited the museum’s oriental department, and in the photo and film archive a book with photos taken by Danish members of the expeditions to the Arabian Gulf was handed over to him. Al-Fadl was absorbed by the photos of the Bahrain of his childhood – the 1950s and 1960s – an un spoilt society very different from the modern Bahrain. His enthusiasm was not lessened when he saw a photo of his father standing next to P.V. Glob and Sheikh Salman Al Khalifa taken at the opening of Glob’s first archaeological exhibition in Manama, the capital. At a banquet given by Elisabeth Gerner Nielsen, the Danish minister of culture, on the evening following the opening of the Glob exhibition at Moesgård, Al-Fadl revealed that as a child, he had been on a school trip to the Danish excavations where – on the edge of the excavation – he had his first lesson in Bahrain’s prehistory from a Danish archaeologist (fig. 1).Another example: When attending the opening of an art exhibition at Bahrain’s Art Centre in February 1999, I met an old Bahrain painter, Abdelkarim Al-Orrayed, who turned out to be a good friend of the Danish painter Karl Bovin, who took part in Glob’s expeditions. He told me, how in 1956, Bovin had exhibited his paintings in a school in Manama. He recalled Bovin sitting in his Arabian tunic in a corner of the room, playing a flute, which he had carved in Sheikh Ibrahim’s garden.In a letter, Al-Orrayed states: ”I remember very well the day in 1956, when I met Karl Bovin for the first time. He was drawin g some narrow roads in the residential area where I lived. I followed him closely with my friend Hussain As-Suni – we were twentythree and twenty-one years old respectively. When he had finished, I invited him to my house where I showed him my drawings. He looked at them closely and gave me good advice to follow if I wanted to become a skilful artist – such as focusing on lines, form, light, distance, and shadow. He encouraged me to practice outdoors and to use different models. It was a turning point in our young artists’ lives when Hussein and I decided to follow Bovin’s instructions. We went everywhere – to the teahouses, the markets, the streets, and the countryside – and practised there, but the sea was the most fascinating phenomenon to us. In my book, An Introduction to Modern Art in Bahrain, I wrote about Bovin’s exhibitions in the 1950s and his great influence on me as an artist. Bovin’s talent inspired us greatly in rediscovering the nature and landscape on Bahrain and gave us the feeling that we had much strength to invest in art. Bovin contributed to a new start to us young painters, who had chosen the nature as our main motif.”Abdelkarim Al-Orrayed was the first Bahrain painter to live of his art, and around 1960 he opened a studio from which he sold his paintings. Two of his landscape watercolours are now at Moesgård.These two stories may have revealed that Bahrain and Moesgard Museum have a common history, which both parts value and wish to continue. The mutual fascination is a good foundation to build on and the close bonds and personal acquaintance between by now more generations is a valuable counterbalance to those tendencies that estrange people, cultures, and countries from one another.Already, more joint projects have been initiated: Danish archaeology students are taking part in excavations on Bahrain and elsewhere in the Arabic Gulf; an ethnography student is planning a long stay in a village on Bahrain for the study of parents’ expectations to their children on Bahrain as compared with the conditions in Denmark; P.V. Glob’s book, Al-Bahrain, has been translated into Arabic; Moesgård’s photos and films from the Gulf are to become universally accessible via the Internet; an exhibition on the Danish expeditions is being prepared at the National Museum of Bahrain, and so forth.Two projects are to be described in more detail here: New excavations on Bahrain that are to investigate how fresh water was exploited in the past, and the publication of a book and three CDs, Music in Bahrain, which will make Bahrain’s traditional music accessible not just to the population of Bahrain, but to the whole world.New excavations on BahrainFor millennia, Bahrain was famous for its abundance of fresh water springs, which made a belt of oases across the northern half of the island possible. Natural fertility combined with the favourable situation in the middle of the Arab Gulf made Bahrain a cultural and commercial centre that traded with the cities of Mesopotamia and the IndusValley already in the third millennium BC.Fresh water also played an important part in Bahrain’s ancient religion, as seen from ar chaeological excavations and Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets: A magnificent temple of light limestone was built over a spring, and according to old texts, water was the gods’ gift to Bahrain (Dilmun).Although fresh water had an overwhelming importance to a parched desert island, no studies have been directed towards the original ”taming” of the water on Bahrain. Therefore, Moesgård Museum is now beginning to look into the earliest