Message-Id: <199404271439.AA29195@world.std.com>
To: carolingia@world.std.com
Cc: ilaine@panix.com
Subject: Gautelfr project 
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 1994 10:39:38 -0400
From: Michael Bergman <augment@world.std.com>

I thought that this might be of interest to those of you interested in
Viking culture.  Remember, if replying, that these are mundane
researchers...but ones with intriguing interests!

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From: loennroth@vinga.hum.gu.se

There hasn't been much activity on Oldnorsenet lately, so I am taking this
opportunity to inform you about a new research project that we are planning
here in Gothenburg.

It concerns the Gautelfr - the river that floats through my city - as a
communication center and "borderline area" between Danish, Norwegian, and
Swedish culture in the Viking Age and early Middle Ages. This is where the
Scandinavian kings used to meet, according to the sagas. It is also
pictured as a more or less wild and unruly region where extraordinary
things may happen: warfare especially but also attacks by pirates,
extramarital sex (in places like Konungahella or Brenneyjar, cf. Tijuana
and similar border towns today).

When and how was this image formed? To what extent is it based on reality,
to what extent on myth? When did the river actually begin to function as a
real borderline between three distinctive national cultures? To what extent
and at what time is it possible to distinguish between different cultures
in this area in terms of linguistic and archeological evidence, runic
inscriptions, placenames, coins, lithurgy, etc.?

In order to answer such questions we need cooperation between several
disciplines. Peter Sawyer (History), Lise Bender Joergensen (archeology),
Bo Ralph (Scandinavian languages) and myself have arranged a series of
seminars about Gautelfr this semester, and later we will try to prepare an
application to one of the large Scandinavian funds, so that we can get a
large interdisciplinary research project for younger scholars going.

Would anyone out there be interested in participating in - or learning more
about - this project? Would you be able to contribute something from your
own current field of research? If so, what? We welcome any suggestions and
ideas, and we shall try to answer any questions you may have about the
project.

Lars Loennroth  


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