The archaeological site ”the Bulwark” (Bulverket), is a classical problem in the Baltic Sea Region. The construction built in the 1130s, was a gigantic urban like wooden plattform with a lot af different buildings, situated in the middle of a lake on Gotland in the Baltic Sea and therefore also in the middle of the Nordic politics. The mystery regarding why it was built is not yet solved.
It has often been referenced to regarding building development within archaeology, history, architecture and ethnology. Still, more than 100 years of research and several published hypotheses of the purpose and use of it, the building material has not been analyzed thoroughly.
The project, with theoretical and methodological background in building archaeology and craft science, will systematically and technically analyze the building parts with a deepgoing and multidisciplinary approach.
Through the different house constructions that are uniquely preserved in the sediments of the lake, normally not possible to study from land sites, the study aims to study the local building development in detail, by looking at building tradition versus different sociopolitical influences around the Baltic Sea Region.
The project will fill knowledge gaps about detailed development in early medieval wood building culture on Gotland, connected to the society around the Baltic Sea Region.