Else Roesdahl (born 26 February 1942) is a Danish archaeologist, historian and educator. She has mediated the history of the

Vikings Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

for most of her life, including coordination of notable exhibitions on the

Viking Age The Viking Age () was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period The ...

and authoring several books on the subject. Roesdahl's books have been translated into several languages. Her popular book ''The Vikings'' was first published in English in 1991.

Biography

Born in

Sønderborg (; german: Sonderburg ) is a Danish town in the Region of Southern Denmark. It is the main town and the administrative seat of Sønderborg Municipality (Kommune). The town has a population of 27,766 (1 January 2022),Jutland Jutland ( da, Jylland ; german: Jütland ; ang, Ēota land ), known anciently as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula ( la, Cimbricus Chersonesus; da, den Kimbriske Halvø, links=no or ; german: Kimbrische Halbinsel, links=no), is a peninsula of ...

, Roesdahl is the daughter of two medical doctors, Harald Eyvind Roesdahl and his wife Helene Refslund Thomsen. She and her siblings were brought up in a home where education had a high priority. After matriculating from Sønderborg Statsskole in 1960, she studied history and archaeology at

Copenhagen University The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...

, graduating in 1969. In 1970, she joined

Aarhus University Aarhus University ( da, Aarhus Universitet, abbreviated AU) is a public research university with its main campus located in Aarhus, Denmark. It is the second largest and second oldest university in Denmark. The university is part of the Coimbra G ...

where she became a tenured lecturer in the newly formed Medieval Archaeology department in 1981 and ultimately a professor in 1996. Her first major work, ''Fyrkat : en jysk vikingeborg'' (1977) was on the Viking fortress at

Fyrkat Fyrkat is a former Viking ring castle in Denmark, dating from c. 980 AD. It is located near the town of Hobro, some distance from the present end of the Mariager Fjord in Northern Jutland. The fortress is built on a narrow piece of land, with a s ...

near

Hobro Hobro () is an old market and railway town in Region Nordjylland on the Jutland peninsula in northern Denmark. It has a population of 12,071 (1 January 2022). The town is situated in a hilly terrain at the head of Mariager Fjord, close to the ...

in the north of Jutland, which she investigated together with Olaf Olsen. She went on to study other Viking fortifications, publishing her best seller ''Danmarks vikingetid'' in 1980, translated into English as ''Viking age Denmark'' (1982). Even more popular was her ''Vikingernes verden'' (1987), published in English as ''The Vikings'' in 1991. Roesdahl has also written many articles on the Vikings and the Middle Ages as well as a short book on the disappearance of Norsemen in Greenland titled ''Hvalrostand, elfenben og nordboere i Grønland'' (1995). Roesdahl has also played a major role in coordinating exhibitions on the Vikings, including ''Vikingerne i England og hjemme i Danmark'' (''The Vikings in England and their Danish homeland'', 1981) also featured in

York York is a cathedral city with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many hist ...

, England, and ''Viking og Hvidekrist'' (''From Viking to Crusader'', 1992) which travelled to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

and

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

before returning permanently to

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

National Museum of Denmark The National Museum of Denmark (Nationalmuseet) in Copenhagen is Denmark's largest museum of cultural history, comprising the histories of Danish and foreign cultures, alike. The museum's main building is located a short distance from Strøge ...

. Now retired, Roesdahl still takes an active interest in Viking sites, opening the Fyrkat Viking Games in May 2016 and celebrating their 30th anniversary.

Awards

In 1988, Roesdahl received the

Søren Gyldendal Prize The Søren Gyldendal Prize (Danish: ''Søren Gyldendal-Prisen'') is a Danish literary award, which was established in 1958 by Gyldendal Publishing House. The prize is awarded annually on 12 April, the anniversary of the birthday of Søren Gyldend ...

, a literary award, and was later honoured as a

Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog The Order of the Dannebrog ( da, Dannebrogordenen) is a Danish order of chivalry instituted in 1671 by Christian V. Until 1808, membership in the order was limited to fifty members of noble or royal rank, who formed a single class known a ...

in 1992. In 1995, she was given an honorary doctorate by

Trinity College, Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roesdahl, Else Living people 1942 births 20th-century Danish historians 21st-century Danish historians 20th-century Danish women writers Danish archaeologists University of Copenhagen alumni Academic staff of Aarhus University Danish women archaeologists Knights of the Order of the Dannebrog People from Sønderborg Municipality Danish women historians