irrigation techniques on the island and their significance to Bahrain’s development.Near the Bahrain village of Barbar, P.V. Glob in 1954 discovered a rise in the landscape, which was excavated during the following years. It turned out that the mound covered three different temples, built on top of and around each other. The Barbar temple was built of whitish ashlars and must have been an impressive structure. It has also gained a special importance in Near East research, as this is the first and only time that the holy spring chamber, the abzu, where the god Enki lived, has been un earthed (fig. 2).On the western side of the Barbar temple a monumental flight of steps, flank ed on both sides by cult figures, was leading through a portal to an underground chamber with a fresh water spring. In the beautiful ashlar walls of this chamber were three openings, through which water flowed. Only the eastern out flow was investigated, as the outside of an underground stonebuilt aqueduct was found a few metres from the spring chamber.East of the temple another underground aqueduct was followed along a 16-m distance. It was excavated at two points and turned out almost to have the height of a man. The floor was covered with large stones with a carved canal and the ceiling was built of equally large stones (fig. 3).No doubt the spring chamber was a central part of the temple, charge d with great importance. However, the function of the aqueducts is still unknown. It seems obvious that they were to lead the fresh water away from the source chamber, but was this part of a completely ritual arrangement, or was the purpose to transport the water to the gardens to be used for irrigation?To clarify these questions we will try to trace the continuations of the aqueducts using different tracing techniques such as georadar and magnetometer. As the sur roundings of Barbar temple are covered by several metres of shifting sand, the possibilities of following the aqueducts are fine, if necessary even across a great distance, and if they turn out to lead to old gardens, then these may be exposed under the sand.Underground water canals of a similar construction, drawing water from springs or subsoil water, have been used until modern times on Bahrain, and they are still in use in Iran and on the Arabian Peninsula, especially in Oman, where they supply the gardens with water for irrigation. They are called qanats and are usually considered built by the Persians during periods when the Achaemenid or Sassanid kings controlled Arabia (c. 500 BC-c. 600 AD). However, new excavation results from the Oman peninsula indicate that at least some canal systems date from c. 1000 BC. It is therefore of utmost interest if similar sophisticated transportation systems for water on Bahrain may be proven to date from the time of the erection of the Barbar temple, i.e. c. 2000 BC.The finds suggest that around this time Bahrain underwent dramatic changes. From being a thinly inhabited island during most of the 3rd millennium BC, the northern part of the island suddenly had extensive burial grounds, showing a rapid increase in population. At the same time the major settlement on the northern coast was fortified, temples like the one at Barbar were built, and gigantic ”royal mounds” were built in the middle of the island – all pointing at a hierarchic society coming into existence.This fast social development of Dilmun must have parallelled efficiency in the exploitation of fresh water resources for farm ing to supply a growing population with the basic food, and perhaps this explains the aqueducts by Barbar?The planned excavatio ns will be carried out in close cooperation between the National Museum of Bahrain and Aarhus University, and they are supported financially by the Carlsberg Foundation and Bahrain’s Cabinet and Information Ministry.The music of BahrainThe composer Poul Rovsing Olsen (1922-1982) was inspired by Arab and Indian music, and he spent a large part of his life studying traditional music in the countries along the Arabian Gulf. In 1958 and 1962-63 he took part in P.V. Glob’s expeditions to Arabia as a music ethnologist and in the 1970s he organised stays of long duration here (fig. 4).The background for his musical fieldwork was the rapid development, which the oil finds in the Gulf countries had started. The local folk music would clearly disappear with the trades and traditions with which they were connected.” If no one goes pearl fishing anymore, then no one will need the work songs connected to this work. And if no one marries according to tradition with festivity lasting three or sometimes five days, then no one will need the old wedding songs anymore’’.It was thus in the last moment that Rovsing Olsen recorded the pearl fishers’ concerts, the seamen’s shanties, the bedouin war songs, the wedding music, the festival music etc. on his tape recorder. By doing this he saved a unique collection of song and music, which is now stored in the Dansk Folkemindesamling in Copenhagen. It comprises around 150 tapes and more than 700 pieces of music. The instruments are to be found at