Sensational discovery of a pagan house of worship in Ørsta – NRK Møre og Romsdal – Local news, TV and radio

The house of which they have found traces in Ørsta, is the so-called court of the gods. A house where people probably worship and sacrifice gods like Odin and Tor.

This is the first time concrete traces of a house like this have been found in Norway, according to the Bergen University Museum, which is leading the excavation project.

Former owners have found objects that may have been associated with pagan houses of worship, but never traces of the buildings themselves.

– It’s a fantastic discovery, says researcher and field archaeologist Søren Diinhoff of the University Museum. He is one of the Nordic countries’ leading experts on buildings from the Nordic age and is at the forefront of excavations.

Only

The excavations were carried out in an area of ​​8000 to 9000 square meters in Ose, near the center of Ørsta.

Archaeologists have made several interesting finds at Ose-marka. In the northern part, they have found an older cluster courtyard and traces of several large buildings from the late Iron Age and the Middle Ages.

But the most interesting find is the head of the god. The house was 14 meters long and seven to eight meters wide.

– It is unique in the Norwegian context. In all of Scandinavia, traces of only a handful of such buildings have been found. In fact, we had to look at it for several days before we dared to believe what we saw, says Søren Diinhoff.

But now he is sure. It’s a godsend that they have found near a camp in Sunnmøre. A house to practice religion in pre-Christian times.

The house is probably between the years 600-1000, that is, the Viking age. These houses appeared at the same time as the first vestiges of the cult of Odin, or Åsatrua. Thus, archaeologists believe that it is reasonable to believe that the head of the god has harbored this religion.

– It is an almost identical copy of some houses of worship that we know from southern Scandinavia. In Sweden and in Zealand in Denmark, says Diinhoff.

Has gone to sacrifice

Diinhoff says they believe that people gather for large religious festivals on the winter solstice and the summer solstice at Ose-marka. They then sacrificed the gods and ancestors through sacrifice, which was a Norse ritual sacrificial feast, where the blood of the sacrificed animals was likely spilled on the walls, statues of gods, and participants of the feast.

– There is talk that you can also have our human sacrifice in an even bigger temple. It is possible that it could be written from later Christian claims that those who worshiped Åsatrua were engaged in it. But the sacrifice to the gods has clearly occurred here, Diinhoff claims.

The few places where such temples have been found so far, are in farms of Viking kings or powerful chiefs.

That’s not the case in Ørsta, says Diinhoff, and says it was probably a very powerful stork that also owned this farm. According to her, Ørsta was quite densely populated at the time when the house of worship in Ose became useful.

– It was the great men who took control of religion. And here we are in a geographic center with easy access to shipping from the fjord, and Sæbø is also easy to get to by land. Here there was good topsoil with great economic production. Many people passed by and therefore here we find the head of the god with a view of the fjord. It’s a completely optimal location, he says.

Now the archaeologists will investigate more about the head of the god, so that they get closer to the answer of what year it is and what it looked like.

– This find is an important piece to understand the political and economic landscape in the Viking era, says Søren Diinhoff.