Details
Founded: 1500 BC - 100 ADCategory: Cemeteries, mausoleums and burial places in Sweden
Historical period: Bronze Age (Sweden)
Interesting Sites Nearby
User Reviews
Gålrum is an ancient burial ground including 122 ancient monuments. There are 5 large stone cairns, 110 round stone settings and 8 ship settings. The site was in use for 1500 years and reflects the differing burial styles over that long period of time with the earliest dating back to the Bronze Age around 1500 BC.
The cairns vary in size from 10 metres to 25 metres in diameter and mostly have perimeter stones around their bases. The largest ship setting is 12 metres by 4.25 metres. Some of the site has been damaged by agriculture and a road passes through part of the site isolating 20 monuments on the eastern side of the road, including the enormous cairn known as Digerrojr.
References:Visby Cathedral (also known as St. Mary’s Church) is the only survived medieval church in Visby. It was originally built for German merchants and inaugurated in 1225. Around the year 1350 the church was enlarged and converted into a basilica. The two-storey magazine was also added then above the nave as a warehouse for merchants.
Following the Reformation, the church was transformed into a parish church for the town of Visby. All other churches were abandoned. Shortly after the Reformation, in 1572, Gotland was made into its own Diocese, and the church designated its cathedral.
There is not much left of the original interior. The font is made of local red marble in the 13th century. The pulpit was made in Lübeck in 1684. There are 400 graves under the church floor.