Medieval Stockholm on display

The entrance to the Museum of Medieval Stockholm, in the background to the left is the royal castle and the Old town and to the right Sveriges Riksdag (the Swedish Parliament building).

For those of you that are not familiar with Stockholm, it’s the capitol of Sweden; the city was founded during the 12^th or 13^th century and became the capitol during the 15^th century. Still there are lots of traces of the medieval town to been seen, in the Old City, in some of the churches and of course in museum exhibits and collections. The Museum of Medieval Stockholm is build around a part of the city wall that was found during excavations at Helgeandsholmen (The Island of the Holy Spirit) between 1978 and 1980 and opened in 1986.

The city wall, or what’s left of it

The museum has undergone renovations and been closed since 2007. This weekend the Museum of Medieval Stockholm reopened. I took a few pictures and rather than a long post I’ll let them do most of the talking. A few notes; the museum has gotten a facelift, a few modifications on the old exhibit and a few new installments. I feel it’s all for the better, it’s less crowded and bit more airy and concentrated. A new feature is a “science fair” where archaeologists and specialists such as osteologists talks (on small video screens) on their work, on methods and results or so I was told – there a bit noisy with all the visitors – so I’ll take a rain check on them but it seemed interesting enough for a re-visit, that and the fact that I know a couple of the people on those screens. A few things are still missing such as information signs and such – but I’m sure it’ll all work out just fine.

Life in a bubble?

Welcome to the abandoned land,

come on in child,

take my hand…

Now life in medival time time was hard but probably not quite as grim, though these bones tells a story of some that had a pretty hard life

these bones, belonged to someone that wasn’t all that well (the second from the front displays a femur (thigh bone)), thank God for modern day medicine and doctors.

This is a human spine which have ossified due to disease, possibly some kind of arthritis or ankylosing spondylitis

and for those unlucky enough it all ended here…

…at the gallows end

others lived out there life within the city

as working men or women

-Wanna buy some bread!

…others choose a different life, a new part of the exhibit is about cloisters, devoting their lives to the almighty and his works

here is the cloister garden

while yet others served the more worldly powers

Stockholm on display!

Stockholm as it looked to a medieval artist

Here a more modern approach on how the medieval town was layed out

If you’re in Stockholm looking for a good museum or to kill a few hours the Museum of Medieval Stockholm is a good choice.

I’ll close it all up with a few words from those who were Stockholmare then, and made this  rune stone

//Magnus Reuterdahl

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