A recently published book from Syddansk Universitetsforlag with the title From Central Space to Urban Place sheds new light on the formation of Odense in the Viking Age.
In the book you can read about how Odense originated as a city around the year 900 AD in a northeastern Funen characterized by prosperity. The book includes the many fine detected discoveries and exciting archaeological excavations, that in the recent years have made it possible to set e.g. the fantastic ship burial at Ladby, the chieftain’s seat on Munkebo Hill, Odense’s Viking castle Nonnebakken and the last Viking king Knud the Holy into a broader perspective as to just why it was Odense – and not some other settlement in the area – that became the urban center on Funen. The results from Funen are compared with the background for the formation of Aalborg.
The book is the culmination of a large five-year project, supported by the VELUX FONDEN’s museum program and with the Museums of East Funen and the Museums of Odense City as significant actors. Together with other museums and universities, the two Funen museums have for the past five years worked on analyzing the transition from the more scattered centers of power of the Iron Age to the cities in areas around Odense Fjord and the central Limfjord of the Viking Age and the Middle Ages in the period 400-1100 AD.
The project is also an example of the museums’ research ambitions, where interdisciplinarity and networking transcends administrative schisms and instead focuses on the topics of the research.
The book costs 299 DKK and can be purchased at the university publishing house and at the shops and on the websites of the two museums.
Illustration: The front page of the almost 400-page long book.
About the project:
The project has been led by the research center of the Museums of Odense City, CENTRUM, and involved archaeologists, historians, place name researchers, geologists and archaeobotanists from the Museums of Odense City, the Museums of East Funen, the Museums of North Jutland, Moesgaard Museum, the National Museum, the University of Southern Denmark, the University of Aarhus and the University of Copenhagen.
Further information and a lot of free materials can be found here: https://odensebysmuseer.dk/forskning/forskningsprojekter/from-central-space-to-urban-place/
Contact informations:
The Museums of Odense City: Mads Runge (project manager), research center manager, PhD, [email protected], 20901327
The Museums of East Funen: Malene Refshauge Beck, museum inspector, [email protected], 23967971
Syddansk Universitetsforlag: Martin Lindø Westergaard, publishing director, [email protected], 22976007
