SOMEWHERE IN EUROPE 3400 YEARS AGO
The people in this boat are beginning a long journey -
- that will bring them into the world and farther from home -
- than they've ever been before -
- in search of adventure and a coveted metal -
- that all of Europe is seeking.
We're in the Bronze Age, a golden period -
- where new metals make their way to our latitudes -
- and where trade around the world explodes.
This is the story of a time where amber -
- will make us one of the richest regions in Europe -
- and where we build thousands of burial mounds for Denmark's new upper class.
But it's also the story of how two young Bronze Age women -
- will alter our understanding of who we are -
- and where we come from.
This is The Story of Denmark.
The story of how a country became a country -
- and a people a people.
It's a story of a nation that experienced both staggering greatness -
- and total decline.
And about how we became who we are today -
- about kings and queens -
- peasants and nobles -
- from the distant ice ages -
- to millennia forward.
This is our story.
The Bronze Age's burial mounds still lie here.
Deep in these mounds, our ancestors buried family members -
- and with them, the story of one of the earliest periods in our history.
A period where we gain access to a hitherto unknown wealth -
- and to a metal that can change the farmers' lives forever.
But the story of the Danish Bronze Age really begins in the Stone Age -
- where a completely new people finds its way to our latitudes.
Something is happening in Russia. There are shepherds -
- who begin to wander along the large European rivers -
- and move slowly up through Europe.
It's a nomadic community, named after the Russian place -
- which is exotically called Jamnaja.
The Jamnaja people's arrival is both genetically and culturally -
- the formation of the modern Northern Europeans.
The reputation we have in northern Europe as tall, light-skinned types -
- comes with the Jamnaja people.
The same goes for the ability to drink milk -
- and break down milk sugars as adults.
That ability is also genetically determined -
- and that will be introduced by the Jamnaja people.
Some of the Jamnaja people choose to settle in the area -
- that will one day be Denmark.
They slowly mix with the people who already live here -
- and around 1000 years later, when the Bronze Age begins -
- the Jamnajans have left a visible mark on both the people -
- and the landscape.
The Bronze Age's farmers live off of grain and livestock -
Sheep, goats, horses, pigs, and cattle.
Development has gone smoothly since we've become farmers.
And life in general has revolved around the home.
But now, the winds of change are blowing again.
Out in the big world, a new metal has appeared -
- and it's going to turn everything upside-down...here, too.
The Bronze Age is a fundamentally different time than the Stone Age -
- because they invent a new alloy, a new metal -
- that is composed of 90% copper and 10% tin.
Bronze is also a metal that's valuable in all places.
Bronze makes it possible for people to trade.
To have Bronze in their hands for the first time must have been magical.
Before they saw the bronze ax, they could get by with a flint ax.
But when they first see a bronze ax -
- there's no turning back.
With bronze they can create something -
- that's prettier and much more effective than the flint axes and spears -
- that they've used since the Stone Age.
The sword as a weapon appears first in bronze.
Maybe they wanted bigger daggers, until someone finally made a sword.
So one of the most iconic weapons in the history of humanity -
- was created in bronze.
The sword is clearly a weapon of the elite.
It gives status and power, and the more beautifully decorated -
- the sword, the finer you are.
But bronze can also be used for things besides weapons and tools.
You can make jewelry, vessels, and sculptures.
In other words, status symbols.
Everyone wants to get a hold of the new metal -
- but you need something to trade with that the others want.
And that's what we have nearby, and in abundance.
The gold of the north, amber -
- that we know was coveted in the Mediterranean area.
In the big Greek palaces from the Bronze Age -
- we find Nordic amber in the king's graves in Mykene.
We can't say if it was from the Baltic Sea or the North Sea -
- but it comes from up here.
Amber was just as expensive as gold. It made us rich in the Bronze Age.
Amber is a resin that's been at the bottom of the sea for millions of years.
And with it, in the Bronze Age, we could connect with strange cultures -
- and traders in the south -
- and with that, get access to riches like bronze, wool, and beads.
Some of the Bronze Age's riches can be found in the burial mounds -
- where our ancestors buried their family members.
Here, near Maglehøjene in Rågeleje, you can get a good idea as to -
- how close these places were.
