Nordic archaeology

In Gustavianum’s collections there is a big collection of find from pre-history Sweden. The area around Uppsala is archaeologically rich and archaeologists from the university has done excavations in the area for several hundred years. Our collections contain objects from the Bronze Age, pre-Viking and Viking ages as well as medieval finds from excavations within Uppsala city limits. One of the largest and perhaps most interesting collections come from the burial fields at Valsgärde, just north of Uppsala. Archaeologists from Uppsala excavated the fields during the 1920s, and again in the 1950s, and found rich material from a number of boat graves, cremation graves and other finds. This collection in only partly documented and digitalized. Starting in 2016, a 10-year research project entitled The Viking Phenomenon will be targeting the Valsgärde material, and there is another project focusing in the textile material in this collection. There are links to these and other projects that use the our Nordic collections on the left-hand side of this page.