International Archaeology Day (IAD)
Published 16 October 2026
With International Archaeology Day (IAD) on October 17, we celebrate this archaeological knowledge and its importance to the society.
22 June 2026
Bø Museum’s cultural heritage tours are a popular feature in our local pot in The Cultural Rucksack. The museum’s contribution goes under the category cultural heritage. The aim is for the pupils to become active investigators of the environment around them and to be able to recognise man-made structures in nature. On Wednesday last week, the 10th grade at Bø lower secondary school went to Hovden and Malnes in glorious summer weather.
Hovden and Malnes
The students got to see and hear about burial mounds and burial customs in the Iron Age at Grindvika, the fishing village mound from the Middle Ages at Buholmen, where they were famous for their amber and rekling, and Malnes’ old church site.
The church was moved from Malnes to Eidet in 1829 and this event is central to the novel Eiler Hundevart (1913) by the author Regine Normann (1867-1939). We get to join Eiler when he dismantles the altarpiece. Incidentally, this is the same altarpiece that hangs to the left of the aisle in Malnes church today. Coincidentally, Eiler Hundevart also finds the black book hidden under the altar cloth, and the hunt for riches is on.
GUvåg
We have also been to Guvåg together with the 8th grade at Bø secondary school. The name of the place originally comes from the Sami word for calving. In Jørnfjorden and Hellfjorden, in addition to fishing as elsewhere in the municipality, they have also been engaged in reindeer herding. Guvåg experienced a dramatic upswing in the latter half of the 1800s due to the rich herring fishery in the Eidsfjord.
At the hiking cabin at Oksneset, there are many different types of cultural monuments. Here you will find a settlement from the Stone Age, Sami ancient graves and a smallholding. The site after the homestead is about the same size as your bedroom and there were 12 people living here at one time.
We thank students and teachers so much for the trip and we are already looking forward to next year, and to conveying local knowledge and a taste of our rich cultural heritage.
According to the Cultural Heritage Act, a cultural monument is all traces of human activity in the physical environment, including sites associated with historical events, beliefs or traditions (lovdata.no). All cultural monuments older than 1537 are automatically protected, for Sami cultural monuments the year 1917 applies.
