A testicle dagger, a mode of knife named after the phallic form of the hilt, relationship the mid-1400s has been found at Gullberg Fortress in Gothenburg, southwestern Sweden. The dagger has an iron blade and a wooden deal with product of curly birch embellished with circles. It was discovered damaged — the tip of the blade is gone, and the sting extensively chipped — and in the identical excavation layer as crossbow bolts, indicating that it was utilized in battle circumstances.
The hill overlooking the mouth of the Göta River had a fortress as early because the 14th century. For hundreds of years the situation was Sweden’s solely direct outlet to the North Sea as the remainder of the west coast belonged to Denmark-Norway, so it was of nice strategic significance. The trendy metropolis of Gothenburg was based in 1621, however when the fort was constructed, it protected its predecessor metropolis, Lödöse, a Viking settlement that grew into a significant commerce middle by the thirteenth century.
Gullberg was attacked early and sometimes, and there’s proof of a number of phases of destruction and reconstruction between the 14th and the seventeenth centuries. It was destroyed for good by Danish troops in 1612. An eyewitness, Cecilia Krakow, who was simply 10 years previous and lived on the fortress together with her mom Emerentia Pauli, described the Danish assault thus:
“Ultimately, 25 or 30 of the Danes entered our cottage, the place we youngsters have been, and the maid was baking. They sat down across the desk and benches and demanded meals, for they have been drained
and hungry, having gone two days with out consuming. The maid gave them some truffles. They ate and dried themselves, pondering that the others would certainly deal with issues nicely on the fortress.
However God, and my blessed mom, together with the troopers’ wives, dragged out barrels and tubs and no matter else they might discover, to throw and pull into the passage in order that no extra of them may enter the courtyard.”
The small stone tower, dubbed the Scounce of the Lion, standing on the hilltop immediately was constructed within the 1680s. The fortress website was excavated between 2014 and 2023 as a part of a railway building challenge. Not surprisingly, the oldest artifacts discovered within the excavation have been weapons, together with crossbow bolts and arrowheads. Later weaponry unearthed at Gullberg Balls embrace lead balls for mild cannons and pistols. The cannon balls have been made within the fortress and a few of them have been fired.
Archaeologists uncovered the stays of a cellar and staircase from a sixteenth century tower. The partitions have been an astonishing 13 toes large. Artifacts discovered within the cellar embrace beer barrel faucets, a sand sprinkler for absorbing extra ink and a sundial. The sundial is a very notable discover as a result of it’s an engraved slab of limestone and whereas its pointer is lacking, the remainder of it’s intact.
A number of the artifacts present in almost a decade of excavations at the moment are on show on the Historic Museum in Stockholm in its Present Archaeology exhibition which runs by January 2026.
