Kaupang
Encyclopedia
- For another Viking Age site, see KaupangerKaupangerKaupanger is a village situated along the Sognefjord in the municipality of Sogndal in Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway.Kaupanger originated as a settlement during the Viking age. Earlier Kaupanger was known as Tingstad. Kaupang was an Old Norse term for trading or market place. Town's name is...
.
Kaupang was in Old-Norwegian a word that means a market-place. It is today used as a name of the first urban market-place in the area that today is Norway, also named Kaupang in Skiringssal
Skiringssal
Skiringssal is the name of an area situated in the Norwegian municipalities of Larvik and Sandefjord, in the southern region of the county of Vestfold...
(Kaupangen i Skiringssal). Kaupang was an important merchant and craft center during the Viking Era and the first known Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
trading outpost.
History
Kaupang was founded in the 780s and abandoned for unknown reasons in the early 10th century. It was situated on a beach by Viksfjord in LarvikLarvik
is a city and municipality in Vestfold county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Larvik. Larvik kommune - has about 41 364 inhabitants and covers 530 km2....
in Vestfold
Vestfold
is a county in Norway, bordering Buskerud and Telemark. The county administration is in Tønsberg.Vestfold is located west of the Oslofjord, as the name indicates. It includes many smaller, but well-known towns in Norway, such as Larvik, Sandefjord, Tønsberg and Horten. The river Numedalslågen runs...
county in Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
. Documentary sources indicate that the area was an important royal seat in the 700s and 800s.
It is a general perception that Kaupang is mentioned under the name of Skiringssal
Skiringssal
Skiringssal is the name of an area situated in the Norwegian municipalities of Larvik and Sandefjord, in the southern region of the county of Vestfold...
(or Skíringssalr) in Ohthere from Hålogaland's tales. But the name of the port Ohthere (Ottar fra Hålogaland) visited at the end of the 9th century was 'Sciringes heal'. There is no scientific evidence that 'Sciringes heal' corresponded to Kaupang in Skiringssal.
Excavation
Most archaeologists believe the site to have been the first urban settlement of some significance in Norway. Excavations and studies have found that Kaupang was a handcraft and commercial center, with around 1,000 inhabitants. The city had diverse craft production and extensive trade with foreign countries. Commodities traded included ironIron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
, soapstone
Soapstone
Soapstone is a metamorphic rock, a talc-schist. It is largely composed of the mineral talc and is thus rich in magnesium. It is produced by dynamothermal metamorphism and metasomatism, which occurs in the areas where tectonic plates are subducted, changing rocks by heat and pressure, with influx...
and perhaps fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
.
In 1867, Nicolay Nicolaysen
Nicolay Nicolaysen
Nicolay Nicolaysen was a Norwegian Archaeologist and Norway's first state employed Antiquarian. -Biography:...
conducted the first excavations of the area. Nicolay Nicolaysen mapped one of the grave-fields around the former town and excavated 79 grave mounds. He also uncovered a cremation cemetery, largely dated to the 10th century. started excavating in 1947 and completed her last publication in 1999. and his associates undertook a new program of work at Kaupang in 1997.
In the summer of 2000, the University of Oslo
University of Oslo
The University of Oslo , formerly The Royal Frederick University , is the oldest and largest university in Norway, situated in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. The university was founded in 1811 and was modelled after the recently established University of Berlin...
began an extensive new excavation program at Kaupang. The leader of this new excavation process was Professor Dagfinn Skre. The Institute for Archaeology, Conservation and Historical Studies at the University organised the large excavations that ran over three years from 2000 until 2002. A smaller research excavation was conducted in Kaupang's harbour area in 2003. The site of the excavation can be found in Larvik, specifically in Tjolling. Several scholars are now working on analysis of both the artifact material and different environmental archaeological samples.
The results from the post-excavation work will be published in a series of six books, the first of which became available in 2007. Many of the approximately 100,000 finds from excavations have been on display at the University of Oslo, including Arab silver coins, gold coin from Dorestad
Dorestad
In the Early Middle Ages, Dorestad was the largest settlement of northwestern Europe. It was a large, flourishing trading place, three kilometers long, situated where the rivers Rhine and Lek diverge southeast of Utrecht in the Netherlands near the modern town of Wijk bij Duurstede...
, hundreds of glass beads, jewelry of gold and bronze, pottery, weapons and tools.
Other sources
- Blindheim, Charlotte Kaupang: Vikingenes handelsplass (Mortensen. 1972)
- Helle, K. et al., Norsk Byhistorie (Pax forlag, Oslo 2006) ISBN 978-82-530-2882-8.
- Skre, Dagfinn; Stylegar Frans-Arne, Kaupang the Viking town (Jac Trykk as, OsloOsloOslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
2008) ISBN 82-8084-018-4. - Skre, Dagfinn (editor) Kaupang in Skiringssal (Kaupang Excavation Projekt Publication. 2007)