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What is the Jelling Project?
The Jelling Project is a research and publicity project, which has the unique monuments at Jelling as its starting point.
At Jelling in one place is a complex, with individual parts which mark both the transition from paganism to Christianity and the establishment of Danish royal power in the Viking Age.
160 m of ”the east palisade”On October 18 the archaeologists again started work north-east of Jelling Church. In the first days of the week around 160 m of the foundation trench was uncovered of the huge palisade. | |
The two mounds at Jelling are an important source of information about the landscape of the Viking Age. Even in the 1940s their massive build-up of turfs was so well preserved that the turf layers could be removed and individual turfs taken out. Read more about the fieldwork. Taking the Jelling monuments as its starting point, the Jelling Project aims to focus upon Danish society and its cultural connections with the outside world in the Viking Age and early medieval period.
The Jelling complex is a striking testament to the integration of Scandinavia into the European Christian cultural community and the establishment of the kingdom of Denmark. It above all marks the transition from paganism to Christianity in the Viking Age and Harald Bluetooth’s rune stone has therefore been called “Denmark's certificate of baptism”. At the same time the complex also constitutes a monument to a dynasty whose later generations would strongly assert their influence both in Denmark and abroad.
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