Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide - Biography#
Obituary
(in Norwegian)
Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide is a Medieval archaeologist who has concentrated on the period AD 550-1700, with a focus on the later part of the time span in her early career and the earlier parts in her more recent research. Initially, she studied Medieval brick production in Tønsberg and she collaborated with geologists in Lund, Sweden, and geophysicists at the University of Århus, Denmark, with the aim of providing a palaeomagnetic timescale for the brick kiln.
This was followed by studies of the urbanization of Trondheim. She directed a large-scale excavation project in the Archbishop’s Palace in Trondheim, which encouraged a wider focus upon bishop’s palaces and related technologies such as minting, weapon production and the construction of castles. This led to involvement in EU projects and a national project on minting.
From 2003 she studied the process of Christianization. This was based in two Centres of Excellence at the University of Bergen: Centre of Medieval Studies (CMS), and the Nordic Centre of Medieval Studies (Religion Team).
The core of her research has been consistent: studying life in the past with a focus on the individual wherever possible. Interdisciplinarity has always been a driving force, involving collaborations with, for instance, historians, botanists, zoologists, entomologists, architects, theologians, geophysicists and metallurgists.
She has participated actively and constructively on research and steering committees, of which the Centre of Medieval Studies, Bergen, and the Department of History and Classic at NTNU, along with the Kaupang and Gråfjell projects at the University of Oslo and the Converting the Isles project at the University of Cambridge may be instanced. She was also part of a research coordinating team at NIKU and is member of a book editorial board at Brepols, Turnhout.
Currently professor in the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion at Bergen University, she is also Coordinator for Archaeology and head of of the interdisciplinary research group ‘Humans and Materiality’.
