Genetic news from Stora Karlsö island - the Stone-age dogs were wolves: phys.org/news/2025-11...

The Pilgård stone from mid-eastern Gotland (G 280): Brightly painted, this stone was raised by Hegbjarn and his brothers Rodvisl, Austain and Emund. They have raised stones in memory of Ravn south of Rufstain. They came far in Aeifor. Vivil was in command.

Just tripped across this online, an excellent lecture by James Graham-Campbell which I'll be sharing with the third year students as we are doing viking burials this week www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dGi... #medievalsky

”Warning”..?

It’s that day again… ⚔️🐎🪦🍰 #GustavusAdolphus #PastryoftheNorth

Shovels of knowledge! wessexarchaeologylibrary.org/site/about/

A Viking-period brooch, allegedly found in Ljungby, Småland (mid-central southern Sweden) in the late 19th Century. Sold to Kalmar County Museum in 1895. More here: digitaltmuseum.org/021021470571... All 📸: Kalmar County Museum #FindsFriday

Meanwhile, over on Portable Antiquities Scheme… finds.org.uk/database/art... Found at St. Edmundsbury, Suffolk in May 2025. 📸: Suffolk County Council (CC BY)

More info on the find, including location (Hörningsholm on the island Mörkö, some 38 Km SW of central Stockholm) is now available - in Swedish but with maps, pics etc. Here: online.fliphtml5.com/eapth/urqp/

Book release tonight here in Visby - Dan Carlsson presents 50 years of thoughts and facts on Gotlandic early-medieval silver - hoards, depots and stray finds. 🏺

Got a new pin, straight from Kœnugarðr… -Razom do peremohi!

A 28 mm high amber gaming piece from Harby in Ljungby parish, Kalmar county. Probably from the Viking Period, based on style. Found as a stray find in 1873, now in the collections of Kalmar County Museum (inventory no. 904:1:3). More here: digitaltmuseum.org/021021168191... #FindsFriday

It's always good to keep an eye open for anomalies in LiDAR - but this previously unregistered Iron-age cemetery with (at least) 6 flat burial cairns is clearly visible even via ordinary aerial photos. 🏺in Horn, northern Öland, Sweden - here, in FornPunkt: fornpunkt.se/lamning/AnqW...

You can now support the Govan Stones by getting some of my art!

Have watched an interesting two-episode documentary on Bruno Lohse - Gǒring’s art pusher (alas only viewable in 🇸🇪). As always, when such crimes are discussed, I get some faint hope that the Cammin Casket wasn’t destroyed after all - that it sits in a vault somewhere… www.svtplay.se/nazistplundr...

Brilliant autumnal weather here on Gotland today - perfect for a visit to an Iron-age cemetery or two. This one for example - in Dalhem parish. pub.raa.se/visa/objekt/...

A late Viking-period/early-Medieval stirrup mount from Sanda in Fresta parish, north of Stockholm. Found in the early 1990's in a mixed settlement deposit. Now in the collections of Swe History Museum. samlingar.shm.se/object/326ab... But what does it depict; an anteater? Beats me... #FindsFriday

Tragically, here in Sweden, the Agency for Marine & Water Management has deemed it necessary to publish a study which confirms that it ISN'T seals but over-fishing that's behind the dramatic decrease in Baltic Sea fish stocks. SBO - Stating the Bloody Obvious! 🙄 www.havochvatten.se/arkiv/aktuel...

Just out: New book on the North Sea Empire (you know, Cnut & Co…) In 🇸🇪-ish www.bonnierfakta.se/bocker/29533...

My - once upon a time - PhD- supervisor Lena discusses aspects of Birka in this episode of the podcast “Arkeologi och historia” - in 🇸🇪-ish… www.podbean.com/ew/pb-r923a-...

It is always good to look at things from new angles. Yesterday I stumbled upon an ornamented fragment which is depicted in “Birka Studies 2”. When turned correctly it is evidently a piece of a Kazakevièius IIb-scabbard chape. To my knowledge the first trace of one from Björkö/Birka. #FindsFriday

Bloody 😈! Went to Wikimaps for a look at where Wiki Commons-photos are geographically positioned at St Karlsö, W off Gotland. Found two in an awkward position… THEY WERE MINE, captured & uploaded last year but plotted ~800 m too far to the NNE. Probably caused by GPS-jamming from Königsberg.

An older but nonetheless very nice Norwegian find for #FindsFriday: An ornamented (and burnt) bone fragment from Reistad in Levanger, Trøndelag. Found 1935 in a burial mound. The pelleted body implies Mammen-style (c. ~1000 CE). More here: www.unimus.no/portal/#/thi... (📸: CC BY-SA 4.0)

New podcast (in 🇸🇪-ish) on the recent excavation at Björkö, often called Birka. lenakonig111.podbean.com/e/birka-utgr...