No matter where you look, there's a mound on the horizon.
It was the Jamnajans, nomads from the Russian plains -
- who introduced the burying of individual people under a mound of grass.
Initially, the mounds were quite small, but in the Bronze Age they get larger -
- and there are more and more of them.
No fewer than 20,000 mounds were built in a few hundred years.
And the Bronze Age people left so many traces in their graves -
- that we're still constantly discovering new stories about our ancestors.
We have access to the most intimate details of the people -
- who were buried in the mounds because the mounds are a kind of time capsule -
- that has kept the secrets they took to the grave.
One of those the graves preserved especially well was a young woman -
- of about 18 years.
Today she's called Skrydstrup Girl, after the place in Jutland -
- where she was buried almost 3300 years ago.
Skrydstrup Girl is world famous today for her hairstyle.
A hairstyle that made everyone gasp when her grave was opened in 1935.
Hair that's over a half-meter long, neatly braided and twisted -
- and artfully arranged.
And a fine net of horsehair that holds it all together.
But who was she really, this rich young girl -
- that ended her days outside Vojens without any indication of violence?
And what kind of life did she have?
Researchers hope that her famous hair can give us some clues.
Contact with traders in the south revolves around what they don't have -
- the golden amber from the Danish coasts.
And amber has probably been our most important currency.
Hey!
Finding a big piece of amber could make you a fortune -
- because amber was worth the same as gold in the Mediterranean.
Changes came with bronze. Now that it wasn't just flint they traded with -
- they could make large fortunes -
- if they traveled far for bronze.
It's bronze that boosts trade for new and exotic goods.
And if you want to take part, you have to go out into the world.
Without making that big journey -
- to the hubs where you get that highly coveted bronze -
- if you didn't take that journey -
- then you weren't a real adult.
There were many young men who went out into the world.
No doubt about it. Some became merchants.
Some of them warriors. Some of them sailors.
But those young men had to find a way forward.
The ship is ubiquitous in all imagery from the Nordic Bronze Age -
- so traveling by ship signified -
- that you've traveled far.
You could call the Bronze Age the Ship Age -
- because it's the images of ships that characterize the Bronze Age.
Not an oak canoe, but a real ship.
We can see from the carvings that many people could be on board.
The Bronze Age is full of images etched on rocks and stones.
One of the most prevalent figures is the ship.
The boat also plays a crucial role in the Bronze Age -
- for people's freedom of movement -
- and bigger and better boats bring them even farther into the world.
In the Bronze Age, they really traveled a lot.
An individual, in his lifetime, might move -
- all the way from Southern Europe or Central Europe up into Northern Europe.
There was a great deal of movement.
In the Bronze Age, you'd have known in Jutland -
- how things were going in central Europe -
- because there were merchants traveling back and forth.
At that time, the rivers were the highway through Europe.
You would follow the water. It was usually pretty open.
Either you sailed or you walked along the rivers.
Modern times begin here. The world's first globalization.
It was really international.
It's rare that researchers can get so close to a person from ancient times.
Skrydstrup Girl's long hair is a kind of telltale sign.
All the places she was in the last five years of her life -
- are recorded in that long hair.
Here you can see how this part of her hair is wrapped -
- It took a long time. - It's really incredible.
It's so nice and so long. It's more than 15 centimeters -
- so it's really, really fine.
- Over 15 months? - Yes.
People have worked tirelessly so the researchers can find out -
- where she was born or grew up.
And that is what the teeth can reveal.
If we want to know where she grew up, then we have to take the first molar.
We need the wisdom tooth and the first molar.
- Can you get it? - Yes, if it's okay.
Even if she seems robust, she can break apart -
- and you can't know that in advance.
I can clean the surface with a drill -
- and then I can take a little dust.
It won't shake so much that it all rattles apart?
No, it shakes more for me.
- Alright, then. - Okay.
A little more.
Perfect.
The first molar tells us where the person comes from.
Tooth enamel forms from before we're born until three years of age.
Shall we try to put her back?
We go around with this signature that functions as a kind of GPS.
That's what we're looking for.
