Hablingbo () is a populated area, a ''

socken Socken ( or ) is the name used for a part of a counties of Sweden, county in Sweden. In Denmark, similar areas are known as , in Norway or and in Finland or . A is a rural area formed around a church, typically in the Middle Ages. A socken ...

'' (not to be confused with

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

), on the Swedish island of

Gotland Gotland (; ; ''Gutland'' in Gutnish), also historically spelled Gottland or Gothland (), is Sweden's largest island. It is also a Provinces of Sweden, province/Counties of Sweden, county (Swedish län), Municipalities of Sweden, municipality, a ...

. It comprises the same area as the administrative Hablingbo District, established on 1January 2016. In 1961, the Havor Hoard was found at a

hillfort A hillfort is a type of fortification, fortified refuge or defended settlement located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typical of the late Bronze Age Europe, European Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, Iron Age. So ...

in the small village of Havor in Hablingbo.

Geography

Hablingbo is the name of the socken as well as the district. It is also the name of the small village surrounding the medieval

Hablingbo Church Hablingbo Church () is a medieval church in Hablingbo on the Swedish island of Gotland. It is one of the largest churches on Gotland, and dating largely from the 14th century, although the current church building was preceded by a stave church. Th ...

, sometimes referred to as ''Hablingbo kyrkby''. It is situated on the southwest coast of Gotland. The area is rural with farming as the main source of income. Part of the farmed land is on the now drained

Mästermyr Mästermyr is a, now mostly drained, mire west of Hemse on the island of Gotland, Sweden. The Mästermyr chest was found here in 1936. Geography The area of the mire was originally , of which consisted of small lakes. It was a significant ha ...

mire A peatland is a type of wetland whose soils consist of Soil organic matter, organic matter from decaying plants, forming layers of peat. Peatlands arise because of incomplete decomposition of organic matter, usually litter from vegetation, du ...

. In the west, towards the coast, there are forests. , Hablingbo Church belongs to Havdhem

in Sudrets

pastorat The Church of Sweden () is an Evangelical Lutheran national church in Sweden. A former state church, headquartered in Uppsala, with around 5.5 million members at year end 2023, it is the largest Christian denomination in Sweden, the largest Lu ...

, along with the churches in

Havdhem Havdhem () is a locality situated on the Swedish island of Gotland with 300 inhabitants in 2014. Havdhem is also the name of the larger populated area, socken (not to be confused with parish). It comprises the same area as the administrative Havd ...

, Näs,

Grötlingbo Grötlingbo is a populated area, a socken (not to be confused with parish), on the Swedish island of Gotland. It comprises the same area as the administrative Grötlingbo District, established on 1January 2016. The Kattlund farm in Grötlingbo ...

, Eke, and Silte.

History

The name of the socken is first mentioned in 1320 as ''Hagbardlingabo''. The last part ''bo'' means "district". The first part ''haghbardhlingar'' is a combination of Medieval expressions, where ''inge'' means "indweller", and Hagbardh a combination of ''hagh'' meaning "enclosure" and ''bardh'' for "high ridge" which refers to the ridge the Hablingbo Church is built on. This gives "they who hold

thing Thing or The Thing may refer to: Philosophy * An object * Broadly, an entity * Thing-in-itself (or ''noumenon''), the reality that underlies perceptions, a term coined by Immanuel Kant * Thing theory, a branch of critical theory that focuses ...

on Hagbardh as the meaning of ''haghbardhlingar''. In Hablingbo there are a couple of grave

cairn A cairn is a human-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehistory, t ...

s from the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

as well as about a dozen smaller

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

grave fields plus one major at Havor. There are house foundations, stone walls, grooves and two hillsforts from the Iron Age. Two

Viking Vikings were 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 settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

silver treasures have been found in addition to the Havor Ring – one of Sweden's most unique

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

finds. The present socken dates back to

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

times. The Petes farm built in the late 18th century, is still intact and since 1965, it is maintained by

Gotland Museum The Gotland Museum () (previously known as ''Länsmuseet på Gotland'' or ''Gotlands Fornsal'') in Visby, Sweden, is the county museum of Gotland. It was founded by the Friends of Gotland's Antiquity society in 1875, at the initiative of Pehr Arvi ...

as a museum farm. At the beginning of the 20th century, Hablingbo was a station on one of the now discontinued railway lines on Gotland. The station house was built in 1920.

References

External links

*
Objects from Hablingbo at the Digital Museum
by

Nordic Museum The Nordic Museum () is a museum located on Djurgården, an island in central Stockholm, Sweden, dedicated to the cultural history and ethnography of Sweden from the early modern period (in Swedish history, it is said to begin in 1520) to the ...

{{Authority control Populated places in Gotland County Tourism in Sweden Agriculture in Sweden