Day of Archaeology 2012

It’s on again – Day of Archaeology - check it out, last year more than 400 archaeologists world wide posted – lets see how many we are this year. My contirbution is called Who is an archaeologist? - check it out!

Magnus Reuterdahl

After the games been played

As we’re in the middle of a fantastic European football championship and one can watch top match after match delivered as they were produced on a conveyor belt – it’s kind of hard imagine a time with less or no top football to watch – though we all know it’s lurking there just around the corner. With several months for the next Champions league, Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga or Italian Serie A and then again years for the next World or European championship.

In Sweden we can still enjoy football during the summer as Allsvenskan (Swedish first division) and Superettan (Swedish second division) etc. runs its course during this part of the year (though I wont claim it’s great football) and still here is my love in the football world – Jönköping Södra IF aka J-Södra, somewhere in the middle of the second division. And though it seems every season gives cause for a heart attack as they seems be stuck around relegation line to the lower divisions.

Stadsparksvallen in Jönköping

Stadsparksvallen in Jönköping, just before the season started 2012

It then you realize there are always those have it worse. This midsummer I spent in the small community Långban in Värmland. This village was mining community that had its hay day before 1972 when the mines closed down.

And there while taking a walk I saw what was left of a someones dream, someones favourite team, a graveyard of football memories – though I can’t much on the internet.

The team was called Långban IF, they started in 1924, they played in red and white, the “area” was called Mullvaden (the Mole) and the senior team, was cancelled in 1968 though if I understand it right they made a swift comback in the early 80′s. Långban IF has a webpage though (in Swedish).

It’s when I see this, I’m a glad that my favourite team still is in the loop, I can see my team not just the remains of what once was a team. Still this is ancient remain, a part of our Cultural Heritage, a reminder of what once was, someone’s dreams and aspirations, joy and sorrow, a monument of past glory’s and defeats.

Magnus Reuterdahl

On June 29th it’s time for Day of Archaeology 2012

On June 29th it’s time for Day of Archaeology, I’ll participate as I did last year (read the post here) and was one of ca 400 archaeologists that contributed, from all over the world.

Read more about the project here!

If you haven’t allready join up for Day of archaeology on the 29th June and contribute with a blogpost!

Magnus Reuterdahl

Black hawk up & The Swedish Air Force Museum in Linköping

As we said good bye to a colleague that goes into retirement we visited the The Swedish Air Force Museum, but before that my colleague got to get a flight in the SK60 (a jet plane) we got a trip in Helcopter 16 or better known as Black hawk. Really really cool

I can also strongly recommend Flygvapenmuseum The Swedish Air Force Museum in Linkoping. Here are almost all planes that can be connected to Swedish air force as well as an exhibit on the cold war, where Swedens military, Swedish politics and domestic issues are connected – really good and then an exhibt or a crypt of a a Swedish DC3 that was shot down in the Baltic Sea in the 50′s and the story of the political game behind the story – this is stuff for a Hollywood picture – the plane was found a few years ago and lifted from the bottom of Sea. This museum is not only for air force or air plane buffs but everyone that wants to know more about the history of the cold war.

The pictures are divided into three groups: air force exhibit, cold war exhibit, DC3 exhibit.

Air force exhibit

Cold war exhibit

DC3 exhibit

Magnus Reuterdahl

Bye Bye Bradbury!

A few days ago one of my favourite authors went astray leaving us with his written legacy. If your yet to explore his body of work there’s hours and hours of great fun, great adventures and lots of dystopia – he mixed science fiction, horror, fantasy and mystery.

I love several of his books, especially ut am mainly a fan of his short stories and short story collections such as   The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated man (1951), The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953), The October Country (1955) and  A Medicine for Melancholy (1959).

A death is always tragic but can also be a starting point, for me it gives cause to revisit some of my favourite books and novels and few of the adaptations to the silver screen such as The Illustrated man from (1969) that I like to the The Martian Chronicles three part NBC-TV-series (1980) that I didn’t find all that amusing when I saw them sometime in the 90′s – found my VHS-copy though so I’ll look through it later on.

There are also those who take fandom to next level

R.I.P. Ray Bradbury – you will be missed!

Magnus Reuterdahl

Förändringens vindar? – Winds of change?

This post will follow in English.

Idag kom då Kulturmiljöutredningen, där man bland annat tittat på Lag (1988:950) om kulturminnen m.m. (KML). I denna föreslås ett antal förändringar av större och mindre slag, man har också tittat på målen för statens kulturmiljöarbete samt fått i uppdrag att titta på KML rörande metalldetektorer/sökare. Jag har bara snabbt skummat igenom den och har just nu inga särskilda åsikter om den – dock känns det som att ändringarna kan komma medföra merarbete för Länsstyrelserna och i någon mån för Riksantikvariämbetet men också möjligen merkostnader – samtidigt finns det också flera ändringar som jag tror är både bra och nödvändiga.

Bland det man föreslår är en ändring av fornlämningsbegreppet, i det att man ger ett förslag med nya kriterier som avgränsar fornlämningsskyddet till de lämningar som kan antas ha tillkommit före 1750. Dock ska staten ha möjlighet att även skydda yngre lämningar efter särskilt beslut, så kallad fornlämningsförklaring. Här föreslår man också att det i vissa fall kan komma att utgå någon form av ersättning till markägaren, vilket kan komma att försvåra ett sådant förfarande, vidare ska markägare kunna kräva ett fastslaget fornlämningsområde – vilket jag också har funderingar kring hur det ska kunna fungera i verkligheten, då man fortfarande har skrivningen att fornlämningsområdet ska vara så som behövs för att bevara hela lämningen.Dvs områdets storlek kan skilja beroende på arbetsföretag.

