Rakni’s Mound and its Surrounding Cultural Landscape

The area around Rakni’s Mound is now cultivated. The prehistoric cultural landscape looked very different from todays, with large areas given overt to burials on each side of Rakni’s Mound.

Map of the cultural landscape around Rakni’s Mound. Click the picture for a larger version.

Ljoðgata – Main Road, Church Road and Pilgrims Way
The farm, Ljøgot, is named after Ljoðgata, which means main track. Archaeological finds prove that the area around the Rakni Mound and the plains by Hovin School were a central juncture point for traffic in periods of the Iron Age and the Middle Ages. The road to Nannestad and the main track from the Oslo Fjord to the lake Mjøsa passed the area. Several of the old paths are still clearly visible as sunken roads in the landscape. The Pilgrims Way to Nidaros passed the area in the Middle Ages. The Pilgrims Way was a network of roads which connected Rome in the South, Santiago de Campostella in the West and Jerusalem in the East.
The Farmstead’s Locations Change

Both Ljøgot and Haug are known from medieval sources. The farms are older, but the locations of the farmsteads have changed several times. Excavations have revealed older traces of settlements on the height north of Ljøgot and in the vicinity of Rakni’s Mound. The farmstead at Haug has in some periods been situated further north. It was moved closer to Rakni’s Mound, a location which gave the farm its name; Haug meaning Mound.

A Landscape of Death
The mounds were frequent on the plains by Rakni’s Mound until the beginning of the 20th century. Aerial photographs display the contours of more than thirty mounds which now have been destroyed and barely recognisable. There have, most probably, been burials along the road all the way up to Hertelshaugen by Hovin School. Several mounds have been investigated. Most of them are simple, cremation burials with few artefact finds. Others contained jewels and weapons. The burials are dated to a period stretching from the 7th century and into the Viking Age. The finds, the burials and the location of three burials in the trench around Rakni’s Mound prove that these mounds are younger, and that they have been placed next to Rakni’s Mound after it was constructed.

Burials from the Iron Age were often placed close to the farmstead. New burial fields were established at Ljøgot, Haug and Hovin in the century prior to the Viking Age. These mounds could perhaps be linked to the new locations of these farms.

Aerial Photography Reveals Hidden Cultural Monuments
Aerial Photography is one method which is used to detect cultural monuments in cultivated areas. Embedments in the subsoil, like trenches around barrows, cooking pits and pole holes from prehistoric buildings, display themselves as variations in the vegetation. These vegetative traces are more visible in dry periods. The picture was taken in the summer of 1993, under conditions which were particularly good for aerial photography. A number of cultural monuments clearly stood out in the fields between Rakni’s Mound and the houses at Ljøgot.

Aerial photography of Ljøgot. The photo reveals traces of Iron Age settlement in the fields surrounding Rakni’s Mound. Photo: D. Skre.