Tag Archives: millstone

Hyllestad Millstone Quarry Landscape

Impressions from Scandinavia’s largest, preserved stone quarry landscape from the Viking Age and Middle Ages. Download imagein high resolution. Visit Millstone Park’s website: http://www.kvernsteinsparken.no Continue reading

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Happy New Year from the most beautiful old quarry in Western Norway!

With a picture – taken today – of a most beautiful little, old quarry in Western Norway, I wish all my clients, partners, colleagues and followers of my website a Happy New Year!

I’ve been up and down Norway many times in 2016: Special thanks to my clients! Those who have actually made the world go round for my company and my family: first of all Archaeological Museum at the University of Stavanger, but also Tromsø University Museum, the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage and Selje Municipality, Norwegian Institute of Cultural Heritage Research, the Restoration Workshop of Nidaros Cathedral and Akasia Bergen, as well as Statsbygg and Forsvarsbygg.

Also thanks to institutions that I have cooperated much with in 2016, in particular Bergen University Museum, Geological Survey of Norway and The Wadi el-Hudi Expedition (Egypt/US).

The photo above was taken in the afternoon today, on New Year’s Eve. It shows a tiny part of the grand Viking Age and Medieval millstone quarry landscape in Hyllestad. In my world it is the most beautiful quarry in Western Norway, a quarry taken over by a creek in the rainy midwinter season. But no wonder why I think it is a beauty: it is located in my backyard.

Thus, also thanks for 2016 to Norwegian Millstone Centre/The Museums in Sogn og Fjordane County, that are responsible for this largest Viking Age and Medieval quarry landscape in Northern Europe. This is where I work part-time and the reason why my family and I settled at the Atlantic coast a couple of years ago.

All the best for 2017! Continue reading

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Beautiful Neolithic and Iron Age querns from Norway. On the history of grinding grain

The basement of the Archaeological Museum at Stavanger University holds the largest collection of grinding stones and querns found at archaeological excavations in of Norway. Dating from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages, they show the development from saddle querns to standardised rotary hand querns. The finest querns are on display in the museum, and together with the magazine objects they particularly show the early development of the rotary hand quern in Norway: From 1800 year-old, very diverse specimens to the standardised, transportable rotary quern that we know so well from the Viking Age and later, and which became an important commercial trade good. Continue reading

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Steinhoggerne – hvem var de? En reise i tid og rom

Mange spør meg om hvem steinhoggerne var i gamle dager. Var de frie folk, var de treller, var de svært proffe? Eller hadde de et yrke som egentlig alle kunne utøve? Ikke lett å svare på! For bryting, hogging og … Continue reading

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Winter walk in the Hyllestad millstone quarries

The Hyllestad Millstone Quarries  are accessible for everybody throughout the year. You can walk wherever you like, admiring this largest quarry landscape from the Viking Age and the Middle Ages in Norway. You can even book a guide if you … Continue reading

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International conference on millstone in Bergen – and the Hyllestad quarry landscape

Last week the Norwegian “millstone community” invited to an international conference in Bergen – “Seen through a millstone: Geology and archaeology of quarries and mills”. It included an excursion to the Hyllestad quarries where the participants got to know a … Continue reading

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