OPEN LECTURE 
18/11 at 18.00

Mats Roslund – Uppåkra in Scania, Sweden- an Iron Age cult residence ca AD 200 to the late Viking Age

During the Iron Age in Scandinavia (approx. 400 BC to AD 1050), a political power structure based on agricultural surplus was established. At the beginning of the third century AD, we see powerful places being established, based on cults and families in contact with the Roman Empire. One of these is Uppåkra, a few kilometres south of Lund in Scania, Sweden. A ‘temple’, probably inspired by Gallo-Roman fanum temples, rotary querns, horticulture, surgical instruments and, not least, a new way of fighting can be traced at the site. After its establishment, Uppåkra existed as a centre of worship and power for a thousand years, until the second half of the 10th century. The lecture presents the site in its entirety, with a particular focus on the Roman Iron Age and Late Antiquity in Uppåkra, from around AD 200 to 550.

Mats Roslund is professor in Historical Archaeology at Lund University. His research interests are directed towards social identities and cultural transmission through trade, the creation of societies and communities through rituals and everyday practices. Geographically, he moves between Scandinavian medieval urban environments, Byzantine and Islamic elements in the Nordic region, as well as Viking Age contacts with Baltic Finns, Sami and Slavs.