Content:
The Viking Age fortress, Nonnebakken, lies beneath Odense in central Denmark and has, since the beginning of the 19th century, been gradually obscured by, and integrated into, the modern city. A series of targeted research excavations have shown that much of the fortress is preserved beneath the city but this, and the fortress’ status as a protected historical monument, has meant that any archaeological excavations can only offer glimpses into the past.
A borehole survey and other non-destructive investigations have been carried out over recent years in order to gain a greater overview of the fortress and its cultural-historical and landscape context. Here we present a landscape reconstruction based on borehole data that aims to place the fortress within its Viking Age landscape and which would be otherwise difficult to determine beneath a large city. The borehole data additionally provides significant new knowledge about the fortress’ construction and preservation.
The landscape reconstruction data collates all available data from previous excavations, geotechnical drilling, non-destructive surveys, historical maps, etc. together with a targeted new borehole survey. The new survey aimed to fill any data gaps by coring in private gardens, roadsides, riverside areas etc. and gave borehole data from 40 new positions in and around the fortress. The landscape reconstruction was achieved by modeling the collated data and reveals the Viking Age terrain of the site selected for the fortress and its immediate environment.
The landscape context of the Viking Age fortress has since been combined with new analyzes of the potential navigability to the fortress along with models of the preservation and extent of the nearby city's cultural layers in the Viking Age and the Middle Ages.
Keywords:
Fortress, Viking Age, Drilling, Landscape