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Vitlycke rock carving: Photo: Lisa Nestorson

Vitlycke Museum and Rock Carvings

The rock carvings in Tanumshede are on the Unesco´s list of World Heritages. These magnificent pictures, some carved 3000 years ago, bear a unique testimony to the Bronze Age world. Not only do they make vivid this lost and distant time to us, but these powerful images also have the ability to speak directly to the modern onlooker.

On the Tanum plains, about 30 km south of Strömstad in northern Bohuslän is the Vitlycke Museum, which features extensive information on the unique rock carvings in the area, since 1994 included Unesco’s World Heritage List. It also features exhibits, reconstructed Bronze Age buildings, slide shows, a shop, cafe and restaurant, as well as archives and databases which visitors are welcome to investigate.

Exhibits

The museum is now showing ”The Gods and the Rock”, an exhibit about the gods of the Bronze Age, and the religious beliefs that 3,000 years ago gave rise to the rock carvings still visible today. The exciting computer animation ”And where was the sea” re-creates and illustrates how the land has risen over the millennia, to give us an idea of the landscape at the time of the Bronze Age people. Life on the Bronze Age Farm, located adjacent to the museum, shows how people managed their day-to-day activities during that time, for instance how they cooked, cast bronze and made pottery. The buildings are full-scale reproductions from the early and late Bronze Age.
 
In addition to the museum, the World Heritage Site at Tanum features four magnificent rock panels covered with carvings. The largest and most famous of these is the Vitlycke panel, located inside the museum area, into which thousands of symbols and images have been carved.

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