Denmark

2018 EXARC in Kernave
***For over 25 years The Medieval Centre/Middelaldercentret in Nykøbing F. Denmark has used volunteers to inhabit the reconstructed medieval town of Sundkøbing. To combine the use of volunteers and living history is not easy or something that happens spontaneously. It is hard work and requires patience, strength and firmness, but also...

Copenhagen 2 November, and a warm welcome received at the National Museum in Copenhagen. What better way to start a conference than with colouring flags and glitter? Well, it certainly was a great icebreaker for an international conference on re-enactment, for people from all over the globe speaking several different languages. Being asked to write a review, I wondered how best to approach this...

Although there is a wide variety of publications about costume history and of single archaeological sites with textile remains of period clothing, the number of books that interdisciplinarily cover the fashion of past eras in the context of different source categories is, frankly, really small. Some attempts to draw a complete image of medieval fashion simply fail just because of the scale of it; others try to...

Jutta Eberhards has been working with drama and living history for over 30 years. Born in the Friesland district in Germany, Jutta has over the years become a power-house in the management group of Sagnlandet Lejre – The Land of Legends (www.sagnlandet.dk). She has been tirelessly working to uphold the standards of the educational method that she and her colleagues developed...

Every two years, Danish archaeological open-air museums meet up at a significant conference. They prefer the designation ‘historical workshops’, a concept which originated in the 1960s (see Bay 2004). The Danish Association of Historical Workshops (De Historiske Værksteder i Danmark, 2019) totals to over one hundred members. With their conferences, they ensure continuity...

Medieval re-enactment, especially late 15th century, has become increasingly popular during the past 15-20 years and it seems like the growth will not stop anytime soon (unless the Viking re-enactment takes over as a consequence of the popular culture and mainstream focus – but that is another discussion). The book is part of a series ''Historical Clothing From the Inside Out'' from different historical periods...

The trebuchet, in all its forms, was very much in vogue in the reenactment and research community in the 1980s and 1990s. Several museums around the world have also built their own, with Middelaldercenteret in Nykøbing Falster in Denmark as one of the first modern examples of counterweight trebuchet (Hansen, 1989). Despite the multitude of builds, very little has been published about...

The Norwegian Forum for Experimental Archaeology (NFEA) is a yearly seminar aimed at presenting and popularising experimental research within archaeology. It has been held since 2011 at the Veien Cultural Hertage Park, and as the name implies, it is a gathering of Norwegian archaeologists, held and presented in Norwegian. In 2017, things were done a bit differently...

10th EAC Leiden 2017
***Tens of thousands (Callmer, 1977, pp.12-32) of beads marking the rich graves of the Viking world indicate that the production of these beads is an area worthy of study. Evidence such as mandrels, crucibles, bead fragments, and semi-manufactures exist at Helgo, Birka, Paviken, Hedeby (Lundström, 1976, p.3), Kaupang (Gaut, 2011, p.232), Frojel (Carlsson, 2011), Åhus (Callmer, 2001, p.138), and Ribe (Sode, 2004, p.86). At Ribe...

In 1993, the remains of a wooden boat were uncovered during drainage works north of the village of Gislinge, on the island of Sjælland in Denmark (Gøthche 1995). Now reclaimed agricultural land, the area had once been part of the shallow Lammefjord, itself connected to the Isefjord and the open sea...