Yesterday I wrote a long post about my mother’s uncle, Olaf A. Digre. If you want to read it, you can find the post here. Among other things, he worked as a priest, archaeologist, safety inspector and he was in charge of all historical coins at the museum in Trondheim. He also did a lot of research on his leisure.

Among other things, he worked at Tautra where he mapped the medieval monastery. At Tautra he also took care of the botany that the monks had once brought to the island. There were roses and herbs and other interesting flowers. I am not quite sure if he did any excavations at Tautra, but I know he has handed in objects to the museum which had been found there. Like for example this key.

This key was found in a field some 100 meters form the monastery ruins at Tautra. It has been dated to the Medieval period. By the description text, it seems like this key was found by the land owner and some years later given to Olaf, who then gave it to the museum.

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Olaf also brought in a key found during clean-up at the grave yard of Nidaros Cathedral. It was an iron key from the Middle Ages, found in the southeast corner of the grave yard, just inside the old bastion that lies there.

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During excavations in the center of Trondheim, he found many interesting things. I can’t show you everything of course, but I can show you some of them. While digging a ditch in Dronningens gate 5, they found evidence of some of the medieval roads while digging, and Olav writes:

During this excavation paving of both stones and rolling stones appeared, which suggesting that the medieval street course (“Langstræti”) at this place has withdrawn approximately 6 m west of Apotekerveiten, and has hardly formed any straight line as the road does now.

Olaf A. Digre

They also found, among other things, a soapstone lamp which was quite rough, dated to the Medieval period.

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Another dig where Olaf was the supervision and leader for, was a dig in Erling Skakkes gt. 2 b. They did undoubtedly reached the medieval level. Here they found many different objects related to everyday life. Among the things were tiles, construction stones, nails, cauldrons, whetstones, trays, a spade, a piece of bone made into an ice skate, a pair of shoes and a beater for weaving.

In total, they found remains of approximately ten incomplete shoes. They found soles, most of the upper of a wide-brimmed shoe, the toe caps of a pair of ‘crakow’ shoes adorned with a seamed edge of the toe part. They also found some indefinable pieces of leather. The longest sole is 28 cm. Most of the shoes have probably belonged to children.

A sample of brick was found, namely a larger piece of a “monk’s stone”. This type of tile is also called a yellow Dutch brick, it is yellowish and glazed. Several fragments of glazed floor tiles of the smaller size were also found there.

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Also his father, Olaf Bernhard Digre, my great-grandfather, would find archaeological artifacts and deliver them to the museum. During work, most likely, he found a pebble-shaped boulder within the area enclosing the transformer he would work at. The stone had the size and shape rather like a hen’s egg with a length of 7.4 cm. It was considered a hammer-stone, dated to the Stone age.

I hope you are enjoying these posts! I enjoy writing them! ❤
Have a lovely day!