So Skrydstrup Girl is put back again, relieved of part of her braid -
- a little tooth enamel from a molar, and a whole wisdom tooth.
The first steps have been taken to solve the riddle of -
- who Skrydstrup Girl really was, and where she came from.
It's no small thing going back and forth through Europe in the Bronze Age.
Tons of bronze, but also other precious treasures -
- have found their way to our latitudes.
Glass is a totally new material in the Bronze Age.
It quickly becomes important because it's a coveted material.
The funny thing is, that around 3400 years ago -
- we have those blue glass beads in graves in Denmark.
So from when it becomes popular in the Mediterranean, not much time passes -
- before we have it up here, and there are glass beads in more than 200 graves.
In the Bronze Age, they didn't have the color palette we know today.
They couldn't create blue. Only flowers and the sky were blue.
Suddenly they get glass that's the same color as the sky.
The blue beads, like jewelry made of bronze and gold -
- were used for dressing up.
And the Bronze Age people were worried about their looks.
It's not just the women who, through elaborate hairstyles -
- and fine clothes and jewelry, dress themselves up.
Today we know that the men were also vain in their appearance.
Back then.
The first razor for men comes from the Bronze Age -
- and hundreds of them have been found.
But the razors can tell us about much more than just male vanity.
They're the key to one of the great riddles of the Bronze Age.
What did we really believe in?
And which god did we worship?
They're crazy about bodily care and shaving in the Bronze Age.
And the razor also becomes, with the sword, the man's symbol.
And it's thanks to the razors that we can read such detail -
- in the thoughts behind the religion and cosmology of the Bronze Age.
Because if you look carefully at those razors -
- they reveal what the Bronze Age people believed in.
The same figures appear again and again -
- and they tell the story of a divine Sun -
- who makes sure that grain grows, and that summer follows winter.
The motifs on the knives are a symbol of life's cycles -
- and the Sun's trip across the sky.
A fish helps free the Sun in the morning.
A horse tracks the Sun across the sky during the day -
- and a snake ensures that the Sun makes it safe through the night -
- so that it's ready to rise again the next morning.
There were also myths and mythological heroes and demigods.
When we look at the Bronze Age's imagery, we can see -
- that it's the Sun itself the biggest divine power -
- that it was all about because the Sun gives life to everything.
SUN CHARIOT FOUND IN TRUNDHOLM BOG
This sun chariot is one of Denmark's biggest national treasures.
It shows a horse dragging a sun on wheels.
And on one side, the sun is plated with shining gold.
On the other side, it's dark.
It's the extinguished sun that drives through the underworld at night.
It's all on wheels so that the Bronze Age's priests -
- could replicate its motion.
It wasn't just the Sun they worshiped.
It was the Sun's movement. It couldn't get stuck at night.
That would be the world's downfall.
In the Bronze Age, it was crucial to make an offering to the Sun -
- and the underworld's gods to stay in good favor with them.
They gave gifts to get something in return.
To get a good life, to be healthy if they were sick.
A bit like today, when you go by a fountain or a lake -
- and you throw a coin in the water to get a wish fulfilled.
It's the vestiges of an ancient religion.
The still bog was the entrance to a whole other world -
- and a doorway to the gods who reign on the other side.
Since the Bronze Age is such a dynamic, travel-rich period -
- some of these personal offerings could be a greeting on a journey -
- to those out there.
Both a little offering for luck, but also a postcard to those out there -
- as a kind of communication through the divine world.
And there's a need for divine protection -
- on the long and unsafe journey through Europe's forests -
- heavily burdened with worldly goods.
It wasn't safe to travel in the Bronze Age.
When they transport valuables, they're tempting someone to take them.
There were definitely roads where they knew -
- that they should be careful.
Long journeys have always been dangerous -
- and in the Bronze Age, where there were no hotels -
- no police, no security -
- no military, it was surely dangerous to travel.
But there must have been some security measures -
- that made travel possible -
- because we have so much bronze in the North that travel must have happened.
There's one sword that's quite special.
We call it an octagonal sword -
- because the grip is octagonal in the cross-section.
The octagonal sword isn't a very effective battle sword -
- because the handle and the blade are molded separately -
- and it breaks easily. It's more a diplomat's sword.
