> On 2 December 1994, as part of the project on Coastal Defence for which Anne Nørgård Jørgensen is responsible, the Centre held a one-day seminar at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Copenhagen University. Medieval sources describe the conscription of manpower for the building of national defences. The earliest source to mention conscription for work of this type in Denmark is Annales Regni Francorum, in which it is said that in 808 King Godfred conscripted men (the army) to work on Danevirke, the major defence work. From both the Viking Age and earlier times there are a number of more or less well-known defence works in the old Danish area. Investigation of these is in process and the purpose of the one-day seminar was to gather the latest news from recently completed or still continuing investigations. The programme included: Steen Andersen: Folkevoldene i Sønderjylland; Svend Åge Knudsen and Per Ole Rindel: Nye undersøgelser i Trældiget; Wilhelm Kramer: Tolkning af søforsvarsværket i Slien; Ole Grøn: Nye eftersøgningsmetoder anvendt på vandbygningsarbejder; Hellmuth Andersen: Det ældste Danevirke; Mogens Schou Jørgensen: Nyt om Ravning Enge broen; Anne Nørgård Jørgensen: Søforsvaret i gl. Danmark; Johan Engström: Bygning af forsvarsværker. There is an internal report giving short summaries of the lectures which can be borrowed from the library of the Centre for Maritime Archaeology.
In January 1995 an international evaluation of the National Museum's research was carried out. The activities in Maritime Archaeology were judged by Professor H.T. Waterbolk, the Netherlands, and Valerie Fenwick, M.A., England. The result of the evaluation has been published in the report "The National Museum of Denmark. International Evaluation of Research Activities, 1995", which is available from the Centre.
During two periods in January 1995 the Centre for Maritime Archaeology received visits from colleagues from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in connection with work on the Ralswiek 2 ship, which was found on a Viking-Age trading site on the island of Rügen in 1967; the ship was re-excavated and taken up in 1993 with the aim of conserving and exhibiting it. On 10 January the ship-find and the East German trading places were presented in a lecture by Peter Herfert and Friedrich Lüth, and during the period 23-27 January staff at the Centre, in cooperation with Peter Herfert and his assistants in the reconstruction work, Guste Detloff and Gerd Schilde, engineers, produced a preliminary cardboard model of the ship for further analysis.
Ole Crumlin-Pedersen and Jan Bill went on a study-visit to the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) at Texas A&M University, from 30 January to 5 February 1995. INA is the leading institute in the USA in maritime and ship-archaeological research, with particular focus on finds from classical antiquity and the eastern Mediterranean as well as from North America's colonial period and later. There is also an evident desire to engage in research into the rich North European ship-find material from the Middle Ages and earlier. Cooperation with the Netherlands has been initiated and negotiations are now in progress concerning future relations with Roskilde.
Fred Hocker, President of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, Texas A&M University, spent four weeks as visiting professor at the Centre in Roskilde in March 1995. On 14 March he gave a lecture on "Bottom-based Ship Construction in Iron-Age and Medieval Northern Europe"; otherwise his time was occupied with study of the various ship-finds and replicas which may throw light on the flexibility of the Viking ships. In connection with this a research seminar on the subject was held at the Centre on 29 March, with participants from Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
On 20 March 1995, on the Centre's initiative, an international meeting was held in Roskilde to bring together those involved in a newly-established network of researchers who use electronic surveying methods in archaeology. The meeting brought together 42 participants from 7 countries and clearly showed the need for reciprocal information about on-going experiments with the adaptation of search-techniques developed for use in other contexts to the location of archaeological finds underground and underwater. A short report from the meeting will be issued by the Centre.
From New Year 1995 the following people joined the staff of the Centre: Birthe L. Clausen, cand. scient., who replaces Birgitte Thye as editor of the Centre's publications; and Claus Petersen, technical assistant in the drawing office.
Jorn.Sjostrom
Copyright © 1995 The National Museum of Denmark
Last Updated august 6, 1995