#ancient Norway

[ancientstuff]

This is absolutely nuts. Who in the world would okay this?

[atrumvox]

The Son of Thor Who Saved His Father at Just Three Days Old!

Did you know that Thor has three legendary children? Discover who they are and what makes them extraordinary!

Did you know that Thor, the god of thunder, has three unique children? Magni, with his superhuman strength, saved his father as a newborn. Móði, the embodiment of courage, is destined to lead the new world after Ragnarök. Þrúðr, his valkyrie daughter, is a warrior as powerful as she is captivating. Each of them represents a divine quality that makes them essential to Asgard's fate. Get ready to uncover their deeds and their roles in the most epic Norse legends!

[blueiscoool]

Viking Silver Bracelet Hoard Found in Norway

Archaeologists have unearthed a set of uniquely decorated bracelets on the site of a "large and powerful" Viking Age farm.

Archaeologists in Norway have discovered a Viking Age treasure that had remained "untouched" for more than 1,000 years.

The four silver bracelets had been buried nearly 8 inches (20 centimeters) in the ground on a mountainside in Årdal, a village in southwestern Norway, according to a translated statement from the University of Stavanger.

"This is definitely the biggest thing I have experienced in my career," Volker Demuth, an archaeologist and project manager at the Archaeological Museum at the University of Stavanger, said in the statement.

Archaeologists found the bracelets ahead of construction of a new tractor road.

Further exploration revealed that the location once housed a "large and powerful" Viking Age (A.D. 793 to 1066) farm comprising multiple houses for people and animals, according to the statement. The researchers found the buried bracelets within one of the smaller structures, which likely housed enslaved individuals.

In addition to the jewelry, researchers discovered an array of artifacts, including soapstone pots, rivets, knife blades and whetstones for sharpening tools. There's also evidence that the farm had been burned down, which "coincides with a period of great unrest in the Viking Age," according to the statement.

"If people who lived on this farm had to flee from an attack, it would be natural to hide away the valuables you had before escaping to the mountains," Demuth said. "And perhaps in a place where you would not have thought that a treasure was hidden."

By Jennifer Nalewicki.

[vyoru]

Mochis x the Olympics !

Some card art I did for the mochidex ! So glad Im finally able to post these. You should totally get the bot in your server if you haven’t, lots of amazing artists that put their hard work into this event !! super fun

[ltwilliammowett]

An important find

[paperafterdark]

Choose who you think is the most dominant in bed not who your favourite of the four is.

Masterpost

[scandinavianheritage]

The Oseberg ship

[hwsevents]

Mythtalia March

Decided to make another list for inspiration!

Mythological Ships:

-Odysseus & Penelope

-Apollo & Hyacinthus

-Apollo & Daphne

-Pygmalion & Galatea

-Helen & Paris

-Hades & Persephone 

-Achilles & Patroclus

-Aphrodite & Ares

-Aphrodite & Hephaestus

-Dionysus & Ariadne 

-Heracles & Megara

-Odin & Frigg

-Loki & Angrboda

-Frey & Gerd

-Thor & Sif

-Svarog & Lada

Again, none of these are obligations, this is just for the sake of possibly giving people ideas!

@hetaliahappenings @heta-on-the-books @nsfhetalia @hetaliacalendar

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Question : Murder and Disappearance Edition IV

Given that Judge Crater, Roanoke, and the Dyatlov Pass Incident are credibly solved, though not 100% provable, I'm leaving them out in favor of things ,ore mysterious. I almost left out Amelia Earhart, but the evidence there is sketchier.

This item is actually "I want to know the exact, actual sequence of events following the death of Cambyses, the ascension of Bardiya, and the conspiracy of Darius the Great. Like, was Gaumata even a real person?

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 - 𝔄𝔫𝔠𝔦𝔢𝔫𝔱 𝔔𝔲𝔢𝔢𝔫

[ancientstuff]

Honestly, 'pagan' shouldn't be used, I think. It has pejorative associations, BUT this votive hoard find is great!

[hetalia-rng-showdown]

Hetalia RNG Showdown - Quarterfinal #1

Pick a character, any character! You can pick your favourite, a contender, a darkhorse, an underdog, or just pick the most chaotic choice possible!

This polls opens December 1 2023 12:00PM PST and closes December 8 2023 11:59AM PST.

Want to know how this tournament works? Read the FAQ here!

Want to find the other quarterfinal polls? Read the Winter 2023-24 Tournament Summary post here!

Please be respectful in the comments and tags, these polls are all just for fun!

[blueiscoool]

1400-Year-Old Gold Foil Figures Found at Pagan Temple in Norway

Archaeologists have discovered a votive gold hoard during road development works in Vingrom, south of Lillehammer on the shores of Lake Mjøsa Norway.

