When archaeologists with the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) uncovered the stone foundations of the wooden stave church where Olaf II was enshrined after he was declared a saint in the 11th century, the discovery was heralded as a significant find.
St. Olaf is the Patron Saint of Norway and his sainthood played a key role in the introduction of Christianity to Norway at the end of the Viking Age. The find also confirms Norse saga accounts of a number of important events that occurred at that time, according to NIKU.
English: Tore Hund, at right, spears Olaf at the battle of Stiklestad.
The medieval Icelandic historian Snorri relates in his Chronicle of the Kings of Norway, that after King OlaF’s martyrdom in the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030, his body was buried in St. Clement’s church in Trondheim, or Nidaros as it was known at the time.
King Olaf gave up the Viking gods to become Norway’s first Christian ruler, and part of his legacy was the building of St. Clement’s Church around 1015. However, sometime during the 13th century, the church was destroyed and its location remained a mystery until last year when the NIKU unearthed the foundation of the church.
Looking deeper into the past
The second phase of the excavation began in February this year. Beneath the ruins of St. Clement’s Church, researchers found more archaeological remains, including an even older church than St. Clement’s and a large area that appeared to be a Viking settlement.
“We have identified rich remains of an Iron Age settlement on the site, most likely belonging to a Viking Age ‘kaupang,’ (a Viking trade center) sealed under thick deposits of natural sand that have been formed by a flooding of the river Nidelva,” NIKU’s excavation leader Anna Petersén explained in a statement emailed to Fox News.
But before archaeologists can begin looking deeper into the past, there is a lot of work that needs to be done now. First, they are going to remove the stone ruins of St. Clement’s, stone by stone to gain access to the older church and ruins below. But before doing that, the ruins need to be laser and photo-scanned. The data will be used to create an exact model of the ruin. There are plans to create 3-D models of the site for viewing at a future visitor center.
“We will soon begin to remove the remains of the upper church and are eager to find more posts and post-holes relating to the previous building in the sand,” Petersén explained. “And as the last of many highlights from this spectacular site, we will explore the Viking Age settlement.”
