Jernaldergården Århus

Reconstructed Iron Age farm at Århus gård in Skien, with a three-aisled longhouse, forge, log boat and exhibition room.

Opening hours unknown

About the museum

In 2004 a group of pensioners took the initiative to build a period-appropriate house from the Younger Iron Age (AD 500–1050) in the farmyard at Århus gård. After around 4,500 hours of volunteer work, the longhouse was completed and inaugurated in September 2005. The house is a three-aisled post-built house measuring 12 by 5 metres, with two hearths and three smoke vents (ljorer) in the roof. Everything is built in pine and fastened together with wooden pegs, and the roof is covered with around 3,000 pine shingles.

Since then the site has acquired a forge with a turf roof and bellows, a cowshed converted into an exhibition room, a clay oven for baking bread, and a log boat (stokkebåt) that is a copy of a find from Siljan dated to AD 240. There is also a copy of the cart from the Oseberg burial and a half-size Viking ship that was completed in summer 2017. The pensioners have also taken over and repaired a copy of Norway's oldest wattle house, which was found during excavations in Skien in 1979, and they are responsible for a rock collection showing the main rock types of Grenland.

The Iron Age farm lies on Århus gård, which is owned by Telemark Landbruksselskap and has 13 registered burial mounds. The farm is only 500 metres from the Bronze Age rock carvings at Mæla. A friends' association supports the operation.

Highlights

Reconstructed Younger Iron Age longhouse, built by pensioners
Forge with turf roof, clay oven and log boat
Copy of the cart from the Oseberg burial
Exhibition room in a converted cowshed
Rock collection showing the main rock types of Grenland