During the tenth century AD, Harald Bluetooth ruled Denmark from the royal seat at Jelling. The two extant Jelling mounds are traditionally associated with Harald's parents, Gorm and Thyra, about whom we know little. Unusually, the name Thyra appears on both Jelling runestones and on several others from the region. If all refer to the same person, she would be commemorated on more runestones than anyone else in Viking-Age Denmark. The authors use 3D-scanning to study rune carving techniques, combined with analyses of orthography and language, concluding that the Jelling 2 and Læborg stones are linked by the hand of the carver Ravnunge-Tue. The results suggest Thyra played a pivotal role in the emergence of the Danish state.

In 1982, eight people—archaeologists, colour scientists and analysts—met in a room in King’s Manor, York University, to discuss a subject of significance to them all: the analysis of dyes on archaeological and historical textiles [...]

The state of preservation of documents from the historically significant Azzolino collection at the Swedish National Archives has been investigated and analyses carried out of the iron gall inks. The collection shows varied levels of iron gall ink corrosion. An initial visual condition survey was followed by characterisation of the writing ink with XRF spectrometry on a selection of documents. The aim was to investigate whether ink composition could be related to author or geography, and in turn to level of ink corrosion, which could then serve as a basis for decisions on treatment options. Results indicate a relative purity of the inks in this collection in terms of high iron content and low levels of other elements, entailing that elemental analysis is not a good tool to predict potential deterioration of ink in single documents from this historical context. XRF-mapping showed a possibility for discerning authors by ink composition, contributing meaningful information to questions of attribution and historical context for these documents. A tendency for the ink of Queen Christina to contain more copper than inks from the other authors, and the indication that some inks contain calcium, may be of note for further study.

In Sweden, there is a centuries-old tradition of making visible and providing data about a selection of the country's ancient remains through land management and information at these sites. This work has been carried out in different ways, but the purpose has always been to protect, make visible and to inform the public about our cultural heritage. Today this is routine, but at the beginning of the 20th century there were major tensions regarding how cultural heritage should be cared for.

This work is the first scientific study of khipu dyes and inorganic mordants and auxiliaries, paving the way for a new approach to understanding khipus’ meaningful materiality, technology, and colours. Khipus have usually been described as “Andean knotted records”, but they are much more than complex knotted cords: a great part of the information encoded resides in khipus’ incredible colours. The objects of this study are two Wari khipus, 1932.08.0001 and 1932.08.0002, now at the Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg, Sweden. After a morphological study of the khipus, the objects were imaged with multiband imaging (MBI) as an aid for the sampling decisional process. The khipus were then analysed non-invasively by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy on selected areas of particular interest. The khipus were consequently sampled for elemental characterisation by micro-XRF, and liquid chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry (HPLC–HRMS) for characterising the organic dye composition. This paper presents a part of the results of the project “Meaningful materials in the khipu code”, with the intent to shed light on the difficulties and possibilities of investigating khipu colours and dyestuffs. MBI and XRF revealed unforeseeable structural characteristics, such as remnants from a heavily degraded thread in an area of missing thread wrapping and a dual-coloured thread that was previously deemed single-coloured. The organic dyes identified by HPLC–HRMS comprised indigoids, cochineal, and an unknown flavonoid-based dyestuff. XRF of the inorganic components revealed associations of several elements with specific colours.

Historical research is increasingly dependent on digital methods to find materials and information online. This requires a very different form of source criticism in order to understand what is available or not through different services. In this paper we present an overview of how digitalised heritage data from Swedish museums and archives are made publicly available on various platforms today, and highlight the often hidden challenges researchers face when trying to make use of them. The study is grounded in the FAIR data principles: to which extent is digitalised heritage data findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable? Content available through aggregated web services by the National Heritage Board, the National Archives and the Royal Library, among several others, are examined and compared. The published collections data of the Nordic Museum are used to highlight the limits of FAIR. We identify areas where lack of national strategies and good digital practices causes problems, and suggest ways forward. Digitalisation is much more than digital versions of analogue practices and materials. Trusted vocabularies combined with linked data and persistent identifiers will enable a richer and more multivocal heritage that is not restricted in space or to the information that fits onto a catalogue card. Researchers and heritage institutions need deeper collaboration to ensure digitalisation results in usable data, and they need to embrace good digital practices.