Toponyms describe Scandinavia of the Iron and Viking Ages

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Every now and then, researchers are lucky enough to experience a Eureka moment — when a series of facts suddenly crystallize into a an entirely new pattern. That’s exactly what happened to Birgit Maixner from the NTNU University Museum when she began looking at artefacts and place names.

Linguists believe that place names ending in -heim or -hem are among the oldest in Scandinavia, and are primarily dated to the Roman Iron Age (ca. 0 AD to 400 AD) and the Migration Period (ca. 400-550 AD).

Researchers have known that the name Sæheimr has been linked to centres of power. The sagas tell of two Norwegian royal manors named Sæheimr. One was in Alver in western Norway – at the place today known as Seim – and the other in Sem in Tønsberg, in eastern Norway.

“Still, no one had done a more detailed survey of the places with names derived from Sæheimr to see if the name had a meaning beyond geography”, Maixner explains.

To test her theory, Maixner assembled Sæheimr variants from all over Scandinavia. She found 54 names in total – from Ribe in southern Denmark to Grong in central Norway. The name was most prevalent in Norway, and all the names – except one – are in use today. Maixner then checked to see if there were archaeological records from these places.

“I discovered that many Sæheimr sites were located near well-known pivotal locations from the Iron Age, or centres with political, administrative and religious functions,” Maixner said.