#trelleborgen

International Museum Day

According to the International Council of Museums (ICOM), a museum is "a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment." International Museum Day, founded and organized by the ICOM, aims to raise awareness that "museums are an important means of cultural exchange, enrichment of cultures and development of mutual understanding, cooperation and peace among peoples."

International Museum Day got its start in 1977 when a resolution was adopted at the ICOM General Assembly in Moscow to create an annual event "with the aim of further unifying the creative aspirations and efforts of museums and drawing the attention of the world public to their activity." The number of museums participating in the day has increased in the decades since. Since 1992, there has been a unique theme each year that is devoted to an issue that deals with the role of museums in the development of society and is at the forefront of the global museum community. There has been an official poster for the day since 1997, and in 2011 online resources were expanded.

Participating museums plan events and activities related to the year's theme, engage with the public, and "highlight the importance of museums as institutions that serve society and its development." All museums around the world can take part, with equal access to museums for everyone being a value of the day. Events may last the day, for a weekend, or for the whole week.

How to Observe International Museum Day

Observe the day by visiting a museum! Check the International Museum Day interactive map for official events near you and the International Museum Day Facebook page for up-to-date information about the day. If you are associated with a museum, organize free events that promote the role of museums in society and are related to the year's theme. Posters, information about the theme, and a communications kit can be found on the day's official webpage. You could hold your event today, on the weekend, or throughout the whole week. Make sure to list your event on the day's interactive map.

Doors, Gates and Windows (No. 33)

Trelleborgen, Trelleborg (No. 7)

A longhouse or long house is a type of long, proportionately narrow, single-room building built by peoples in various parts of the world including Asia, Europe, and North America.

The Neolithic long house type was introduced with the first farmers of central and western Europe around 5000 BC—7000 years ago. These were farming settlements built in groups of about six to twelve and were home to large extended families and kinship.

The Germanic cattle farmer longhouses emerged along the southwestern North Sea coast in the third or fourth century BC and might be the ancestors of several medieval house types such as the Scandinavian langhus, the English, Welsh and Scottish longhouse variants and the German and Dutch Low German house. The longhouse is a traditional form of shelter.

The Western Brittonic 'Dartmoor longhouse' variants in Devon, Cornwall, and Wales where it is known as the Tŷ Hir. Located along a slope, a single passage gives access to both human and animal shelter under a single roof.

The northwest England type in Cumbria.

The Scottish longhouse, "blackhouse" or taighean-dubha.

The Western French longère or maison longue from Lower Brittany, Normandy, Mayenne, Anjou (also in the Cantal, Lozère and the Pyrenees Ariège), is very similar to the western British type with shared livestock quarters and central drain.

The Old Frisian longhouse or Langhuis that developed into the Frisian farmhouse which probably influenced the development of the Gulf house (German: Gulfhaus), which spread along the North Sea coast to the east and north.

The Scandinavian or Viking Langhus/Långhus and mead hall.

Trelleborgen, Trelleborg (No. 8)

Vikings were the seafaring Norse people from southern Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden) who from the late 8th to late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and settled throughout parts of Europe, and explored westward to Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland. In the countries they raided and settled, the period is known as the Viking Age, and the term 'Viking' also commonly includes the inhabitants of the Norse homelands. The Vikings had a profound impact on the early medieval history of Scandinavia, the British Isles, France, Estonia, Kievan Rus' and Sicily.

Expert sailors and navigators aboard their characteristic longships, Vikings voyaged as far as the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, and were the first Europeans to reach North America, briefly settling in Newfoundland. Vikings established Norse settlements and governments in the British Isles, Ireland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Normandy, the Baltic coast, and along the Dnieper and Volga trade routes in what is now European Russia, Belarus and Ukraine (where they were known as Varangians). The Normans, Norse-Gaels, Rus' people, Faroese and Icelanders emerged from these Norse colonies. While spreading Norse culture to foreign lands, they simultaneously brought home foreign cultural influences to Scandinavia, profoundly influencing the historical development of both. During the Viking Age the Norse homelands were gradually consolidated from smaller kingdoms into three larger kingdoms: Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