Every day gets a fair bit brighter by a good look at what I normally call the Bamberg casket, and others “the casket of Empress Cunigunde”. Mammen-style, mainly. Fantastic in every sense of the word! (📸: CC BY-NC-ND - more here: www.bayerisches-nationalmuseum.de/en/collectio...)

Early medieval silver hoard - mainly 12th Century- weighing 6 Kg found in the Stockholm area (no exact location has been released as of yet). www.lansstyrelsen.se/stockholm/om...

För första gången jag varit med och koordinerat har vi i år arrangemang i alla Sveriges landskap. Ta chansen, förnöj och bilda er i helgen! Mycket bebyggelse, men även massor av annat. (🇬🇧 : European Heritage Days are on in 🇸🇪 !) www.raa.se/evenemang-oc...

Ett annat kulturarv - fick med lite lock och pock rull på den 85-åriga militärcykeln jag köpte för åratal sedan. Trög i starten, därefter svårstoppad! 🚴

Wiki Loves Monuments drar igång idag! 🏰📸 Fota svenska minnesmärken och ladda upp till Wikimedia Commons under hela september – var med och dokumentera vårt gemensamma kulturarv och tävla samtidigt om fina priser! Läs mer: www.wikilovesmonuments.se #WLMSverige #WLM2025

This also creates some more low-key problems - e.g. when capturing photos for Wiki Loves Monuments here on Gotland you cannot automatically trust the geotags rendered by your smartphone. I have had to edit some geotags with several 100s of meters in recent years… www.bbc.com/news/article...

Heureka! I re-found the large historic “Saga map” I bought when I lived in Iceland in the 90’s. It’s fabulous!

Here’s a little coin fragment for the numismatists of Bluesky… Found 2014 at the Viking-period harbour site Paviken on western Gotland, but uninterpreted. Sorry for the bad photos, I just had a few moments to snap them in a dim-lighted storage today… Any ideas?

Oh-la-la! Apparently this heraldic padlock key with striking birds-of-prey was found during the large-scaled, so-called, excavations of burial mounds in Vladimir Oblast, present-day Russia in the 1850's. Published in 1905. I've only seen them from Sweden & Finland (e.g. Birka, right pic) before...

Visby’s annual Medieval Week is upon us yet again - but I stick to “Vikings”…

Once again I fail to recognise even the smallest spark of reciprocal stewardship in the attitude towards research among British heritage institutions - i.e. to increase knowledge and combat ignorance. Do they seriously think that I earn money from doing small finds research in my spare time!?

Some nice summer reading for those who haven’t seen it www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I finally received my copy of the book. LOADS OF READING! 🥳

Call for Papers from @em-ehx.bsky.social and I for IMC Leeds 2026: 'New Perspectives on the Viking Diaspora'. Send us a title and abstract by 18 August! @imc-leeds.bsky.social #IMC2026 #Medievalists #Medievalsky #EarlyMedieval #VikingStudies

An interesting side effect of the great tradition to donate books to research libraries: In a book, by Finnish archaeologist Ella Kivikoski, which once belonged to the Swedish archaeologist Nils Åberg I found a personal letter from her to him concerning an artefact. Åberg died in 1957.

Late box brooches are among the most exquisite examples of jewellery craftsmanship in the Gotlandic Viking Period. Bronze, silver, gold and niello in shapes that occur to have been heavily standardized. Last year a fragmentary side fitting was found at Kärrmans on eastern Gotland. #FindsFriday

As a Swede I can easily handle Norwegian and Danish. Icelandic is harder but often ok - but when it comes to Finnish I'm totally lost. Hence it took until today for me to learn that there IS a Viking-period sword chape of the "Valleberga type" from Finland, found in 2014! finna.fi/Record/museo...

#OpenAccess Gardeła, L., & Borake, T. L. (2025). "The Spur Goad from Herslev: tracing the Legacy of a Western Slavic Rider in Viking Age Denmark." urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=... On #VikingAge zoomorphic spurs and #Slavic iconography from Poland. #IronAge #Medieval #Archaeology

Good thread Trix!

A new (or at least unregistered) Gotlandic hillfort for #HillfortsWednesday. 🥳 A natural ridge has been utilized in the S and in the N is a steep 4 m slope. In between these are two sets of parallel ramparts and in NW, by the slope, is a flat burial cairn. Quite hard to spot in the wild... #LiDAR

New book on southernmost Gotland.

Whoever threw ”Viking” into the description of a (really fab!) study explicitly said to include samples dated from 1135 to 1250 CE? 💩 Norse ≠ Viking; especially not the Norse who lived several decades into the 12th century and onwards… www.arch.cam.ac.uk/news/medieva...

The U.S. follows Russia's example by targeting ICC judges. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...