Utredningen föreslår att det generella förbudet mot att använda metallsökare kompletteras med en tydlig dispensreglering för att ge ett rimligt skydd för kulturarvet. Det tydliggörs att tillstånd inte får lämnas för att söka efter fornfynd eller när det finns anledning att anta att metallsökaren kan komma att användas för att söka efter fornfynd. Detta innebär att det inte kommer att ge tillstånd i fornlämningstäta områden såsom på Öland och Gotland.

Jag får säkert anledning att återkomma Rapporten kan laddas ned här (SOU 2012:37)

English version, this is a little shorter than the Swedish one!

Today came the cultural inquiry, which, among other things looked at the Cultural Heritage Act (KML) and proposes a number of changes in this, they have also looked at the objectives of the state cultural work, and have been asked to look at KML in regards og the usage of metal detectors.

I have just quickly skimmed through it and currently have no specific views on it – however I feel that the changes might result in additional work for the county administrative boards and to some extent for the National Heritage Board.

Among the things being proposed is an amendment to the concept of ancient monuments and remains, the proposal is a new criteria that separates ancient monument/remains protection to the remains that are likely to be older than from 1750 and abandoned at that time. However, the state should have the opportunity to also protect the young remnants after special decisions.

The report proposes that the general prohibition against using metal detectors is complemented by a clear exemption regulation to provide reasonable protection for the cultural heritage where it is clarified that the permit must not be for be used to search for archaeological finds, or when there is reason to believe that metal detectors can be used to search for ancient finds. This means that permission will not be granted in areas with lots of known ancient monument/remain such as on Öland and Gotland.

The report is avilable in Swedish (SOU 2012:37)

Magnus Reuterdahl

A view into the future

In November I’ll head for Turkey and the upcoming European wine bloggers conference (EWBC). Besides archaeology wine is my other other mistress – and sometimes the two twine together so it shall be in November.

The theme for the EWBC 2012, that will be held in Izmir, is source. Now source can be interpret in different ways but of those are source as in the source of wine and winemaking. If today’s Turkey is the original source of domestic vine cultivation and possibly winemaking is of less importance than the fact that it’s one of the first places where wine making was done. For this purpose I’m really looking forward to hearing one of this years speakers Dr. Patrick E. McGovern, the Scientific Director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Laboratory for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages, and Health at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia. The laboratory discovered the earliest chemically attested alcoholic beverage in the world (ca. 7000 B.C. from China), the earliest grape wine (ca. 5400 B.C.) and barley beer (ca. 3500 B.C.) from the Middle East etc etc.

But it won’t stop there during the conference I’ll also visit the ancient city of Ephesus, the House of Virgin Mary and the Ephesus Archaeological Museum. In Ephesus several excavations from the late has Roman period been made over the last decades.

But I’m not pleased with only visiting one country with traces of very early wine making – after Turkey I’ll continue on to Georgia. We’re will be able to taste the food, see the country and drink Qvevri wine. Qvevri wine or Amphora wine making is a tradition that has been preserved over thousands of years producing wines of unique character and style sometimes called orange wines. So besides the archaeology of wine and winemaking along side the great sites I’ll also get the chance that in some small way taste the taste of Wines Past.

Don’t you wish you were an archeological-wine-nerd like me?

And of course we’ll taste a lot of modern wines from Turkey as well as Georgia as well… but more about that on another blog :) and later on!

Magnus Reuterdahl

Ombud på DIK:s kongress

This post is written in Swedish, it’s states that I am elected as a delegate to DIK’s (Swedish Union for archaeologists) Congress on 24-25 November.

Fick ett mail med följande rubrik idag: Grattis du är vald till ombud på DIK:s kongress den 24-25 november.

Stort tack till er som röstade på mig! Totalt var 160 nominerade varav 79 blev valda.

De 79 som blev valda kommer att finnas presenterade på DIK:s webbplats senast den 4 juni (www.dik.se/kongress)

Av totalt 21 728 medlemmar röstade 2563 , dvs ca 12 %. Arbetet med kongressen kommer att läggas upp på http://www.dik.se/kongress, där alla kongresshandlingar att läggas ut efter hand som de färdigställs och slutligen även all dokumentation av kongressen.

Magnus Reuterdahl

Rock-art-lollapalooza part 2: the Fossum site

Next stop on my Rock art lollapalooza in the UNESCO world Herritage site Tanum is Fossum. The rock art in Tanum is dated to the Bronze Age, ca 1500-1000 BC.

Among the pictures are hunting scenes, people holding axes, people playing horns and of course lots of ships, animals, foot soles and cup marks etc.

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves!

 There’s still more to come

Magnus Reuterdahl

Mesolithic Motala on film

At the city Motala on the eastern shore line of lake Vettern a big excavation that in part is still on- going that concerns the mesolithics. The excavations are being done by Riksantikvarieämbetet (the National Heritage Board) UV Öst (RAÄ UV Öst) (link in Swedish about the excavation) and by Stiftelsen Kulturmiljö (link in Swedish about the excavation).

The excavations concern at least one settlement and several different activity areas; production sites, graves etc, that are dated to ca 6000-4000 BC. There are also remains of a medieval farmstead, dated to ca 1200-1300 AD.

There are several things that are special about this site among them the exceptional preservation environment, UV has made this film, with English subtitles, that allows you to find out more about this exiting place and the finds that has been made.

The film is produced by Martin Wanngård at BringitoLife during 2010 and 2011 and is 18 minutes long and is part of RAÄ UV Öst’s intermediary of the results.

Magnus Reuterdahl