Edøya stone setting
The stone setting of Edøya is a star-shaped, three-armed stone setting with concave sides ( Norwegian : treudd or treodde ). It is also located on Edøya Island in Smøla Municipality in the Norwegian province of Møre og Romsdal . The grave is near the southwest tip of the island. Such stone setting occurs 19 times in Norway and more frequently in Sweden , there under the name Treudd ( English Trident ).
description
A star-shaped, three-armed pavement was discovered north-east of the approximately 1000-year-old church of Edøy when the surface layer was removed. The remarkably well-preserved system was below the plow depth. The contours of the arms are marked by smoothly placed curb stones. The three arms measure about five meters from the center to the ends. It was not possible to date the find. The oldest systems of this type found in Norway are said to date from around AD 200, while the youngest date to the end of the Viking Age (AD 1050) and were thus built over a period of about 800 years. Most of the stone was set at old chiefs' seats and, as a result, near the oldest medieval churches.
Historians know that many of the first churches were built on the site of old Germanic temples (gudehov) . Since the stone setting are related to these places, this means that they had a function in the pre-Christian cult. As far as we know, the star-shaped pavement on Edøya is the only one of its kind in North More. The Swedish archaeologist Anders Andrén presented the idea in 2002 that such systems symbolize the world ash Yggdrasil with its three roots. The ash is the most sacred place in Norse mythology.
This suggests that Edøya was a regional center in Norway in pre-Christian times. According to the precise documentation, the site was covered with earth again by the excavator Ragnar Orten Lie and is no longer visible.
Remarks
- ^ Anders Andrén: I skuggan av Yggdrasil: Trädet mellan idé och realitet i nordisk tradition . In: Ordning mot kaos - study av nordisk förkristen kosmologi . 2004, pages 389-430.
Web links
Coordinates: 63 ° 17 ′ 13.8 ″ N , 8 ° 7 ′ 59.6 ″ E