Archaeological investigations in Bergen 1980–1986: Some new aspects on the development of the town

The last six years' emergency excavations in Bergen, by pure chance covering the major part of the medieval town, have provided new information on several issues concerning the town's earliest development and structure, enabling us to sketch a development of the two somewhat different from previous suggestions. The original shoreline appears to have left rather less building land than expected, and the evidence for originally two separate centres is strong. A particularly rapid growth in the south suggests this as the major harbour in the town's earliest phase. The settlement expansion in the twelfth century resulted in the gradual merging of the two centres into one town, completed with the rebuilding after the 1248 fire providing an apparently continuous waterfront along the eastern shore of Vågen.     

Life and Art in the Countryside: Happiness and/or Roman Virtue?

While the poets of the Augustan age described herdsmen and farmers indulging in fluteplaying, singing and lovemaking, paintings from the same period give a different picture. When the inhabitants of the so-called sacred landscapes are not working, they are worshipping in rustic sanctuaries. This is characterstic of many Roman representations of country life down to late Antiquity. Though they may occasionally play a tune to their animals, the inhabitants of the countryside are mostly seen engaged in serious work. Theirs is not the joy of a careless existence, but rather the quiet happiness of those who have fulfilled their duties and respected the mos maiorum.