Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Hellevardene
Photo Andrva · CC BY-SA 3.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
Hellevardene are two varder (marker cairns) on a mountain top on Helgøya, 50 m above sea level, in the outer harbour of Ny-Hellesund in Søgne municipality, Vest-Agder, Norway. They were set up as a mark to show seafarers where Ny-Hellesund is to be found.
The present pair are post-war concrete replacements for older varder that were destroyed in the Second World War.
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Article
Hellevardene
Peder Claussøn Friis mentioned the varder in 1613 in his description of Norway and the surrounding islands, and reported that according to tradition they had been built by St Olav.
HistorySources for this section
- Wikipedia (Norwegian): HellevardeneCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Norwegian): HellevardeneCC BY-SA 4.0
Peder Claussøn Friis mentioned the varder in 1613 in his description of Norway and the surrounding islands, and reported that according to tradition they had been built by St Olav. This shows that the varder were already old in Friis's time. He further wrote that the varder were 12 alen high and that a compass had been cut into the rock.
The compass rose and the original varder survived until the Second World War, when the varder were blasted away during work on the German fort and the top of Helgøya was raised by a few metres.
Later historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (Norwegian): HellevardeneCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Norwegian): HellevardeneCC BY-SA 4.0
After the war two new varder were erected. They are of concrete, hollow, smaller than the old ones, and whitewashed. Hellevardene was the motif of the coat of arms of Søgne municipality.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Norwegian burial mounds of the Iron and Viking Ages
Many of Norway's mounds belong to the Iron Age and the Viking Age, when the dead of the powerful were laid beneath mounds. In Old Norse a burial mound is haugr, and many farm names come from it. The large mounds of Vestfold, on the western shore of the Oslo Fjord, include Borre, Gokstad and Oseberg. The Borre mound cemetery, in Borre National Park, has seven large mounds and 21 smaller ones, some more than 45 metres across and up to 6 metres high. Excavations in the 1980s showed that the oldest date from about 600 CE, before the Viking Age, and the site is evidence of a local centre of power from the Merovingian period to the Viking Age.
Ships were buried in several of these mounds. The Gokstad mound in Sandefjord, whose name Kongshaugen means "the king's mound", was opened in 1880 and held a ninth-century longship, the largest preserved Viking ship in Norway. The name had long been dismissed as folklore, but the legends led the owner's sons to dig. The mound had been reduced by ploughing to 5 metres in height, and its measured size was 50 by 43 metres. The Oseberg mound near Tønsberg, also in Vestfold, held another well-preserved ship. At Gokstad the other grave goods were probably plundered in ancient times, and no gold or silver was found.
Not all Norwegian mounds are Viking; many are older. Dating combines typology and radiocarbon dating, and for ship burials the tree rings in the timber.
When visiting, look for a mound beside an old farm, for stone kerbs, and for a flat, ploughed-down top.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Borre mound cemetery, Wikipedia: Gokstad ship, Wikipedia: Oseberg ship, Wikipedia: Viking Age, Wikipedia: Burial mound · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1613
Peder Claussøn Friis nevner vardene i 1613 i Norriges og Omliggende Øers sandfærdige Bescriffuelse og forteller der at de ifølge tradisjonen var bygd av St.Olav.
Source
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Photographs
1 photograph, each with its author and licence
Where it stands
Norway
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 58°02′59″ N, 7°50′51″ EFor a GPS or map app: 58.04972, 7.84750
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
- Stone row (alignment)Skillsteinene
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Kalvehagneset
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Hove
- MegalithRunenstein von Møgedal
Kirkegaarden3500–500 BCE
Fyrest Grund3500–500 BCE- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Hjertebjerg Høj3500–500 BCE
Stoplesteinan4000–1200 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
1 source behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q12715403wikidata.org
Image files
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Hellevardene" (Norwegian), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (Norwegian): HellevardeneCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q12715403CC0