Archaeological Open-Air Museum

Gotland is called the Viking Island by some as it has a very strategic position in the Baltic Sea. Thousands of finds have been made, showing this was an important place to be in the Viking Age. The majority of all the Viking silver treasures in the world have been found on Gotland. All over the island there are ancient monuments.

The first humans came to Jämtland for about 8000 years ago and they came from Norway. The Glösa area is famous for its 6,000 year old rock carvings. In the Glös Hall you can sense the shamans spirit combined with the moose’s.

This time, we will be visiting Wolin, a town located on Poland’s largest island (of the same name) on the coast of the Baltic Sea, in the Land of 44 Islands. Wolin is a City of History, whose glory days date back to 1000 years ago. In the early Middle Ages, it was one of the largest and most powerful cities in this part of Europe, and ranked among the most important ports of the Baltic Sea.

The Piast royal dynasty was the first historical ruling dynasty of Poland between the 10th century and 1370. The stronghold Ostrów Lednicki on an island in Lake Lednica is thought to be one of the seats of the first Piast kings. You could say, Polands origins are here.

Excavations from 1974 to 1980 revealed a Germanic stronghold at a specific point in the Helbe Valley. It was inhabited between the 2nd century BC and the 1st century AD. 60 Houses or huts and 500 pits were uncovered. The largest house measured 8 x 12 metres. Ceramic finds point to the east but contacts with Romans and Celts are also ascertained. Cultic human sacrifices and cannibalism are presumed.

The Martberg – Mart Mountain is looking out over the Moselle river at a height of 180 metres. This used to be a political and religious centre in the past. 100 BC, the mountain housed a stronghold, a so called Oppidum which was upgraded with a temple area in Roman Times.

Since 1995, historic building activities are taking place in Torgelow. This includes the building of an Early Medieval village (9th – 10th century) as well as ship construction the way it could have been in the past. From 2006 onward, there is also an indoor area called Castrum Turglowe focusing on the year 1281 in this village.

Seebruck has a Roman Museum showing finds of Bedaium, which used to be situated here, on the road between Salzburg and Augsburg. This show case museum offers events every now and then with living history. Around the museum, a 27 km long route connects locations of historical and archaeological interest.

In the 1970s, Dr. Schwabenicki was searching for a Slawic fortified settlement (the nearby city is called Sachsenburg) but found a Medieval mountain village instead: Bergstadt Blyberge (Bleiberg).

At Randau, an outskirt of Magdeburg, artefacts of Neolithic origin were found and secured during World War II. In the late 1990s, the idea came up to reconstruct the place. The city Magdeburg offered workforce and the Arbeitsamt covered costs.