the Musikhistorisk Museum and Moesgård Museum (fig. 5).During the 1960s and 1970s Rovsing Olsen published a number of smaller studies on music from the Arabian Gulf, which established his name as the greatest connoisseur of music from this area – a reputation, which the twenty years that have passed since his death have not shaken. Rovsing Olsen also published an LP record with pearl fisher music, and with the music ethnologist Jean Jenkins from the Horniman Museum in London he published six LP records, Music in the World of Islam with seven numbers from the Arabian Gulf, and the book Music and Musical Instruments in the World of Islam (London 1976).Shortly before his death, Rovsing Olsen finished a comprehensive manuscript in English, Music in Bahrain, where he summed up nearly twenty-five years of studies into folk music along the Arabian Gulf, with the main emphasis on Bahrain. The manuscript has eleven chapters, and after a short introduction Rovsing Olsen deals with musical instruments, lute music, war and honour songs of the bedouins, festivity dance, working songs and concerts of the pearl fishers, music influenced front Africa, double clarinet and bag pipe music, religious songs and women’s songs. Of these, eighty-four selected pieces of music are reproduced with notes and commented in the text. A large selection of this music will be published on three CDs to go with the book.This work has been anticipated with great expectation by music ethnologists and connoisseurs of Arabic folk music, and in agreement with Rovsing Olsen’s widow, Louise Lerche-Lerchenborg and Dansk Folkemindesamling, Moesgård Museum is presently working on publishing the work.The publication is managed by the Jutland Archaeological Society and Aarhus University Press will manage the distribution. The Carlsberg Foundation and Bahrain’s Cabinet and Information Ministry will cover the editing and printing expenses.The publication of the book and the CDs on the music of Bahrain will be celebrated at a festivity on Bahrain, at the next annual cultural festival, the theme of which will be ”mutual inspiration across cultural borders” with a focus on Rovsing Olsen. In this context, Den Danske Trio Anette Slaato will perform A Dream in Violet, a music piece influenced by Arabic music. On the same occasion singers and musicians will present the traditional pearl fishers’ music from Bahrain. In connection with the concert on Bahrain, a major tour has been planned in cooperation with The Danish Institute in Damascus, where the Danish musicians will also perform in Damascus and Beirut and give ”masterclasses” in chamber music on the local music academies. The concert tour is being organised by Louise Lerche-Lerchenborg, who initiated one of the most important Danish musical events, the Lerchenborg Musical Days,in 1963 and organised them for thirty years.ConclusionPride of concerted effort is not a special Danish national sport. However,the achievements in the Arabian Gulf made by the Danish expeditions from the Århus museum are recognised everywhere. It is only fair to use this jubilee volume for drawing attention to the fact that the journal Kuml and the publications of the Jutland Archaeological Society were the instruments through which the epoch-making investigations in the Gulf were nude public nationally and internationally.Finally, the cooperationon interesting tasks between Moesgård Museum and the countries along the Arabian Gulf will continue. In the future, Kuml will again be reporting on new excavations in the palm shadows and eventually, larger investigation s will no doubt find their way to the society’s comprehensive volumes.Flemming HøjlundMoesgård MuseumTranslated by Annette Lerche Trolle

Illerup – between the North Cape and the NileFor fifty years, Forhistorisk Museum in Århus and later Moesgård Museum has provided the base for the work with the finds from the river valley of Illerup, which were first published in Kuml 1951. The excavations are long since finished and in a few years the whole find will be published and accessible to the public in an exhibition.In the search for explanations and parallels to the army equipment we have covered much ground, and what might have become a catalogue of finds with selected illustrations has developed into a study of the ancient world in the centuries around the beginning of the Christian era. It is already obvious that the scholarly adaptation so far is merely the beginning of investigations to which the only limit is our imagination. Analyses of the numerous artefacts have for instance taken us to Rome, where triumphal arches and other monuments boast weapons and belt outfit corresponding to the artefacts from the wetland areas of Southern Scandinavia (figs. 1-4). Other items have their parallels in Syria, Africa, or Northern England, and an overall evaluation shows that the Illerup find holds elements that reflect the culture in vast areas, Roman and Teutonic (figs. 5-10).According to the plan, the presentation and discussion of the topics that are naturally connected with certain find groups will be finished within