The Vikings spoke Old Norse and made inscriptions in runes. For most of the period they followed the Old Norse religion, but later became Christians. The Vikings had their own laws, art and architecture. Most Vikings were also farmers, fishermen, craftsmen and traders. Popular conceptions of the Vikings often strongly differ from the complex, advanced civilisation of the Norsemen that emerges from archaeology and historical sources. A romanticised picture of Vikings as noble savages began to emerge in the 18th century; this developed and became widely propagated during the 19th-century Viking revival.Perceived views of the Vikings as violent, piratical heathens or as intrepid adventurers owe much to conflicting varieties of the modern Viking myth that had taken shape by the early 20th century. Current popular representations of the Vikings are typically based on cultural clichés and stereotypes, complicating modern appreciation of the Viking legacy. These representations are rarely accurate—for example, there is no evidence that they wore horned helmets, a costume element that first appeared in Wagnerian opera.

Trelleborgen, Trelleborg (No. 3)

Harald Gormsson was the son of Gorm the Old and Thyra Dannebod. His father was the first known king of Denmark and Harald succeeded him at his death in 958. Harold ruled the Danish kingdom, including the south of Sweden, until 986. The king’s politics and warfare made the area around the Baltic Sea into an important center of power, trade, seafaring and religion in the Viking world. On a rune stone in Jellinge in Denmark, you can read that Harald Bluetooth united the Danes and converted them to Christianity.

Not only did Harald Bluetooth Christianize Denmark, he also started to introduce a tax system in his kingdom. To do so, he needed soldiers and administrative staff, as well as easily defended places where the taxes could be collected, while the king lived his life in Danish Jellinge. So far, eight “trelleborgar” have been found in Denmark and the south of Sweden. They were all built in strategically important coastal areas. It is from this perspective that we must look at the expansion of “trelleborgar” under the regime of Harald Bluetooth.

Clouds (No. 249)

Baltic Sea (seven pics)

Doors, Gates and Windows (No. 34)

Trelleborg, S (three pics)

Trelleborgen, Trelleborg (No. 6)

The ring castles and the contemporary Ravning Bridge over Vejle River – together with minor bridges erected on Zealand (Bakkendrop bridge between Gørlev Tissø and Risby bridge by Præstø) and Lolland (over Flintinge river) – differ clearly from others from the Viking Age. Unlike other ring castles from the period the ring castles which follow the Trelleborg model are constructed after a strictly geometrical plan and measured with the Roman foot. The pointed bottoms of the moats is another element borrowed from the Ancient Romans.

Aerial view of the Viking ring fortress of Aggersborg. The similarity in design with Trelleborg near Slagelse, is clearly evident.

All five fortresses had similar designs, "perfectly circular with gates opening to the four corners of the earth, and a courtyard divided into four areas which held large houses set in a square pattern."

Similar structures have been found throughout Northern Europe, particularly in Ireland, but none of them have the same strict and precise geometrical design of the Scandinavian ring fortresses. On the coasts of the Netherlands and Belgium there are ring castles with certain points of resemblance and on the island Walcheren there are the remnants of a castle with gateways in the four points of the compass, combined with streets. Similar forts can be found in England, such as Warham Camp. These generally date though from around the time of the Roman conquest of Celtic Britain and had been lying in ruins for hundreds of years prior to the building of the Viking ring forts.

Datings by dendrochronology have found the wood used for the construction of Trelleborg (near Slagelse) to have been felled in the autumn of 980 and thus being used for building presumedly in the spring of 981. The rather short construction time and the complete lack of any signs of maintenance indicate an only short use of the buildings, maybe five years but hardly more than twenty. The others have been dated to roughly the same time. Fyrkat may be a little older, Aggersborg somewhat younger. Not enough has been found at the other sites for a precise dating but the construction and layout of the trelleborgs at Slagelse, Fyrkat, Aggersborg, Nonnebakken under Odense and the fort under modern Trelleborg in Sweden is so similar that it is believed most probable that they were conceived by a single mind.

Around 974 the Danish Viking king Harald Bluetooth lost control of the Danevirke and parts of Southern Jutland to the Saxons. The entire complex of fortifications, bridges and roads which were built around 980 are presumed by some to be Harald's work, and part of a larger defensive system.

Another theory is that the ring castles were boot camps for the troops used by Sweyn Forkbeard in his attack on England. Sweyn and his men sacked London in 1013.

In Scandinavia, fortifications of a similar design and date has been found around some old towns, like in Aarhus for example, but they lack the perfect circular geometry.