Helgö is an island in

Ekerö Municipality Ekerö Municipality ( sv, Ekerö kommun) is a municipality in the province of Uppland in Stockholm County in east central Sweden. The name derives from the name of the main island within the municipality whose name is Ekerön, and literally means ...

Stockholm County Stockholm County ( sv, Stockholms län, link=no ) is a county or '' län'' (in Swedish) on the Baltic Sea coast of Sweden. It borders Uppsala County and Södermanland County. It also borders Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. The city of Stoc ...

, Sweden. Helgö is an island situated in Lake Mälaren. The island's greatest width is about , it is about long and covers .

Excavations at Helgö

The island is perhaps best known for a major archaeological area. The old trading town on Helgö began to emerge around the year 200 AD, 500 years before

Birka Birka (''Birca'' in medieval sources), on the island of Björkö, Ekerö, Björkö (lit. "Birch Island") in present-day Sweden, was an important Viking Age trading center which handled goods from Scandinavia as well as many parts of the Europ ...

at Björkö. The first archaeological dig in 1954 uncovered the remains of the early settlement, including a workshop area which attracted international interest. The most notable finds included a small

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in ...

statuette from

North India North India is a loosely defined region consisting of the northern part of India. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, which demarcate the region from the Tibetan Plateau and Centr ...

and a christening scoop from

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...

, both dating from the 6th century. The Indian Buddha statuette, the Irish

crozier A crosier or crozier (also known as a paterissa, pastoral staff, or bishop's staff) is a stylized staff that is a symbol of the governing office of a bishop or abbot and is carried by high-ranking prelates of Roman Catholic, Eastern Cathol ...

and the Egyptian Coptic scoop which were found on Helgö, are presently on display in the

Swedish History Museum The Swedish History Museum ( sv, Historiska museet or Statens historiska museum) is a museum located in Stockholm, Sweden, that covers Swedish archaeology and cultural history from the Mesolithic period to present day. Founded in 1866, it operates ...

in Stockholm.

Kaggeholm Castle

The site where Kaggeholm Castle (''Kaggeholms slott'') is located was first mentioned in a land title document in 1287. During the 1500s the farm was owned by members of the families Grip and Bååt. In 1647, Count Lars Kagg (1595–1661) acquired an estate which he named Kaggeholm. Kagg was a political ally of King

Gustavus Adolphus Gustavus Adolphus (9 December N.S 19 December">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Old Style and New Style dates">N.S 19 December15946 November Old Style and New Style dates">N.S 16 November] 1632), also known in English as G ...

, a member of the

Privy Council of Sweden The Council of the Realm, or simply The Council ( sv, Riksrådet or sv, Rådet: sometimes in la, Senatus Regni Sueciae), was a cabinet of medieval origin, consisting of magnates ( sv, stormän) which advised, and at times co-ruled with, the Ki ...

and Field Marshal during the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battl ...

. The château-style manor house was built in 1725 after drawings and designs by Baroque architect

Nicodemus Tessin the Younger Count Nicodemus Tessin the Younger (May 23, 1654 – April 10, 1728) was a Swedish Baroque architect, city planner, and administrator. The son of Nicodemus Tessin the Elder and the father of Carl Gustaf Tessin, Tessin the Younger was the middl ...

(1654–1728). Since 1939 it had been owned by the

Swedish Pentecostal movement The Swedish Pentecostal Movement ( sv, Pingströrelsen i Sverige) is a Pentecostal movement in Sweden. Many, but not all, of these, are members of the Pentecostal Alliance of Independent Churches, which was founded in 2001.William Kay, Anne Dyer ...

and is used as a training center by nearby Kaggeholm College (''Kaggeholms folkhögskola''). Today Kaggeholm is operated as a conference center managed by the Swedish property development company Sisyfosgruppen Holding.

Royal Swedish Academy volumes

The findings from the excavations at Helgö have been reported in a series of volumes published by the

Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities also called simply the Royal Academy of Letters or Vitterhetsakademin abbreviated KVHAA ( sv, Kungl. Vitterhetsakademien Historie och Antikvitets Akademien or or ) is the Swedish royal ...

, beginning with Volume 1 covering the period 1954–1956. Volume 18, the final volume in the series, was published in 2011.''Excavations at Helgö XVIII: Conclusions and New Aspects''
Royal Swedish Academy.

Images

References

External links

Kaggeholm websiteWikimapia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Helgo Archaeological sites in Sweden Islands of Mälaren Viking Age populated places Former populated places in Sweden Vendel Period