Ancient history on my doorstep

Today on my way home from work I turned right on Vrinnevigatan just before the roundabout at Mirum, the shopping mall near the school where I teach in Hageby, South of Norrköping, following a sign that says "Hällristningar 300m" "Carvings 300m."

I drove by four or five large blocks of flats and then saw an area of open ground with trees and "berg," the smooth granite rock outcroppings that characterize the landscape all over this part of Sweden.  I parked my car and walked up onto the rocks towards a sign that says "Egna Hem Hällristningar" and looked down to see the whole surface of the rocks covered in ancient carvings that have been painted red to make them more easy to see.

The carvings depict boats, footprints, human figures, round symbols, dots and animals including a large and intricately decorated one that has been interpreted as a horse. They date from the bronze age, between 1700 to 500 BCE, a time when Norrköping was an important population center and the sea level was higher than today, meaning much of the farmland surrounding the current city was then underwater.

I started to research the bronze age rock carvings of the Norrköping area and found it is the city with the most rock carvings within its city limits in the world!

These ones in Hageby are but a few of the approximately 7000 known carvings in the Norrköping area.  There are probably many more that will never be discovered.  Vrinnevigatan, where these rock carvings are located is named for Vrinr, or Vrinda, the ancient Norse earth goddess, Mother Earth, Moder Jord, whose altar is thought to have been located in the nearby Vrinneviskogen, Vrinnevi forest.  The local hospital is called Vrinnevisjukhuset.  I have just downloaded an academic article on Swedish place names as a source of local history.  Wow! This is just the beginning, ancient history literally on my doorstep!