The 5 gold pieces are tiny, about the size of a fingernail. They are flat and thin as paper, often square, and stamped with a motif. Usually, they depict a man and a woman in various types of clothing, jewelry, and hairstyles.

The objects were discovered in the remains of a pagan temple, where previous excavations have uncovered thirty similar stamped gold objects in the vicinity over the past three decades.

Archaeologist Kathrine Stene was the project leader for the excavation, which has been ongoing along the road here all summer and into autumn, due to the upgrade of the E6 highway between Mjøsa Bridge and Lillehammer.

“It was incredibly exciting,” Kathrine Stene said.

The pagan temple measures around fifteen meters in length. Archaeologists have found five gold foil figures in the last couple of weeks.

According to the researchers, the objects date from the Merovingian era sometime between AD 550 to the Viking Age.

The latest objects were found beneath the structure in the wall runs and in adjacent postholes, suggesting that they were ritually placed as votive offerings in the form of a sacrifice or a religious act to protect the building before it was constructed.

In 1993, the temple at Hov was discovered entirely by chance. County conservator Harald Jacobsen noticed the soil while driving along the E6. He thought it looked like what archaeologists call cultural layers, or soil containing human traces. A quick investigation proved him correct, and the discovery of two gold foil figures indicated that this was no ordinary location.

Smaller excavations during the 2000s led to the discovery of 28 gold foil figures, and what is referred to as a temple, a house for pagan religious practices.

In Norway, findings of gold foil figures are rare. The 35 from the temple in Vingrom represent the largest collection found in this country.

However, 100 gold foil figures were found in a similar temple at Uppåkra in Sweden, and more than 2,500 gold foil figures were found in a field on the Danish island of Bornholm.

So, “There must be more of them here,” researchers believe.

By Oguz Kayra.

[cure-whimsy]

who do you think told snotlout he was bi, or did he figure it out on his own

[lavrenik]

Tistel – mistel – kistel thing: a runic spell or something else?

Tistel – mistel – kistel is an expression that can be found on several rune stones and churches in Scandinavia. Interestingly, according to the "rule" of writing runes, they should not repeat one after another, whereas in the original this inscription looks like this:

ᚦᛘᚴ : ᛁᛁᛁ : ᛋᛋᛋᛋ : ᛏᛏᛏ : ᛁᛁᛁ : ᛚᛚᛚ

If you transliterate it into Latin letters, you get

thmk : iii : sss : ttt : iii : lll

In Old Norse

þistill : mistill : kistill

Thistle – mistletoe – casket.

The expression is considered to be a spell, and any spell has both positive and negative magical effects (as, incidentally, and runes alone, if they are attributed magical properties, are not purely positive or negative, but always both). The Celts also collected mistletoe for medicinal purposes, and singing spells over the herbs increased their power, which may have given rise to tistel – mistel – kistel.

The inscription is found, for example, on the Ledberg runestone (1) in the Swedish province of Östergötland and on the Danish runestone Gørlev (2-3), both dating from the 11th century.

According to one of the versions the text on the Ledberg stone depicts Odin being devoured by Fenrir during Ragnarök. Another interesting thing is that on the stone from Denmark, after the repeated sequence of runes, the author left the inscription "I have placed the runes correctly/in the correct order". I have read that the same inscription is in the Borgund Stave Church (4) in Norway, which is also one of the oldest surviving frame churches, which began to build with the penetration of Christianity in Scandinavia. Although the Borgund church is dedicated to St Andrew (the interior features his X crosses (5)), it is very much full of pagan symbols, such as the dragons on the roof (6), which refer to Viking ships, and runic inscriptions. I am waiting for candidates to come with me to Norway to check the presence of tistel – mistel – kistel there, because sadly there are no photos on the internet.

Also tistel – mistel – kistel is found in the Saga of the Bos, there is a huge article about it and about this phrase in general in Norwegian, I translated only the summary, but someday I hopefully will translate the whole thing :(

The article argues that the thistle formula is a prototypical fertility formula with a positive and/or negative sign during the Viking Age and the Middle Ages. The cultural and historical background of thistle and mistletoe and their medicinal use support this interpretation. The conclusion is that this formula had a complex symbolic meaning with life-threatening and life-preserving functions. In other words, it fulfilled a number of different tasks: from curse incantation to protection and blessing magic.

That is basically what I wrote above: any spell gives a response and can be used in both directions.

[poems-from-around-the-world]

"The ancient Greeks believed a stone fell to the ground" - Eldrid Lunden - Norway

Translator: Annabelle Despard (Norwegian)

The ancient Greeks believed a stone fell to the ground because it belonged there

We believe in gravity. But we feel that the Greeks’ idea is much more poetic