excavation at Hagbard's gallows

Project: Hagbard's gallows and the Bronze Age cultural landscape

This project will use non-destructive methods and archaeological investigations to create new knowledge about the unique monument of Hagbard's gallows in Halland. The questions we want to investigate concern the monument's dating, its relationship to the surrounding cultural landscape, and the importance of the site in Bronze Age society.

Project manager
Peter Skoglund
Participating organizations
Linnaeus University, University of Gothenburg and Lund University, Sweden; Durham University, England
Financier
Lennart J. Hägglund Foundation for Archaeological Research and Education
Timetable
1 April 2024–31 January 2025
Subject
Archeology (Department of Cultural Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Humanities)

More about the project

Hagbard's gallows is composed of two graves from the Bronze Age in Asige in Halland, South-western Sweden, that have no national parallels. What makes the graves unique is the presence of pairs of standing stones in each grave, and the large number of rock carvings found on some of the standing stones.

Although the petroglyphs have been known since 1864, no archaeological investigations have been carried out at the site. The project aims to use archaeological methods to increase our knowledge of the biography of the site and to investigate the relationships between the standing stones, the carvings, the graves, and the surrounding landscape. Preliminary results from the archaeological survey carried out in 2024 show that there were additional burials hidden underground in the vicinity of the monuments.

The project is being carried out in in close co-operation with the Asige Local History Society.