Tanum Rock Carvings, located in Tanumshede, Bohuslän, Sweden, are a collection of petroglyphs that were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1994. Thousands of images called the Tanum petroglyphs are concentrated in distinct areas along a 25 km stretch, covering an area of about 51 hectares (126 acres or 0.5 km2). While the region was on the coastline when the drawings were made, it is now at an elevation of 25 m. Scandinavian Bronze Age and Iron Age people were sophisticated craftsmen and very competent travelers by water.
Many of the glyphs depict boats of which some seem to be of the Hjortspring boat type carrying around a dozen passengers. One of the larger rocks of Nordic Bronze Age petroglyphs in Scandinavia (at 22 metres tall and 6 metres wide), the Vitlyckehäll, is located in Tanumshede. It contains nearly 300 carvings of a variety of scenes, people, and objects. The rock carvings are endangered by erosion due to acid rain and some are thus covered either permanently or during certain times of the year.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Nik Frost
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