An Outing to Uppsala
I’m spending a a week in Stockholm, and today I made a day trip out to Gamla Uppsala, which I hadn’t visited since 1987. While the somewhat murky Blackberry photo shows a quiet scene, it’s actually a fairly busy place, with people coming and going and the air ringing with the chatter of birds, tourists and schoolchildren.
The sixth-century mounds are indeed monumental in size, rising from rich agricultural land that must have helped Uppsala become the power base and population center it was by the third century.
At the entrance to the mounds is a round museum building reminiscent of a yurt or a muffin. The locals objected when it was built, saying it looked like a spaceship had landed, but once you are inside the design seems absolutely right: one wall of the museum is made of glass, providing a remarkable view of the mounds that is echoed by the round interior space.
I was slightly alarmed to find that I didn’t really know how to respond to this place. There were so many fences and trails and signs in the visible landscape and such a jumble of fragments from Adam of Bremen and Ynglinga Saga floating around in my head that a pure emotional, aesthetic or spiritual response was simply out of the question. However I felt better after seeing a museum exhibit showing how the site had been used over the centuries as a backdrop for all sorts of political and romantic statements, from Gustav Vasa to Rudbeck to Bernadotte, from students drinking horns of mead to Pope John Paul holding mass there in 1989. (There was no mention of the return of practicing Heathens to the site.) Nearly every illustration showed the mounds absolutely crawling with people, all watching some sort of spectacle and with no idea what the hills they were standing on represented or contained. And indeed very little seems to be known about their contents, even to this day. For me this place remains even more of a mystery than it was before.
Marion on 18 Sep 2008 at 11:06 am #
I was there in … 1975? It was almost deserted then. I remember the bus from the city going past fields of yellow crops, then the mounds hove into view. I got off, looked briefly at the church, and poked around looking for where the oak tree had been
There were paths worn over the mounds, as there still are, but I don’t remember anyone else walking on them. So I walked reverently up and down. Somewhere I may still have a couple of photos, but they will look just like the official ones–just the mounds and the church.
Volker on 19 Sep 2008 at 2:45 am #
I was there in the mid-90s on an early, foggy autumn morning. Only a few joggers and a woman with her dog out there. All was quiet and I could relate very well to the place. I came back that same day in the afternoon and there were tourists all over and the “spirit” of the place had changed. Lesson learned: Visit such places at times when most other people are still (or already) in their beds. .)
Calle Rehbinder on 08 Oct 2008 at 4:05 am #
Hi!
Thanks for your visit. It is interesting to read your comments about old Uppsala. I can get similar mixed feelings about the place. About our blot ceremonies, we started them on easter 2000, so don’t expect a museum to be so update so they will mention our activities there, even if we have had the ceremonies 9 years now. 9 years is nothing from a historical (museum) perspective…
Future will bear witness.
Hope to see you again sometime!