Those who had an octagonal sword belonged to a kind of brotherhood.
The sword showed that they had a special status -
- and could have given access to trade areas abroad.
One of the Bronze Age's most important thoroughfares is Hærvejen.
And right here in Skrydstrup, they could well have passed through -
- on the journey south.
The Skrydstrup area has been a trading hub -
- where the roads to the North Sea and West Jutland come in -
- and the north-south roads, the old Hærvej. It was the sweet spot.
If someone in the Bronze Age came walking here in Hærvejen -
- they would have suddenly been met by a sight -
- that would have made even foreign merchants gape.
There aren't any whole buildings left from the Bronze Age -
- but in Skrydstrup, traces have been found of a giant hall.
Here's where Skrydstrup Girl with the nice hairstyle must have spent her time.
In any case, we know that she was buried just 700 meters from here.
In the Bronze Age, they built big. Not palaces of stone like Greece -
- but large oak halls.
And Skrydstrup House here has almost royal dimensions.
10 meters wide and 50 meters long.
A 500-square-meter manor.
At one end of the house, people lived and cooked.
In the middle, there was a work or storage area -
- and at the other end of the house, debris from animal stalls was found.
Here the animals stayed indoors.
In the Bronze Age, we get large farms.
Individual farms.
There's a farm every 300-500 meters.
But they're different. The farms that have cattle -
- that can be put in a stable -
- you could call the free farmers.
But under them was a really big population -
- that was more or less not free.
Some were slaves. No doubt about it.
We don't know much about the lowest classes.
They didn't get fine burial mounds, and disappeared in the dark soil.
It's only the Bronze Age's upper classes that left traces behind -
- and can give us an idea about what kind of lives they led.
Aside from her hairstyle and gold earrings -
- Skrydstrup Girl had four meters of fine sheep's wool in her grave.
Wool was something new in the Bronze Age. It was quite luxurious, like the new silk.
I personally think that it was just as expensive as bronze.
Skrydstrup Girl belonged to the Bronze Age's upper class -
- and she may have had access to other luxuries of the time.
Maybe she sat on a folding chair like this one.
The chair was in a burial mound and resembles the chairs -
- that are found in Tutankhamen's royal tomb -
- far away in Egypt.
Or maybe she drank from bowls like these ones -
- that were also found in a burial mound, and which are of the purest gold.
Right near that great hall in Skrydstrup -
- Skrydstrup Girl was buried almost 3300 years ago.
By analyzing the soil, the researchers can find out -
- if the girl was born where she was buried.
They're looking for a clue, namely the element strontium -
- that can tell us where a person comes from.
Strontium is a trace substance found in nature.
We ingest it through what we eat and drink.
I'm taking soil samples and leaves from the plants -
- in order to survey the general area.
It can tell where a person comes from, or if a person has moved.
- That's sample number four. - Noted.
Great. Without berries.
It probably took a couple months to travel down through Europe.
Eventually, when you get down to southern Germany -
- which was an area almost as rich as Denmark.
Along the big lakes in southern Germany there were several farms -
- or cities built on posts out in the water.
Here there are many traces of bronze, amber, and beads -
- in larger quantities than other places.
Maybe an important chief could provide passage and security here -
- for the traders -
- if they were in trouble.
This sword was known as a kind of passport.
The sword was a kind of access card so that when you traveled -
- you were given passage.
You'd be shown hospitality when you arrived.
When you had to travel, it was important to have contacts.
And you'd keep them close by giving one another gifts.
That's what we see in the archaeological materials -
- when we see things that come in: pretty cups or a sword -
- that are gifts from a neighboring area or great men or princes -
- who lived farther down in Europe.
When they traded, they had scales.
And we can see that the first weights showed up in the Bronze Age.
They knew how much bronze they got for how many grams of gold -
- or how many grams of amber for a kilo of bronze.
But meetings between people were about more than the weight of a piece of amber.
It was just as important to establish good trade relations -
- and here the Nordic amber paved the way for some close bonds -
- between Danish and foreign families in the Bronze Age.
Young people can marry one another and make a family together.
Because the strongest bonds between people have always been -
- blood ties.
