Items found indicate that the residents of Oslo around 800 years ago were clever craftsworkers, skilled at repairs and that they had a penchant for decoration.
The excavations are taking place as modern-day workers dig a new tunnel that will divert traffic through Oslo underground. That in turn is aimed at opening up the waterfront area east of downtown at Bjørvika, which now is dominated by the E-18 motorway but soon will feature the city's new Opera House, office buildings, shops and apartment buildings.
Archaeologists are monitoring the mud and soil that's being displaced. Just since June, they've found large amounts of items believed to have been the latter-day equivalent of garbage.
"We've found, among other things, around 1,000 shoes, several wooden bowls, one of which had runic script on the bottom, parts of swords and knives," said Lise Marie Bye Johansen, the supervising archaeologist on duty.
The shoes show that fashion varied in the 1200s as well. "Some of the shoes are finely decorated, with patterns on the leather," she said. Many of the shoes also show signs of wear, and having been repaired by their owners.
Johansen and her crew have also found leather mittens, and a purse decorated with French lilies.
She believes the discarded items were thrown into the Alna River and then ran into the muddy bottom of the Oslo Fjord. Other garbarge was probably tossed overboard from ships lying in Oslo's inner harbor, and then preserved in the mud.
