Explore the Rock Carvings of Tanum: A UNESCO Heritage Site


I live close to one of the UNESCO listed World Heritage sites. Rock Carvings in Tanum and Vitlycke Museum. This area has the highest concentration of rock carvings in Europe. Rock carvings, also called petroglyphs, are knocked with small stones, knocking stones, into the rock during pre historic times. They can be found all over the world but the highest concentration are found in Africa, Scandinavia, Siberia, and Australia. New carvings are discovered daily by archaeologists and the public. As the with all art, interpretation is in the eyes of the beholder even if there is a scientific approach to what the carvings mean. Even so the images triggers the imagination to what made the people to make the effort. Faith or just a wish to be immortalised.

If you want to take a step back in time, to the bronze age when most of the carvings were made. The Vitlycke museum has a reconstructed bronze age village built up with two long houses, storage huts and work sheds. The village is next to the rock carvings in the Tanum World heritage area. You can visit all year around but in summer high season there are guides to explain and let you try craftmanship from that time. The Nordic Bronze age is considered to have lasted from 1700 to 500 BC.

Fun fact. The museum building was inaugurated on the same day my oldest son was born. In a blizzard on April 4 1998 and he also worked there for three summers. Do check out his YouTube channel Hemläxa where he made a series on the Swedish farmers history where episode one has section from Vitlycke. In Swedish but you can use the auto subtitle function in a language you prefer. https://youtu.be/6ff1wRQMwM8?si=MsxFVjlZJu0_Nbdm

Find out more from the museum website https://www.vitlyckemuseum.se/en/.

You have to look back to understand the future, ha de Gött!

Advertisements
Categories: History, TravelTags: , , , , ,

Leave a comment