Ancient World Review

The Dark History Of Castle Muiderslot

"In around 1285, the Count of Holland Floris V (1254 – 1296) ordered the construction of a stone keep at a strategic location at the mouth of the river Vecht, the most important waterway to the diocese of Utrecht. In 1296, Floris V was kidnapped during a falcon hunt and later murdered by his own nobles and his castle was destroyed. From 1370, the original Muiderslot was restored and expanded with a residential wing facing the Zuiderzee. The castle was strengthened with earthen walls and bastions in 1576." Source: The Muiderslot official website (English version available - click on the tiny Union Jack flag on the top right of the page)

The original Muiderslot has a dark and violent history. Floris V apparently built the castle in order to tax, i.e., shakedown, all the trade passing through the region on the River Vecht. "In 1296," according to Castles of Medieval Times, "he was imprisoned in his own castle by Geeraerdt van Velsen because Floris V had ordered the execution of Van Velsen's brother on false charges. Floris V managed to escape from the castle but was killed while fleeing."

The English sources I've found are sketchy and contradictory, but the real story of Muiderslot seems to be a lot more convoluted and bloody than suggested above. According to Wikipedia, for instance, van Velsen killed Floris because he raped van Velsen's wife, who then committed suicide. It also sounds like van Velsen was involved in a plot to overthrow the king. The sequence of events is obscure, but at some point the king apparently executed van Velsen's brother for treason. Whatever happened, van Velsen had Floris imprisoned, but the king managed to escape -- temporarily. Van Velsen is said to have stabbed the king to death personally, only to be captured later, tortured for a couple of days, then hanged, drawn and quartered.

And so it goes: A fairly typical example of royal mayhem.

Medieval kings had more in common with Tony Soprano than with the monarchs of chivalric legend. And their nobles weren't any different. Their "authority" was based on physical violence, so it's not surprising that their lives were chronicles of blood, betrayal, intrigue and vicious crimes. The violent careers of statesmen is a natural consequence of the fact that the State is the monopoly on violence over a given territory. Nothing has really changed since then, but ancient and medieval history gives us a look at the State in its most basic form, undiluted by the myths and self-serving propaganda of modern political machines. History is made by killers. That's the bottom line.

Happy Leif Erickson Day (A Few Days Late)

"Leif Erikson Day is an annual observance that occurs on October 9. It honors Leif Erikson ... the Norse explorer who led the first Europeans thought to have set foot in continental North America (other than Greenland)." (Wikipedia)

Note: I'm several days late with this, but technically it doesn't really matter. According to Wikipedia, "October 9 is not associated with any particular event in Leif Erikson's life. The date was chosen because the ship Restauration coming from Stavanger, Norway, arrived in New York Harbor on October 9, 1825, beginning a wave of immigration from Norway to America."

Note: Leif Erickson's brother apparently ran into some trouble with the local population:

"According to the Icelandic sagas, while in Vinland [North America], Leif and his crew came into contact with 'Red Indians' (as distinguished from the Inuit), whom they referred to as skrælingi, an archaic term for 'wretches.' According to these sagas, the encounters with the indigenous people were initially friendly with a strong trade relationship. Tensions rose when Leif's brother, Thorvald, was struck by an arrow in a fight with the skrælingi. He is famously known for pulling the arrow out, and poetically reciting the phrase, 'This is a rich country we have found; there is plenty of fat around my entrails', upon which he dies." (Wikipedia)

1,300-Year-Old Viking Ship Being Excavated In Norway

Video from May, 2020.

"Archaeologists are racing against the clock to save the remains of a buried Viking ship from a ruthless foe: fungus." Source: Live Science (May 15, 2020)

"If the project is successful, the 65-foot-long (20 meters) oak vessel — called the Gjellestad ship — will become the first Viking ship to be excavated in Norway in 115 years, said Sveinung Rotevatn, the Norwegian Minister of Climate and Environment."

Video from April 15, 2020. Closed-captions helpful.

"The Gjellestad ship, also spelt Jellestad, is the remains of a Viking age longship found at the farm of Gjellestad in Halden municipality in Norway in 2018 by the archeologists Lars Gustavsen and Erich Nau. A 2019 examination by the University of Oslo has dated it to earliest AD 733. Originally interred beneath a burial mound, in the present day the ship lies 50 centimetres below the topsoil due to years of plowing.

"Due to extensive fungus damage to the hull caused by field drainage, drought and exposure to the air, archaeologists called for an immediate dig to save the ship. Excavation of the ship at Gjellestad began in June 2020, overseen by Professor Knut Paasche from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research. It is estimated to be over 20 metres long, although only parts of the keel have survived. This would mean that the boat is of a similar size to the Gokstad ship. The identity of the boat's occupant has not yet been confirmed, but experts have speculated that it may have belonged to a king or queen;" (Wikipedia)

I'm not sure if the excavation has been completed.

The Follo Line Project's Excavation Of Oslo's Medieval Town

Video from 2017. Closed-captions kind of helpful.

"The new Follo Line railway between Oslo and Ski will go through the remains of Oslo’s medieval town, in an area dominated by railway infrastructure since the 1870s. From 2013 to 2018, NIKU’s archaeologists investigated the route in preparation of the forthcoming construction of the railway culvert." Source: Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research.

