– You can see the grin on his face, says the cheerful excavation leader Christian Løchsen Rødsrud. He points down into a pit. There, earth is poked and scraped away from bone remains. – They must have eaten well! – No, this one probably died by itself, points out project manager Jes Martens. What meets us in the pit are several hundred-year-old bone remains from a pig. But this is far from the biggest find that has been made at Sem in recent weeks. Do you see the pig’s fangs? Photo: Juni Hoem / news In ecstasy This spring, hobby metal detectorists and archaeologists went side by side looking for the treasures from ancient times at Sem in Øvre Eiker. Now they have soon completed a three-month excavation in the area. Rødsrud is ecstatic about the result of the excavation. They have found the remains of a building that measures a full 17 meters at its widest. – This is probably one of the most exciting finds at Sem! The most special find is the remains of a large building. Here, postholes are marked, and a search is made for found objects. Photo: Juni Hoem / news But the building stretches west, under Semsveien. So they cannot determine the length of the house. – It probably holds up on the other side. But it is an area we do not have a mandate to investigate now, says Rødsrud. They have found traces of several buildings in three excavation areas. Some of them probably belong to the Renaissance, while others may date from the Middle Ages and the Iron Age. But they haven’t dated the big house correctly yet. They depend on radiocarbon dating or artefact findings to date it with certainty. Christian Løchsen Rødsrud and Jes Martens are delighted with the excavation. Photo: Juni Hoem / news – Bare bare ground Postholes belonging to the largest house will be excavated. Photo: Juni Hoem / news Jes Martens is associate professor at the Museum of Cultural History and project manager for the excavation. – This has been an important area for two thousand years. The area has had many different functions, both production, trade and meeting place. In the Middle Ages, Sem was a manor house. He acquired the kingship after the Reformation and turned it into a county seat. One can say that Norway was ruled from here. But today there is only bare land, says Martens. Don’t get funds But there are some findings that don’t get examined more closely. Everything dated after 1537 is not covered by the Norwegian Cultural Heritage Act. This is with the exception of buildings that stand today. – Therefore, we do not have the funds to investigate any of our findings. But what is dated after 1537 is also worth commemorating, Martens believes. See picture from the excavation Large amounts of bone remains have been found at Sem. The cooking pits are exceptionally large. Here, large animals may have been prepared for festive occasions. Dishes from the nobility’s meal were found in a rubbish pit. Here pupils from children’s schools in Hokksund have looked for hidden treasures in the soil. Pearls for pigs In addition to the very special building, the excavation has resulted in several unique finds. Among other things, glass beads appeared in a surprising place. – We have found between 30 and 40 cooking pits. In two of these we actually found glass beads. These must have ended up there afterwards, when the cooking pits were used for cooking, says Rødsrud. See the pearls and more object finds at the bottom of the article. Large amounts of bone remains have been found in the many cooking pits. Photo: Juni Hoem / news For women wearing pearl jewelery was probably not part of the diet of those who lived here. In addition to the pearls, they found large amounts of bone remains in the cooking pits. Among them pigs, cattle and horses from the year 400 to 500. In rubbish pits they have found oyster shells from the meal of the nobility in the 17th century. – The bone remains can say something about species diversity and what they ate in the Iron Age, says Rødsrud. The excavation at Sem is now entering its last week. – We left an area with an unusually rich history. And we didn’t have time to examine everything. Now we will excavate the large building in great detail. Hopefully we will find more objects that can help us date the house reliably, concludes Rødsrud. Here you can see several of the finds. Glass beads were surprisingly found in two cooking pits. Finds of decorated sword handle fittings from AD 550 to 800. Large quantities of ceramics were found in the area. The refrigerator in the barracks is full of historical finds.
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