Avaldsnes

Avaldsnes on Karmøy ( Rogaland county) in Norway is known as an old Norwegian chieftain seat and the first Norwegian royal court. In the 19th century Avaldsnes was an independent municipality. Today, the site is part of the municipality Karmøy, the Karmsundbrücke located just south.

History

The place should be named after the legendary King Augvald, who had his small kingdom on Karmsund. After the Battle of Hafrsfjord 872 Harald Fairhair put his court in Avaldsnes and thus founded the first royal residence in Norway. Ship traffic through the Karmsund with its narrowness next Avaldsnes were the source of wealth and power in the region.

Olav's Church

The saga tells that Olav Tryggvason was built in Avaldsnes church as a court chapel. Presumably, this church was a small stave church. The royal court fell into disuse, and the most important landmark was the left today are the stone church of Avaldsnes, which made Håkon Håkonsson 1250 build. The pre-Romanesque Church is the largest stone church of the Middle Ages in Norway and had the status of a royal collegiate. It was dedicated to St. Olav. The church was an important stop on the pilgrimage route to Nidaros (now Trondheim ) along the coast. On the north side of the church is the needle of Mary ( Mary norw Jomfru Synal ), a 7.2 meter high monolith, the highest ever. The stone is inclined to the church wall, without touching it. According to legend, the world shall perish if the " needle " touches the church wall. Aware, the parish priest should have knocked off a piece of the stone when it came too close to the church wall.

Archaeological finds

In the area around Avaldsnes extensive archaeological excavations were made. About 1 km west of the Church of the ridge Reheia is (also Rehaugane ) with the only Bronze Age grave Norwegian hills, which are arranged in series ( finds of this kind have been done otherwise only in southern Sweden and Denmark). Several graves were opened and gave rich finds from the Late Bronze Age free.

On Karmsund, a few kilometers north of the town church is Storhaug, a large grave hill with over 40 meters in diameter, which was typological and radiologically dated to the 8th century AD. A ship burial were found in him. The Fund is the oldest ship grave in the Nordic countries. The dating of the ship's tomb of Storhaug gave rise to wide-ranging speculations. The earliest Norwegian kings of the font tradition are thus handed down from the western part of the country of Norway. Thus, the cradle of the Norwegian kingdom was probably in the west and not, as claimed by the Saga - writers, to the east of the country.

Grønhaug was another ship grave. It lies about a kilometer north of the church at a school ( Bø ). This grave mound was investigated in 1902 by Haakon Shetelig and contained an approximately 15 -meter-long boat with remains of a man's grave from the 10th century.

Just north of the church, the outlines of another grave mound draw from, the Flagghaug was called. The grave mound originally had a diameter of 43 meters and was about 5 feet tall, but was found during the excavations that were conducted in 1835 by the parish priest Lydians Brun, removed. It turned out that the hill contained the richest grave ever found in Norway from the Roman period. The find consisted of, among other things, a neck ring of about 600 g of pure gold, weapons, Gurtbeschläge and various Roman vessels of silver and bronze.

Local History 1837-1965

1837 was " Avaldsnes formannskapsdistrikt " established as a county. From it went forth in 1866 the independent Avaldsnes Commune, which until 1965 had stock. On August 16, 1866 Kopervik was spun off as a separate municipality from the municipality. Avaldsnes had 4735 inhabitants at this time. On January 1, 1909 Stang Aland ( Kopervik ) was spun. The population was then 3213th

On January 1, 1965, the municipality Avaldsnes was divided and shared between the municipalities and Karmøy Tysvær. It was a part of the Avaldsnes municipality with 4153 inhabitants with the municipalities Kopervik, Skudenes, Skudeneshavn Torvastad and Åkra to Karmøy commune. The other part consisting of Førre, Gismarvik and Stegaberg with a population of 994 persons were allocated to the commune Tysvær.

Attractions

Under the Karmsundbrücke in Nordheim on the mainland are " the five foolish virgins " a group of standing stones.