On Midsummer Eve, going out to my dad’s old place, I got off the bus close to this old stone circle – not among the most impressive in Sweden, but still around 2000 years old. It was hard to get a good photo view of it on a grey summer day. It is quite close to the road and there are also modern buildings close by. In this photo I managed to edit out an electrical cabinet in the background. The flowers in the foreground are Lupines; very common around here at Midsummer.
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Below is a frosty autumn photo from the same place for comparison.
I probably spent an hour finding it on the computer, convinced it must have been back in 2009 I took it. Turned out however that it was as recently as in November 2010 – only 7½ months ago.
The stone circles of the Iron Age (ca. 500 BC – ca. 400 AD) were a characteristic burial custom of southern Scandinavia, especially on Gotland and in Götaland during the Pre-Roman Iron Age and the Roman Iron Age. In Sweden, they are called Domarringar (judge circles). The circles are usually round, or elongated ellipses. The stones may be very large and they are usually between 9 and 12. Sometimes there are as few as 6–8. Excavations have shown burnt coal in the centre of the circles and they are nowadays considered to be incineration graves. There is also a widespread tradition that the circles were used for so-called “things”, or general assemblies.
(Source: Wikipedia)
