Presentation of Heritage in a Museum Context: Viking Gold - Treasure Finds as Translocal Heritage (Transfer Project)

Recent blockbuster exhibitions, such as Vikings: Life and Legend (British Museum, 2014) have shown the huge popularity of Viking culture even beyond academic circles. However, the exhibitions themselves, museum presentations and the varying societal and political interests associated with displays of Viking culture remain largely unexplored to this day.

This project – a cooperation with the Stralsund Museum – is dedicated to the discovery, reception and presentation of early medieval gold treasures in the Baltic region from the 19th century to the present day. Processes of identification with and demarcation from the "shared" Scandinavian heritage will be assessed from a comparative perspective, taking into account the peculiarities of this politically and culturally fragmented region. The aim is to show where, when and why the spread of Scandinavian culture in the early medieval Baltic region was perceived as a foreign phenomenon, possibly even in negative terms. When and why was its unifying character as the culture of the "Baltic peoples" brought to the fore? And what effects did these historical approaches to Viking culture in the Baltic Sea region have on current instrumentalisations of the Nordic Middle Ages?

The results of the project’s research will be presented within the frame of a variety of digital and analogue public formats, including a travelling exhibition, which will highlight the role of Viking culture as an agent of cultural exchange and transregional discourse within and beyond the Baltic Sea region.