CHAPTER EIGHT ( 9 )

VIKING AGE UPPÅKRA AND LUND

Birgitta Hårdh

T

he Iron Age centre Uppåkra is situated on a pronounced height, dominating the
plain of Lund. Uppåkra belongs to the group of south Scandinavian central places
which have been recorded during the past decades, mainly in Denmark. The central
places are defined as multi-functional, regional centres with a long continuity. The finds
from Uppåkra show that the site kept the function of a central place during the entire
first millennium. With the vast extent of the cultural layer and the distribution of finds,
it is, at 40 ha, also the largest Iron Age settlement known from south Scandinavia, and
cultural layers measuring up to 2 m thickness have been recorded (Hårdh 2000 ; Larsson
2001 a).
Uppåkra is situated 4 km south of the medieval city of Lund and for a long time there
were speculations whether Uppåkra was a predecessor of Lund. Archaeologically it has
been stated that the beginning of Lund is about ad 990. The first time that the name
of Uppåkra appears is in a written document, a donation charter issued by King Cnut the
Holy from 1085.
When the new investigations started in Uppåkra in 1996 hardly anything was
known of a Viking Age settlement at the site. A number of field names containing
the word toft, known from cadastral maps from the eighteenth century, were possible
indications of a Viking Age settlement. Unfortunately agriculture has destroyed most
structures from the Merovingian, Viking Age and later periods. The thick cultural
layers derive mainly from the early Iron Age. However, two sunken-featured buildings,
one with a complete oval brooch in Borre style, and remains of a longhouse, have been
recorded.
In 1997 there was an opportunity to conduct a small excavation under the sanctuary
in the present church, built in the 1860 s. Foundations from the Romanesque medieval
church under the present church were traced and beneath them, in a layer with occa-
sional fragments of ceramic of Viking Age type, a skeleton in a stretched position with
an east–west orientation was found. This could indicate an interment of Christian type
before the medieval period. It is plausible to consider the possibility of a church older
than the medieval one on the site. Not far from the present church a big encolpion,
probably made in Germany around 1000 , has been found (Staecker 1999 ). It could have
belonged to a late Viking Age church.