Harald Andersen, 60 years

Abstract

PAPER DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION OF THE AWARD OF THE WORSAAE MEDAL.

The annual general meeting of the Society in 1956 voted for the institution of a gold medal, the Worsaae Medal, for meritorious archaeological work. It carries on the obverse Worsaae 's portrait and the inscription "For Nordens Oldtid", as suggested by Johannes Brøndsted.

This mark of distinction was awarded for the first time in 1957, to Erik Vesterby for his pioneer work on the Mesolithic, and again in 1961 to Professor Mårten Steenberger, Uppsala, for his work in Nordic archaeology and for his efforts over the years at the Valhagar excavations on Gotland to establish collaboration between Scandinavian archaeologists.

The executive committee of Jysk Arkæologisk Selskab has decided to award the third Worsaae Medal in celebration of its 25th anniversary, and is unanimous in nominating Harald Andersen as the worthy recipient. The Society thanks the Ministry of Culture for the means to mint the medal and for the concomitant grant.

Harald Andersen -Uncle Anders to friends- needs no presentation. His great work as founder and editor of "Skalk" is known and appreciated throughout Scandinavia. Through "Skalk"s five million copies, archaeology, ethnology and history now speak to all, because Harald Andersen has given them a voice.

But Harald Andersen has a distinguished record as excavator and shrewd observer.

At his home near the Tystrup-Bavelse lakes in central Zealand Harald Andersen excavated in his youth the Kællerød dolmen and found a trephined Stone Age man. In Therkel Mathiassen's investigations in Åmosen and on the Gudenå in the war years he also played an important part. I myself have to thank him for two years' collaboration in the excavation at Slots-Bjærgby, where he among other things constructed a scaffold from which it was possible to photograph a section of the great mound by means of fifty exposures, which had to be and were combined to form one. Neither should valuable contribution in the sheikhdoms of the Arabian Gulf be overlooked.

It was Harald Andersen who carried one of the heaviest burdens when our first yearbook was to be published, and it was naturally he who found the right name: Kuml. In Kuml he published three notable papers:

1. The fifth great bog find. The Illerup find, an exemplary excavation, where he recovered a segment of the weapon deposit and a horse sacrifice as a preparation, both exhibited at Forhistorisk Museum.
2. A village house on Gørding Hede. The first demonstration of an early Iron Age "span-house".
3. Empty mounds. In which with starting point in the southern Jelling mound and the Slots-Bjærgby mounds he interprets a number of Scandinavian giant tumuli without chambers, a paper which caused a stir in Sweden and Norway, which have several mounds of the same type.

Harald Andersen's excavation of a devastated mound at Esbjerg in 1949 is also noteworthy; he demonstrated five different stages in its history, published in Kuml 2 "Five stages in the history of a burial mound". There he excavated a child 's grave, the only one preserved of the many thousands of Battle Axe graves which may now be seen at Esbjerg Museum.

Several of Harald Andersen's papers in Kuml and numerous in Skalk could be mentioned, all showing his work "For Nordens Oldtid", but I will conclude with his own modest words in Kuml 2.

"The Esbjerg find does not belong to those finds which revolutionize archaeology. It is in no way epoch-making, but it adds many bricks to the edifice. For we have to think of archaeology as a great, unfinished building -a skyscraper of a hundred stories the first of which is not yet completed".

Harald Andersen has helped to add to the height of the building and is thus a worthy recipient of the Worsaae Medal.

P. V. Glob