a few years, and only then will it be possible to tackle the investigations into the more delimited problems, which have so far arisen from the work in progress.One example of this could be the DNA analyses that have developed in such a way during the last few years that they can be used for biological material from the wetland finds. Also, metallurgic investigations of iron and precious metal analyses have been initiated. While working with the shields, the wood of both boards and handles were identified, and the results caused the planning of supplementary studies, using for instance dendrochronology. Investigation into the textile remains of the find are also expected to yield new information. The results of recent bog find research may be used successfully in new analyses of bog finds from the 19th century. Engelhardt’s publications – outstanding as they might be – are subjective in as far as Engelhardt, according to contemporary criteria chose the finds that were to be described or depicted. The selection is not representative and has led to wrong in terpretations of the find contents. These im balances should now be corrected and the old bog finds made accessible in a satisfying manner, i.e. published and republished according to modern standards. As it has also turned out that the knowledge of the preservation conditions of the same finds is limited, future work should include investigations into the present state of the find sites.To solve the tasks mentioned through international cooperation, we are now planning a centre for Iron Age research at Moesgård, where from 2003 we can exploit an established network of scholars involved in the study of the Iron Age.Jørgen IlkjærMoesgård MuseumTranslated by Annette Lerche Trolle

Museer er en meget brugt fritidsaktivitet, og der har i de sidste 20 år været et øget fokus på at udvikle museernes tilbud. I samme periode har antallet af besøgende på danske museer også været jævnt stigende. Men vi ved stadig ikke helt, hvorfor nogen går mere på museum end andre. Denne rapport handler om brugen af museer, og om der i brugen er forskelle i forhold til, om man er en flittig gæst, eller om det er lang tid siden, turen er gået til et museum. Bag projektet står Den Gamle By i samarbejde med Moesgaard Museum, ARoS, KØN – Museum for kønnenes kulturhistorie og Naturhistorisk Museum i Aarhus samt Copenhagen Business School og Center for Kulturevaluering på Aarhus Universitet. Projektet blev finansieret af de deltagende museer og gennem støtte fra Slots- og Kulturstyrelsen.

An archaeological excavation of the protected burial mound Store Vejlhøj in northwestern Denmark was carried out in October-November 2021. The excavation formed part of the ERC-funded research project called ANTHEA, focusing on the deep history of anthropogenic heathlands. It was conducted by Aarhus University in collaboration with Holstebro Museum and Moesgaard Museum. The aim was to test a new method of sampling pollen data from different construction stages in a burial mound and comparing them with pollen data from nearby lake sediments with a view to improving our understanding of prehistoric anthropogenic heathland dynamics. Prior to the excavation, soil cores were collected from two nearby peat sediments as well as six burial mounds (including Store Vejlhøj) within a 1 km range of Lake Skånsø, where previous pollen analyses had been carried out. Based on these preliminary corings, Store Vejlhøj was selected for further archaeological investigation. A dispensation for excavating the protected mound was granted by the Danish Palaces and Culture Agency. The excavation was based on a 5 m long trench through the barrow, moving from its foot inwards. The surface vegetation and 40 cm topsoil were removed by an excavator, after which the remainder of the trench was manually dug in horizontal layers. Observation conditions were good. The excavation revealed a series of well-defined barrow construction stages, as well as unusually wellpreserved turf structures. Only two archaeological finds could be related to the barrow, both of which were later than its initial construction: a secondary urn in the top layer, and the base of a second urn at the foot of the mound. The burial mound was constructed using a minimum of three shells, which could be observed in the trench profile. Turfs were most probably collected locally in a landscape dominated by grass pastures, where no previous turf cutting had taken place. A total of 34 soil samples were collected for paleoecological analyses (pollen, Non-Pollen Polymorphs (NPPs), macrofossils) and geoarchaeological analyses (micromorphology, bulk samples). Preliminary pollen and macrofossil results from the burial mound revealed poor preservation conditions, which prompted a trench extension of 0.5 m by 0.2 m to find better preservation conditions. This extension resulted in the collection of a single final macrofossil sample, although there was no identifiable change in the in-situ preservation conditions. The dating results of the mound have not yet been completed and will be included as appendix 4-6 in 2023.