Recording of the find objects from the Viking Age emporium Hedeby

• Applicant: Dr. Joachim Hartmut Schultze
• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 550074338

The aim of the project is to record the more than one million artefacts from the Viking Age emporium of Hedeby, the embodiment of the earliest town in Northern Europe, which were recovered in the course of over 100 years of research. The artefacts from the numerous excavations - largely financed by the DFG - have been conserved at the Museum für Archäologie Schloss Gottorf, where they are archived and represent an important collection that is made available to national and international scientists for research purposes. The establishment of the consortium "Hedeby, Slesvig and beyond" in 2021 means a new start for intensified archaeological research at the Hedeby emporium with a fresh look at the old excavations, finds and features. While the previous research, especially in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, focused on the analysis of individual object groups and results were only published in summary form, but not in differentiated find catalogues, future research will focus on the analysis of several material groups simultaneously according to overarching factors (especially location). Only by recognizing find ensembles and a synopsis with the building features will it be possible, for example, to pursue questions about the socio-economic structure within the early city or to develop a more extensive object chronology. An absolute prerequisite for this is to obtain an overview of the existing find material and to be able to address it. For this reason, the find material from Hedeby is to be recorded in its entirety and not just limited to the registration of individual material or object groups. Up to now, only selected artefacts from Hedeby have been published in print and no artefacts from Hedeby have been published online. The recording of the finds envisaged in the project, enables - beyond the use for scientific and exhibition purposes - the access to the artefacts (storage location management), the long-term preservation of the object data and the permanent monitoring of the finds. The recorded data sets are to be published, for example, on the websites of the Museum für Archäologie Schloss Gottorf, the consortium "Hedeby, Slesvig and beyond" and on national (DDB) and international (Europeana) portals. Due to the quantity of objects, the objects will not be digitized, i.e. photos of the objects will not be taken. The photographic digitisation of objects will take place at a later stage during the scientific processing of the selected objects.

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)
• Participating Institution: digiCULT-Verbund eG