Björkö (Mälaren)
| Björkö | ||
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| Waters | Mälaren | |
| Geographical location | 59 ° 19 '30 " N , 17 ° 33' 50" E | |
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| length | 3.5 km | |
| width | 1.7 km | |
| surface | 4.2 km² | |
Björkö is an island in Mälaren about 30 kilometers west of Stockholm . Björkö belongs to the municipality of Ekerö . Björkö today covers an area of around 420 ha, but was significantly smaller in the Viking Age , when the Mälaren was still a bay in the Baltic Sea . Because of the postglacial land uplift , the land has risen by about five meters since then and the southern part of the island is no longer an island in its own right. This part consists mainly of rocks and undeveloped moraine , on the highest point, the Ingaberg , there are stone mounds from the Bronze Age .
The name of this island did not originally mean birch island , as the Swedish name suggests, but it was derived from the Frisian word Berik (= area of a trading post).
1100 years ago there was a small, active handicraft and trading town, Birka, on the northern part of the island . Birka's location in Mälaren was strategically well chosen, important trade routes passed here, they gave the city wealth and influence. Since 1993 Birka stands together with the adjacent Hovgården on adelsö on the UNESCO list of world cultural heritage . There is also the burial place of the archbishop of Bremen and Hamburg, Unni .
On the highest point of the northern part of the island, within the former Viking castle, an ancient stone cross, the Ansgar Cross , was erected in 1834 in memory of Ansgar's first visit to Björkö. In the southeast is the Ansgar Chapel designed by Lars Israel Wahlman , consecrated in 1930, built from red sandstone from the island and adorned with sculptures by the sculptor Carl Eldh . Next to it is the village of Björkö , which now consists of only two properties and which is probably as old as Birka.
The cultural landscape on Björkö
The cultural landscape on Björkö
Ansgar cross
The Fornborg
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Individual evidence
- ↑ Reinhard Dzingel: Frisians in the early medieval Baltic Sea? , Moisburg 2012 (PDF; 420 kB)
literature
- Bente Magnus: Birka. Central Office for the Preservation of Monuments, 1999, ISBN 91-7209-152-5 .
