Stora Havor

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Castle on the right and house foundation on the left
Copy of the Havorring

Stora Havor is a prehistoric castle in the parish ( Swedish socks ) of Hablingbo on the Swedish island of Gotland . To the northeast of the courtyards of Stora Havor there is a complex consisting of the castle and four large house foundations. To the west of these facilities, not far from the drained Mästermyr moor, lies a large, only partially investigated field with around 370 graves from the 1st century BC. Until approx. 1000 AD

Bildstein found in Stora Havor

The Iron Age castle has a diameter of about 52 meters. The surrounding stone wall is about two meters wide, in front of and behind the wall there were earth walls. In the east there was an opening five meters wide in the wall and ramparts.

1961 began investigations of the castle and the house foundations. It turned out that the wall covered a shell wall and that a mostly filled moat led around the complex. According to the mainly ceramic finds and the C14 analyzes , the castle was built around the turn of the ages.

A stone was also found here, which acted as the capstone of a Viking Age burial box . The four-fold ribbon loop ( loop square ) shown on this stone , the " ⌘ ", is used today as a pictogram for places from the past throughout Scandinavia .

The Havor hoard is also important for the dating of the castle. The deposit of this treasure could mark the evacuation of this defensive structure. With the exception of one ring, the objects were made in the Roman territories in the 1st century AD. The gold ring could be a Nordic work.

The larger of the house foundations is around 40 meters long and thus reaches dimensions such as were found in regional centers in Gudme, Denmark and in Sorte Muld on Bornholm in the 3rd and 4th centuries. However, it is smaller than Gotland's Stavars hus .

Treasure find

In 1961, in the Ringfall, Erik Nylén and Peter Manneke found one of the strangest hoards ever made in the Nordic region. A hoard by a stone in the inner castle wall, consisting of a large Roman bronze vessel with four Roman bronze wine scoops, a sieve and two bronze bells. The find also contained a large gold ring that was probably made around the birth of Christ. It was the best example of an early, probably Norse, goldsmith ever found. The ring has been stolen and lost since 1986.

Burial ground

750 meters northwest of Stora Havor is a burial ground measuring 800 by 200 meters. It consists of about 370 ancient remains, including six roes , 34 burial mounds, about 319 round, eight oval and three irregular stone settings. The largest mound is 16.0 meters in diameter and 1.75 meters high. The largest rose and the largest round stone setting have a diameter of 15.0 meters. Shipbuilding in Munkhagen

To the east of road 142, a few kilometers south of Havor, lie the Munkhagen shipwrecks . One ship is 10 meters long and three meters wide. The stern stones are 1.2 meters high. The second ship is 12.0 meters long and 3.5 meters wide. The southern stern stone is 1.4 meters high. There are several round stone settings nearby.

literature

  • Erik Nylén : The younger pre-Roman Iron Age of Gotland. Finds, chronology, form science. Almqvist & Wiksell, Stockholm 1956.

Web links

Coordinates: 57 ° 12 '58.4 "  N , 18 ° 19' 5.8"  E