NORWAY

Around the World May 1, 2011

In what seemed to be a routine dig of a burial mound, excavators were surprised to discover hidden Bronze Age petroglyphs, including outlines of feet with cross-hatching, beneath cremated human remains.
SHARE:

NORWAY: In what seemed to be a routine dig of a burial mound, excavators were surprised to discover hidden Bronze Age petroglyphs, including outlines of feet with cross-hatching, beneath cremated human remains. The mound above was probably deliberately built atop the rare rock drawings as part of a funeral ritual. Such carvings are often associated with fertility and growth—possibly making the mound a place where life and death come together.

  • Features September/October 2025

    Spirit Cave Connection

    The world’s oldest mummified person is the ancestor of Nevada’s Northern Paiute people

    Read Article
    Howard Goldbaum/allaroundnevada.com
  • Features September/October 2025

    Here Comes the Sun

    On a small Danish island 5,000 years ago, farmers crafted tokens to bring the sun out of the shadows

    Read Article
    Courtesy the National Museum of Denmark
  • Features September/October 2025

    Myth of the Golden Dragon

    Eclectic artifacts from tombs in northeastern China tell the story of a little-known dynasty

    Read Article
    Photograph courtesy Liaoning Provincial Museum, Liaoning Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, and Chaoyang County Museum
  • Features September/October 2025

    Remote Sanctuary at the Crossroads of Empire

    Ancient Bactrians invented distinct ways to worship their gods 2,300 years ago in Tajikistan

    Read Article
    Excavations of the sanctuary in the village of Torbulok in southern
    Gunvor Lindström/Excavations supported by the German Research Foundation