"The archaeological investigations were the biggest in Oslo’s medieval town for over a hundred years, and revealed a large number of buildings, streets, and other infrastructure such as wells, drainage systems, traces of farmland, and property divisions – as well as thousands of artefacts."

The Huldremose Woman - Ritual Sacrifice?

The Huldremose Woman probably didn't die a natural death. If so, it doesn't look like she was strangled. According to the National Museum of Denmark, "Her hair was tied up with a long woolen cord, which was also wrapped around her neck several times. However, there are no marks on her throat or elsewhere, which can be interpreted as signs of strangulation. Perhaps instead the cord was of symbolic significance? Strangled people are known from other Danish bog finds. This applies to, amongst others, the bodies from Elling and Borremose, and the famous Tollund Man [who was hung in an apparent human sacrifice]."

Note: According to the National Museum of Denmark, one of the Huldremose Woman's arms was almost cut off before she died, but according to Wikipedia "it is thought that the arm was damaged by a shovel during excavation." Nobody knows exactly how she died, but "one possible interpretation is that she was killed and then placed in the bog as a sacrifice." (National Museum of Denmark)

Related: A thread to the past: the Huldremose Woman revisited (PDF).

 

Thousands Of Medieval Skeletons Found In Swedish Abbey

"A previously unknown graveyard with thousands of well-preserved skeletons, some of them dating as far back as to the Viking Age, found in a well-researched area, has baffled Swedish archaeologists, providing them with unique research material." Source: Archaeology News Network.

"The sensational discovery was made outside of Medieval Vreta Abbey, north of the Swedish city of Linkoping.

"Despite plenty of research and excavations performed in the surrounding area over the years, a new graveyard with Viking-era graves was found during pipe-laying, national broadcaster SVT reported."

 

Skilled Female Potters Traveled Around Baltic Nearly 5,000 Years Ago

Ancient pottery techniques. Location unknown.

"During the Corded Ware Culture period, Finland, Estonia and Sweden received skillful female artisans, who had learned to create fashionable and innovative pottery in the eastern region of the Gulf of Finland. The Baltic Sea countries also had a close network for trade in pottery." Source: Science Daily (2018).

"...Finland, Estonia and Sweden had at least five different manufacturing areas for Corded Ware pottery which engaged in active pottery trade across the Baltic Sea approximately 5000 years ago. Häme in Southern Finland had a manufacturing hub of Corded Ware pottery which can be described as quasi-industrial in Neolithic terms, and spread its products along the Finnish coast and into Estonia.

"...In traditional societies it is usually women who are in charge of the pottery craft and it is also common for women to relocate upon marriage. Corded Ware burials show that females were more likely to receive pottery as burial gifts, and analyses from European cemeteries show that the women were more likely to relocate during their lifetime."

 

The Uvdal Stave Church In Norway

"The church as it stands today has not kept its original appearance, but represents the result of constant extensions and alterations up to the 19th century. Each century added something. Thus the church has become a beautiful yet strange example of the way in which architectural styles and decorative art of many ages may merge into one rich, harmonious whole." Source: StaveChurch.com.

Note: "A stave church is a medieval wooden Christian church building once common in north-western Europe. The name derives from the buildings' structure of post and lintel construction, a type of timber framing where the load-bearing ore-pine posts are called stafr in Old Norse (stav in modern Norwegian). Two related church building types also named for their structural elements, the post church and palisade church, are often also called 'stave churches'." Source: Wikipedia.

The Urnes Stave Church (Norway)

"The wooden church of Urnes (the stavkirke) stands in the natural setting of Sogn og Fjordane. It was built in the 12th and 13th centuries and is an outstanding example of traditional Scandinavian wooden architecture. It brings together traces of Celtic art, Viking traditions and Romanesque spatial structures." Source: UNESCO World Heritage List.

"The church was built around 1130 or shortly thereafter, and still stands in its original location; it is believed to be the oldest of its kind. The 1956 excavation revealed that there are two prior churches built on the same site. The first church was built during the period transition to Christianity with the palisade style, which structural members were embedded into the ground. The second on was built in the latter half of the 11th century." (Wikipedia)

Tuberculosis May Have Emerged In The Stone Age

The body of Bishop Peder Winstrup (1605-1679 AD). Video from 2015.

"When Anthropologist Caroline Arcini and her colleagues at the Swedish Natural Historical Museum discovered small calcifications in the extremely well preserved lungs of Bishop Peder Winstrup, they knew more investigation was needed. 'We suspected these were remnants of a past lung infection,' says Arcini, "and tuberculosis was at the top of our list of candidates. DNA analysis was the best way to prove it.'" Source: Science Daily.

The DNA analysis made it possible to compare a relatively modern strain of tuberculosis with a much older strain. The results suggest that tuberculosis emerged back in the Stone Age. According to one researcher, this is "the strongest evidence available to date for this emergence having been a Neolithic phenomenon."

Note: As described in the videos below and above (1:25), the bishop was interred with the remains of a baby:

"For almost 350 years Bishop Peder Winstrup lay quietly in his coffin in the crypt of the magnificent cathedral at Lund in Sweden, concealing a secret: the body of a tiny baby, tucked in under his feet." (The Guardian, 2015)

"The little corpse, believed to be of a baby born several months prematurely, was revealed for the first time when scientists scanned the coffin and the mummified body of Peder Winstrup, believed to be one of the best preserved 17th-century bodies in Europe."