Rock carvings from Tennes
The rock carvings of Tennes ( Norwegian Helleristningene i Tennes ) are in Balsfjord , in the Troms and Finnmark Fylke in Norway . They contain figures of the prehistoric rock art of the Nordic hunting culture and were the first of their kind to be discovered in Scandinavia . The oldest were dated to 4600 and the youngest to around 2600 BC. Dated. You are about 20 meters above sea level.
discovery
The prehistoric rock carvings were first mentioned in 1799 in the travelogues of Martin Vahl (1747–1804), who described a reindeer in Balsfjord. Vahl was the first botanist to visit northern Norway. However, his notes were forgotten until 1913, when employees of the Botanical Garden of the University of Copenhagen worked through Vahl's notes. By this time archeology had begun to take an interest in petroglyphs . The finding prompted the Swedish archaeologist Gustaf Hallström (1880–1962) to travel to Balsfjord to find the rock carving.
To find the carving on the 70 km long fjord , Hallström used the knowledge that a traveler in the 18th century must have lived on one of the ten large farms on the Balsfjord. One of the farms was Tennes, where the locals recognized Vahl's drawing. They took Hallström to Bukkhammaren, where they found five other animal figures. A few hundred meters further on, in Gråbergan, they found more. At that time these were the northernmost rock carvings in the world.
In 1938 a woman in the local knitting circle showed the books in which the rock carvings were described. Tordis Larsen, from the neighboring farm, was inspired by this and shortly afterwards found the field known today as Kirkely with around 40 figures, the field with the most figures.
description
There are about 60 figures, spread over the three fields “Bukkhammaren”, “Gråbergan” and “Kirkely”.
The oldest figures are on Bukkhammaren. They were dated to 4600 BC. Dated. There are only six figures in Bukkhammaren, five of which are moose looking in the same direction. The sixth figure is indefinite. The largest measures 1.1 m.
Kirkely's 40 figures date from around 2700 BC. And consist of marine and land animals (a rare combination in Northern Norway). 14 are elk or reindeer. The largest figure is a reindeer about four feet long. 13 figures are porpoises . There is also a snake-like figure, a group of bowls ( Skålgrop in Norwegian ), two people in boats and some unidentifiable figures.
The 19 figures from Gråbergan date from around 2600 BC. They show two people and 17 land animals. The size of the figures ranges from 1 cm to 20 cm. The animals seem to be placed in such a way that those animals that move between the sea and the mainland are closer to the sea, while the mainland animals such as bears and elk are further away from the sea.
The finds show that people lived on Tennes in the Stone Age . They were hunters who migrated seasonally between different living places during the Late Stone Age. Tennes was perhaps a meeting place for the people who lived on the mainland, on the coast and on the islands.
Web links
- Description Engl. and picture
- Description Norway. and pictures
- Description Norway. Pictures, sketch, card
Coordinates: 69 ° 18 ′ 37 ″ N , 19 ° 20 ′ 34 ″ E