The Golden One - Swedish History - Goths and Swedes. Uppsala Gravemounds

00:00:00.000 Greetings and welcome to the second installment of Swedish history and thus far we are still in

00:00:06.940 the good old pagan times. The reason I am here in Uppsala today is to talk about a few different

00:00:13.520 things. First and foremost the religion of ancient or old Scandinavia which of course is Nordic

00:00:21.020 paganism and Uppsala was a capital of sorts in regards to paganism. So behind me we see

00:00:28.960 three different hills or not hills rather grave mounds where mighty chieftains are buried and

00:00:37.860 before I talk more about them I'd like to again talk a bit about the geography of Sweden or the

00:00:46.480 geography of Scandinavia. In the last episode I explained the importance of the sea lanes. The

00:00:54.500 coasts were what connected the different parts of Scandinavia. So Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the coast

00:01:02.400 of Finland etc. If we're looking upon what was to later become Sweden we have two parts. We have

00:01:09.140 Svealand where the main territory is Uppland where we are right now. So Uppsala in Uppland. The other

00:01:17.360 territory Götaland was the perhaps more civilized and advanced part of Sweden and if we're gonna

00:01:25.700 translate Svear and Götar to English it could be translated as Swedes from Svealand and Goths from

00:01:34.400 Götaland. And of course the gothic people do not need any further introduction. They left their mark and

00:01:41.940 perhaps one could argue made Europe a more beautiful place genetically speaking. But either

00:01:47.940 way in terms of Svealand and Uppland this was the center of this part of Sweden before the two places

00:01:56.340 were connected. As I said in the last video the forests were deep dark and impregnable. So Götaland and

00:02:06.060 Svealand were separated by two great forests Tiveden and Kolmården. So in this part of Sweden Uppsala had a

00:02:14.540 preeminent role as a religious and civic center. Now of course we don't know all too much about this time

00:02:23.180 because not all too much is being written down but we know that Uppsala served as a place of of worship

00:02:30.060 and as a center for the powers to be in in Uppland. So behind me as I said we have three glorious mounds

00:02:40.940 and they are known as the king's mounds here in Gamla Uppsala means old Uppsala and some have speculated

00:02:48.660 that they are raised for the three gods Odin Thor and Frey all primary deities in the pre-Christian

00:02:59.500 religion of the north. And I will talk more about the entry of Christianity into Scandinavia in the

00:03:08.540 next episode but Uppsala had a great role for the pagan community around Svealand. So people would

00:03:17.680 gather here to perform blots, sacrifices and to partake in games etc. So again an important part for

00:03:26.180 the social cohesion of this part of Sweden. So now we will head on to another earlier grave.

00:03:37.940 It might actually be a good idea to elaborate briefly upon the migration era where the gothic peoples along

00:03:45.140 with other germanic tribes wandered down to claim kingdoms of their own. So as most of you know the

00:03:53.140 Angles, Saxons and Jutes went to the British Isles to stake out kingdoms there. The Franks went into 1.00

00:04:02.100 today's France to well create France and the gothic peoples went first into eastern Europe where they 0.99

00:04:10.420 stayed for a while but then as the Huns began to appear in the east they started pushing west.

00:04:16.580 So the Visigoths, west goths conquered Iberia and the Ostrogoths, east goths conquered the italian peninsula. 0.52

00:04:28.340 Now I am at Valsgärde just north of gamla Uppsala, old Uppsala at another grave field and these graves are

00:04:40.900 dating back to the the earliest of them back to the 500s and 600s AD and there has been some graves,

00:04:52.340 boat graves and something very interesting here that proves the how connected still this part of Sweden

00:04:59.940 was with the rest of the world is that some of the chieftains have been buried and they Uppsala

00:05:05.460 university made some archaeological excavations here about eight years ago and they found silk garments

00:05:13.860 that were quite well preserved on these chieftains and the silk came from Sogdiana a area east of the

00:05:23.220 Caspian sea and also from China so it's quite cool to see even back then how far these luxury goods could

00:05:30.740 travel so yes Valsgärde right here epic place and now we'll go to Kungbjörns hög

00:05:38.820 Now I am located on the other side of Uppsala and we are at Kungbjörns hög. Kung means king,

00:06:02.180 Björn is a Swedish men's name which also means bear so King Bear, King Björns grave also known as Hågahögen

00:06:11.860 so this is a grave mound dating to the Bronze Age actually so we're traveling further back in time

00:06:17.860 than the Viking Age and this grave that you see behind me right here is the grave that is the richest

00:06:27.060 in gold in all of Scandinavia from the Bronze Age so as I said in the last episode all Norsemen regardless 1.00

00:06:35.780 of time era have a certain affinity for gold and silver so yes a lot of gold has been found here and

00:06:45.940 gold did not only signify material wealth it also had a spiritual aspect to it so gold a noble metal of course

00:06:57.060 and as I said in the next episode we will talk a bit about the entry of christianity into scandinavia

00:07:12.740 you

The Golden One - July 22, 2019

Swedish History - Goths and Swedes. Uppsala Gravemounds

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