Great Dane meets Dalmatian: Ejnar Dyggve and the Mapping of Christian Archaeology

TY - ICOMM

T1 - Great Dane meets Dalmatian

T2 - Ejnar Dyggve and the Mapping of Christian Archaeology

AU - Kacunko, Slavko

N1 - QUADRATURA. Skrifter i dansk kunsthistorie / Writings in Danish art history

PY - 2014/1

Y1 - 2014/1

N2 - The purpose of the essay is to make the envisioned comparative cultural perspective readable for the interested public both in Denmark and Croatia. Dyggve’s own ‘two lives’ as an architect and an archaeologist can also be viewed on a geographical scale, making him a truly European figure. It is well known that the Jelling-site was the first cultural-historical monument in Denmark to enter UNESCO’s World Heritage list in 1994. Ejnar Dyggve was the initiator of the establishment of the museum in situ back in the 1950s. The marvellous and dignified site with the church and two rune stones between the two burial mounds is now visibly framed by the number of flat concrete blocks retracing the shape of the ancient, 170-meter-long ship, which itself is girthed by a larger ‘fence’ forming a parallelogram, so showing the first results of the recent archaeological excavation results and offering even more space, physically and for the imagination. Another of Dyggve’s favorites, Diocletian’s Palace in the Old Town of Split, has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1979 and is, like Jelling in Denmark, the first site of its country on this list (together with Dubrovnik). Today’s visitors to the gorgeous archaeological site of Salona near Split still find their way thanks to the drawings of the deserving, but nearly forgotten Danish archaeologist, architect and art historian Dyggve and can still read his name all around this precious place. The same applies to Jelling. Tomislav Marasović wrote that “Denmark indeed considered [Dyggve] as a giant of its science, and he, in turn, well aware that he belongs to a modest nation, has emphasized his nationality even in the signatures of his drawings (delineavit Ejnar Dyggve Danus).”

AB - The purpose of the essay is to make the envisioned comparative cultural perspective readable for the interested public both in Denmark and Croatia. Dyggve’s own ‘two lives’ as an architect and an archaeologist can also be viewed on a geographical scale, making him a truly European figure. It is well known that the Jelling-site was the first cultural-historical monument in Denmark to enter UNESCO’s World Heritage list in 1994. Ejnar Dyggve was the initiator of the establishment of the museum in situ back in the 1950s. The marvellous and dignified site with the church and two rune stones between the two burial mounds is now visibly framed by the number of flat concrete blocks retracing the shape of the ancient, 170-meter-long ship, which itself is girthed by a larger ‘fence’ forming a parallelogram, so showing the first results of the recent archaeological excavation results and offering even more space, physically and for the imagination. Another of Dyggve’s favorites, Diocletian’s Palace in the Old Town of Split, has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1979 and is, like Jelling in Denmark, the first site of its country on this list (together with Dubrovnik). Today’s visitors to the gorgeous archaeological site of Salona near Split still find their way thanks to the drawings of the deserving, but nearly forgotten Danish archaeologist, architect and art historian Dyggve and can still read his name all around this precious place. The same applies to Jelling. Tomislav Marasović wrote that “Denmark indeed considered [Dyggve] as a giant of its science, and he, in turn, well aware that he belongs to a modest nation, has emphasized his nationality even in the signatures of his drawings (delineavit Ejnar Dyggve Danus).”

M3 - Net publication - Internet publication

ER -