It's a way to ensure that we're friends now -
- and we'll take care of each other's children now.
It could be between someone in southern Germany and someone in Jutland.
We know now with certainty that in the years preceding 1370 BC -
- a young girl begins a journey through Denmark.
A journey that eventually will bring her to Vejle -
- or to Egtved, to be exact.
She couldn't know it, but over time she'll become -
- one of Denmark's most important antiquities.
Today we know that Egtved Girl wasn't born in Egtved -
- but in the southern part of Germany.
We also know that she traveled through Europe several times.
That's what the strontium analysis of her hair and nails has revealed.
We also know that she had a child with her.
It must have been exhausting, and there are many indications -
- that the girl and her small companion must have paid the price for the trip.
The child must have died on the way because he also came from down there.
And what do they do then? They burn him -
- so that they can transport the remains and give them a proper burial -
- when they arrive.
It's a drama we're getting into here.
Even if she's only between 16 and 18 years old -
- time is also running out for Egtved Girl.
We know she dies a short time after her arrival in Egtved -
- where she was to be a part of one of Denmark's rich Bronze Age families.
Maybe both became sick, but the Egtved Girl got better -
- until she arrived in Jutland, and then she died a short time after -
- maybe of the same illness.
We don't know.
The young girl from the south was buried one summer day in Egtved -
- laid out on a soft cowhide in a nice outfit with a rope skirt -
- and a bronze buckle.
When they opened her coffin in 1921, everything was inside -
- that was placed almost 3400 years ago.
By her head lay a bark box with the burned remains of the child.
By her feet, a bark bucket with sweet beer.
She had a comb and beautiful jewelry.
And before the lid was put on, someone placed a yarrow flower.
Even today, 3400 years after Egtved Girl was buried -
- you can see the imprint of her body in the soft cowhide -
- as if she'd just risen from a good night's sleep.
She must have been a significant person -
- because the burial mound was built for her. Her grave is the primary hill.
She can't have just been a little, random foreign girl.
Not when the whole community got together to build this.
A burial mound is a large, time-consuming monument to build.
For many years, the story was that she was a young, blond Danish girl -
- but new research in 2015 reveals that she came from far away.
The big question now is if she was the only one.
The researchers have examined Skrydstrup Girl's hair and teeth -
- and the area where she was buried.
These analyses will reveal -
- where the girl with the fantastic hairstyle comes from.
This piece is the closest to the scalp and can tell us -
- where she spent the last months of her life.
We found out that Egtved Girl traveled -
- almost right until she died. The last months of her life.
So it will be exciting what this strand of hair tells us.
Skrydstrup Girl's hair and teeth are now dissolved -
- and only the element strontium remains.
Now we have a sample of Skrydstrup Girl's first molar that will tell us -
- where she grew up.
This is the last step in our analysis -
- before we get our results. So I'm really excited.
We'll find out where she came from. That sample will tell us a lot -
- so it will be interesting.
I'll be careful warming it up.
Yeah, 50 pyrometers.
And then we'll go up to...there.
Let's take a trip.
- Ooh! - Shit!
- That's unexpected. - Yeah, it is.
- That's crazy! - That's pretty high.
She's not...
I'm really moved. This is insane.
- I don't know what ME means. - It's her first molar.
So it means that she didn't grow up in Denmark.
Definitely not. She's like Egtved.
That's really strange. It will change our understanding -
- of the whole Bronze Age.
Do all these high-status women suddenly come from abroad?
That's totally insane.
Skrydstrup Girl was 13 years old when she came to Denmark -
- and like Egtved Girl, she died very young -
- only four years after her arrival in Skrydstrup.
I think she came to the area to create an alliance.
She may have been married to the local chief.
She was a central woman in Skrydstrup at that time.
In Skrydstrup Girl's time, the building of large burial mounds was at its peak.
But over a few hundred years, they stop building the large mounds -
- and the Bronze Age now steps into its last phase.
In the end of the Bronze Age, all these fantastic things are found in bogs -
- where they offered valuable sets of women's jewelry -
And there's also something about the women's style.
Their jewelry becomes wilder. It becomes quite baroque.
Huge belt buckles.
