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Martin Rundkvist's blog. Archaeology, skepticism, Sweden. And books and music and stuff.
Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, and father of two.
September 28, 2011
Category: Archaeology
Norse mythology offers two immediate interpretations: either a god wearing Freya's magic falcon cloak, or Wayland the Smith wearing the feathered cloak he made to escape from his captivity with King Niðhad.
Posted by Martin R at 2:34 PM • 45 Comments •
September 26, 2011
Category: Blogging
Those free Nigerian scam t-shirts never materialised, but still, the affair prompted me to get some excellent merch art made and set up a web shop. A good thing about this is that now I can offer all three...
Posted by Martin R at 3:18 PM • 6 Comments •
September 24, 2011
Category: Books
I visited the Gothenburg Book Fair for the first time because of my new book. The Academy of Letters needed people to put on the Researcher's Square stage, and conveniently one of their staff had just published a book...
Posted by Martin R at 4:15 PM • 13 Comments •
September 21, 2011
Category: Archaeology
You can't just leave a site to its own devices: pretty soon it will become so overgrown that it is unrecognisable and thus neither accessible nor likely to be understood as valuable.
Posted by Martin R at 9:56 AM • 9 Comments •
September 20, 2011
Category: Archaeology
The skulls have been treated in a complex ceremony that involved the display of skulls on stakes and the deposition of skulls in water.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 16 Comments •
September 19, 2011
Category: Children
Bamse magazine is one of Sweden's most beloved childrens' publications, with a readership mainly about age 10. Its title character's name does mean "The Big One". But still, I must say that I was as surprised as Bamse himself...
Posted by Martin R at 9:23 AM • 2 Comments •
September 16, 2011
Category: Archaeology
Here's a quick look at the most recent windfall of popular archaeomags that has reached my big black mailbox.
Posted by Martin R at 4:32 PM • 8 Comments •
September 13, 2011
Category: Biology
Came across this viper on a bike path one evening in July.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 12 Comments •
September 12, 2011
Category: Tech
The rear undercarriage sits in bulky pods on the fuselage, right below the wings. Makes the plane look like it's got a beer gut.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 2 Comments •
September 11, 2011
Category: China
My wife just returned from Beijing where she's been collecting interviews for a TV project. And I find that her beauty is not luxurious imagination....
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 4 Comments •
September 10, 2011
Category: Language
Dear Reader, please try saying "ENSKTBLEH". Yes, six consonants in a row. ENSKTBLEH. OK? Now sing it, loudly and happily. Go! I've spent three happy days at the first ever Picture Stone Symposium in Visby, listening to papers, moderating some...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 8 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
Those who want hard copy or are unwilling to wait six months for the free PDF can now order my Mead-halls book on-line for SEK 180 / U$D 27 / €20 / £17 plus postage....
Posted by Martin R at 4:15 AM • 0 Comments •
September 9, 2011
Category: Language
When annoyed, my dad (born in '43) will sometimes use a pretty awesome expletive that has largely fallen out of fashion. Men då får han väl se till och ordna det då, för höge farao! "So he'd better make sure...
Posted by Martin R at 2:45 PM • 14 Comments •
September 7, 2011
Dear Reader, help me interpret this odd situation. It's 5:40 in the morning. I'm on my way to the commuter train. Passing the vacant lot of the closed school that burned in '06, I first see a van that stands...
Posted by Martin R at 8:18 AM • 9 Comments •
September 6, 2011
Category: Archaeology
This book aims at beginning to remedy the regional absence of mead-halls, being an investigation of the internal political geography of Östergötland during the period AD 375-1000.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 23 Comments •
September 5, 2011
Category: Archaeology
The paper is a mess and shouldn't have been accepted. Tellingly, the topic is archaeology and quaternary geology, while none of the authors is an archaeologist and the journal is about geography.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 7 Comments •
September 2, 2011
Category: NOIBN
The t-shirt deal is starting to look like a Nigerian scam. The original offer was that I would get some free printed t-shirts from Ooshirts.com if I advertised about their site. Now have a load of this:Do you have an...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 10 Comments •
September 1, 2011
Category: Archaeology
Scandinavian Bronze Age art features a number of motifs having to do with the movement of the sun through the heavens during the day and the underworld during the night.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 7 Comments •
