Thursday 29th June 2017 – Kolleruplund, Jelling, Denmark

On the move again today and the omens were not good. It absolutely poured with rain overnight and it was still raining in the morning. We headed to the Moesgard Museum just outside Aarhus and were surprised to find that there were a large number of cars in the car parks – all of the other indoor and outdoor museums that we had visited were quiet. Once we had walked to the museum, we realised that this museum was on a different scale to the other that we had seen. Architect designed, this very modern building is built on different levels, largely underground, with sloped, grass-covered roofs that are accessible from inside the museum. It certainly isn’t cheap but is would be very easy to spend a day here. Children’s entrance is free and there are huge numbers of interactive displays to keep them (and adults) amused.

We spent over an hour in the first room and realised that we would have to speed up if we were going to get to our next campsite in time. Most of the museum covers Danish pre-history i.e. pre-Viking, and it is stuffed with amazing finds that are beautifully presented. It is difficult to pick out favourites but the Bronze Age and Roman Iron Age ritual lake deposits were incredible. It is probably best to let the photographs do the talking.

I love the British Museum and I visit it at every opportunity but for a museum to inspire the young with archaeology, this is the best indoor museum that I have visited.

We have being staying at large campsites up to now but tonight we have booked a farm site and, true to its name, we arrived at a remote farm surrounded by fields of cereals. The farmhouse was immaculate and it was a very peaceful setting. If only the weather wasn’t thoroughly miserable – dark and very wet. Connecting the electricity quickly, we hunkered down for the night.

Photos: This site between Jutland and Fyn, now submerged under the sea, dates from around 5,500BC and was rich in fish and oysters, hence a massive deposit of shells, well illustrated in this exhibition; This beautiful pot (3200BC) was from grave goods deposited in a passage grave; These perfect Danish stone daggers from the Late Stone Age to Early Bronze Age (2300-1700BC) were highly prized and traded all over Norway, Sweden, Germany and the Alps; A wooden board from 300BC used to roll and mould peat into pieces that would be dried for fuel – something of particular interest to us as we come from the Somerset Levels where peat has been used as a fuel for thousands of years; Two photographs of bronze neck rings (torcs) deposited in bogs in Jutland in the Bronze and early Iron Ages  - these must have been very expensive items and shows the importance to the people of such offerings; Grauballe Man (3^rd century BC), murdered by slitting his throat and then dumped in the bog, probably as an offering; An army’s equipment, just a small selection of the amazing deposits found in the former Illerup Lake around 200AD representing 350 ordinary soldiers, 30 higher level soldiers (officers?) and 6 top level soldiers. The lake is approx. 100,000 sq. m and 40,000 sq. m have been excavated and 10,000 objects found. It is thought that there were deposits made all across the lake – many more finds to come!