The matter in summary: The medieval town of Hamarkaupangen, one of eight medieval towns in Norway, has been discovered underground in Hamar with the help of a georadar. The georadar has revealed the city’s structure, size and location, which has surprised the researchers who previously had little information about the city. Hamarkaupangen is unique among Norway’s medieval towns in that it is not located on the coast, and nothing has been built over it. The researchers now hope to get permission to carry out test excavations to gather more information, but plan to leave most of it untouched for future generations. The summary is made by an AI service from OpenAI. The content is quality assured by news’s journalists before publication. – It was absolutely crazy. It was beyond expectation that we should be able to see streets, houses and the city structure, says Kristian Reinfjord. On a plot of land a few hundred meters from the ruins of the more than 800-year-old Hamar Cathedral, section leader Reinfjord and director of the Anno museum in Hamar walk with a map. The medieval town is hidden under the hill close to Mjøsa. Photo: Frode Meskau / news – Here we have Kaupangen, says Reinfjord and points to the field that covers what he has been looking for for a long time; One of eight medieval towns in Norway. But the only one that wasn’t on the coast. Many people have long wondered what the medieval town at Mjøsa actually looked like. Now they can see it without digging in the ground, thanks to ground-penetrating radar. The image after the sonar measurements in gray tones at the top. Bottom map with interpretations of what the sonar shows. The light, vertical stripes are modern structures. Photo: Anno museum Unlike what they thought, Georadar is like an echo sounder that measures structures under the ground. With the help of it you can now see what the medieval town looked like, how it was organised, the size of the town and exactly where it is located, Reinfjord and the others who work at Domkirkeodden have known little about Hamarkaupangen. They knew it was built in connection with Hamar Cathedral, the ruins of which can be seen under a glass cathedral overlooking Mjøsa. The medieval town that disappeared: “Hamarkaupangen arose in an area where we find traces of the formation of a center going all the way back to the Iron Age with the chieftain’s seat at Åker. With the creation of the episcopate in 1152, the center of power was moved to Domkirkeodden, where it eventually developed into a clerical centre. Around the clerical centre, a small community grew up that depended on the church. Hamarkaupangen was the only inland town in the Middle Ages, but by the end of the 16th century it had disappeared, and animals grazed on its grounds. Source: Anno Museum Domkirkeodden The glass cathedral was built to take care of the ruins of the Cathedral which was completed around the 13th century. Photo: Knut Røsrud / news They have learned what they have known through the Hamarkrøniken, which is a written source from the 1550s. It describes Hamarkaupangen as a small town with a residential structure that is spread out arbitrarily. Kristian Reinfjord (left) and Per Øyvind Riise have to change the model of what they thought Hamarkaupangen looked like. Photo: Knut Røsrud / news – What we see now on the georadar images is a very tight and structured city, says Reinfjord. He and museum director Per Øyvind Riise must now change the model of the Hamarkaupangen that they have exhibited at Domkirkeodden. “Norway’s Pompeii” Hamarkaupangen is the only medieval town that is not located on the coast, but has Norway’s largest lake, Mjøsa, as its nearest neighbour. And unlike the seven other medieval towns in Norway, nothing has been built on the hill above where the medieval town is located. The only building that is on the land is news’s former district office, which led to the need to place more masts and antennas, which made it difficult to build anything else nearby. Photo: Knut Røsrud / news That is the unique thing about Hamarkaupangen, according to archaeologist Kjetil Skare in Innlandet county municipality. Because without more recent buildings above, the potential to gain more knowledge about the Norwegian Middle Ages is great. – The opportunity to extract information is very good, and especially for Hamar, says Skare. Beneath this soil lies the medieval city that no one has known what it really looked like. – Here there are undiscovered structures in the ground completely untouched, says Kristian Reinfjord. Photo: Knut Røsrud / news Section leader Kristian Reinfjord himself has referred to Hamarkaupangen as “Norway’s Pompeii”. Now the hope is that they will be allowed to do some test excavations on the land where the lost city is located. Museum director Per Øyvind Riise says they are going to leave most of it untouched for future generations. – But now we have enough knowledge that it would have been very interesting to get down to the ground, do dating and establish that what we are now forming a picture of is actually the same thing that lies down in the ground, says Riise. For now, they are absolutely certain that they have found the Hamarkaupangen. Published 10.09.2024, at 15.52
ttn-69
The medieval town of Hamarkaupangen found using georadar. Referred to as Norway’s Pompeii – news Innlandet – Local news, TV and radio
