Good morning my dear followers. I hope you are doing great and had a nice week. This time, I will tell you more about our latest tour.
In total we were travelling around Denmark and Germany (again) for several reasons. Main reason: Robs inspiration for three Youtube-videos and two or three additional videos that we needed for a competition and for Robs Patreon.
Well, let’s start. Yes, we are planning on reviving our YouTube-channel, because Rob got the inspiration and I will try to edit the videos. Because he loves filming and plotting everything, but HATES editing with all of his heart. And we both think, that I would love it. So, we will see, how this will go.
In Denmark, Rob looked for several spots where we could learn about Vikings, hence the museum we visited. There we shot some scenes. Additionally, we went to two beaches, one at Kattegat, to walk around with our metal detector. Spoiler: we didn’t find anything, but we weren’t expecting anything big. What was a surprise though, was how clean the Danish beaches were. If you would go at a German beach you would find A LOT … of trash. Because somehow Germans can’t keep their shit together and use a trashcan even though it’s right next to them. However, Danish beaches are clean and we certainly were on the wrong spots for the metal detector. Still, we had fun.
Back in Germany we started two other videos.
One video was about the boarders of the Roman empire in Germany which lines up with the river rhine. First stop for that was Xanten, because I love Xanten and I know some things about it. And we were even more lucky, because just a week prior they opened a new pavilion in the park and a temporary exhibition in the main building about the Limes. The rearranged the ships in the shipbuilding tent to fit the exhibition as well. Hence, we had a lot to explore that we didn’t knew about, especially in the new pavilion. As we were visiting Xanten back in the summer we saw them building the pavilion and didn’t pay great attention to it. Who would have known that it would teach us a lot more about the Limes. What was also new to me was how much Roman stuff is still preserved around Xanten. I knew about the CUT (Colonia Ulpia Traiana, todays APX) and about the two Roman Military camps, but I didn’t know about the several training camps they had in a nearby forest. In the pavilion they had tablets to learn about technologies that were used in “hunting” archaeology, like Leidar or Aerial archaeology. They had a map of the region around Xanten to learn about Military camps, cities and temples that were built and how long the stayed. And, I liked that a lot, a little movie about a soldier guarding the Limes.
(The temporary exhibition is a cooperation of several museums in the state of Northrhine-Westphalia, including Xanten, Cologne, Bonn, Haltern am See and Detmold.)
After Xanten we went to Worms, a city that is mentioned in the famous Niebelungen saga. This saga starts in Xanten and continues down the river rhine. However, the river changed its route throughout time and there now is a statue of Hagen von Tronje in Worms throwing the Niebelungen treausure into the river, but that scene in saga happened somewhere else. The village is called Lorsch and near Lorsch there is an old Roman trading station. There we went to film our last scenes.
An excourse about the Metal detector.
In Germany you will need the permission of the state to go around with a metal detector. The are long waiting lists and most of the time the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology is a … complicated partner. Also, prepare for not being mentioned or even get a fine if you find something. And be prepared to get stared at and asked question.
In Denmark you need the permission of the Kommune you are going to and will have to pay a small fee. In general, Denmark is way more relaxed with metal detecting. No one will ask you questions, no one will stare at you, instead they are greeting you and smile. They are used to people with metal detectors. However, there are a few spots where they display warning signs about old ammunition still in the ground. Don’t go there. I have worked in archaeology in a city that was heavily bombed and were lucky to just find bomb fragments and burned out rod bombs. But we didn’t know what was expecting us and if it were duds. Respect the warning signs and you will be good.
In general, if you find something valuable or historically important, mark the spot where you found it and don’t just butcher the area. Greetings from an archaeologist. 😀
As soon as the videos will be up I will tell you about it.
Thank you for coming by again and I hope you will have a great week.
-Toni
PS: Next Thursday there will be a new short story of mine. Check out my Patreon!
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