Thursday 17 July 2008

Day off

Yesterday I took a day off with my wife for a day trip with boat to the island of Björkö (Birch Island) and Birka. It's believed that during the middle of the 8th century it was earliest urban settlements in Scandinavia, Birka was the Baltic link in the river and portage route to the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid Califate. Birka was also important as the site of the first known Christian congregation in Sweden, founded in 831 by Saint Ansgar. Based on the coin finds, the city seems to have silenced around 960. And no, no, no! The Vikings did *not* have helmets with horns. Blame Richard Wagner or some other 19th century guy for that!

We had luck with the weather and besides eating sandwiches and drinking coffe I was most interested in the re-creation of a small village. Of course it made me think of the toolset, texturing and placing of objects :)



3 comments:

Jclef said...

Awesome pictures, Amraphael, and thanks for the short history lesson - very interesting!

Amraphael said...

Thanks,
it was a very cool trip that I always wanted to do since I read about it in school.

Elw00d said...

Yeah. Great photos!