Huge arm bands that go up to the elbows -
- so that they almost couldn't move.
In the last part of the Bronze Age, gifts to the gods get bigger and bigger.
And the same happens with the religious celebrations.
The Bronze Age was a period full of rituals in the Sun's honor.
And in these rituals, you heard the sound of the lur.
The lur is one of the Bronze Age's music instruments for rituals.
There was the development of the shiny cult axes.
They're huge bronze axes. Some of them weigh seven kilos.
And last but not least, flic-flac dances where dancers lined up -
- and flic-flacked around and around.
In any case, we can see that the Bronze Age was a world -
- full of holy rituals, full of dance -
- full of life, and full of motion.
Dances in the Sun's honor for the sake of fertility.
Many religious props ended up as offerings in a bog.
Helmets, axes, and small sculptures that today can give us an idea -
- of how affluent they were in the Bronze Age.
The last part of the Bronze Age was a celebration -
- but one day, it's all over.
Suddenly - that's what archaeologists say when it's 100 years -
- the large deposits of bronze objects ceases -
- in the bogs.
Instead, they begin to offer lots of clay vessels -
- and bog bodies now appear.
The Iron Age has announced its arrival, like a kind of hangover -
- after the Bronze Age's abundant celebrations.
In this new time, there's no longer a place for the extravagant upper class.
It disappeared with the symbol of its power, bronze -
- which was ousted by a less showy -
- but far more useful metal: iron.
The sense of community that came with the trade of bronze -
- and opened Europe up it collapses -
- when they turn to iron, because iron is found everywhere.
We can also extract it from our bogs in Denmark.
And so there's no reason to talk to the neighbors anymore.
So for a time, Denmark closes itself off.
And the weather also becomes worse.
The Bronze Age's high temperatures fell, and the climate became more humid.
Danish weather is Iron Age weather.
We form new communities, however.
In the Iron Age, we begin to form villages together.
In the start of the Iron Age, they had villages with 12 houses -
- where around 100 cattle -
- and maybe 50 people lived.
It's the first time we see that.
Even if many things change in the beginning of the Iron Age -
- there are many areas of life where everything is like the old days.
Almost.
Bronze jewelry, gold, and ritual objects like the Sun Chariot -
- all had to end their days in the land's bogs -
- to appease the forces in life that people had no power over.
But now all the world's riches are no longer enough.
In the Iron Age, the gods demand life for life.
At this time, all over Northern Europe they sacrifice a lot of people.
It's not just Denmark.
It's part of a Northern European religion -
- that you give people to the gods.
It's a very strange shift. They didn't sacrifice people in the Bronze Age -
- and in the Stone Age we get bog bodies similar to Tollund Man.
Like the Bronze Age's burial mounds, the Iron Age's bogs -
- had an incredible ability to preserve their dead in unimaginably good shape -
- over thousands of years.
Tollund man, who was laid in a bog almost 2500 years ago -
- today gives us an incredible close-up look of the Iron Age's faces.
Even his day-old beard stubble shows, as if ready to be removed -
- when he wakes from his sleep.
We know that Tollund Man was hanged and carefully laid in a bog -
- but we don't know who he was.
He ended his days as a sacrifice victim.
If you look under his feet, there are wounds -
- from where he stepped on a sharp pole. And we find those in the landscape.
We call them hole zones. They dug holes -
- and in the bottom of the holes they put tapered poles.
It's an effective way to ensure no one comes to steal your cattle.
So maybe Tollund Man was an ordinary cattle thief -
- who was caught red-handed -
- and later sacrificed to the gods.
The Bronze Age's golden years seem far away now.
They taught us how trade between people can create prosperity and growth -
- but the first great divides in the community were also created.
Now, with the Iron Age, the fight over society's riches will be fought -
- on an unprecedented scale.
Out of the Iron Age comes one of Danish history's greatest eras:
The Viking Age. We set sail on ships.
That means that we can travel even farther distances -
- over the open sea.
And in a warlike way, we conquer countries and leave traces -
- all over the world.
For the first time, the country becomes a nation with a unified king -
- and we get the name Denmark.
And then the old Nordic gods must make way for a new god.