Settlement Traces
Intro
In this area at Lynghoved, Ry Varmeværk (Ry District Heating Station) and Ry Bogtrykkeri (Ry Printing Press), northwest of Siim Mose (Siim Marsh), traces have been found of people from the Bronze and Stone Age.
In 1973 Skanderborg Museum excavated an Iron Age settlement at Ry Printing Press. The archaeologists found some pottery and some remains from iron extraction. 12 years later they found traces of 6 house sites and some fences. Then again in 1994 they came upon traces from the Iron Age in the form of postholes and pits.
Skanderborg Museum also made a great find prior to the building of the Ry District Heating Station. They found an Iron Age grave with the skeletal imprint of a man, as well as 14 pots, a knife and a shield.
Silkeborg Museum has also excavated in Ry, including in a ploughed-over burial mound here in the area of Lynghoved. They did not expect to find something special, because it looked like grave robbers had beaten them to it. But the robbers had missed something very important. The Museum came across an oak coffin with the remains of clothes, as well as a bronze sword 65 centimetres long. The findings probably originate from the later part of the Bronze Age.
Archaeologists are always taking new methods into use, and the museums carefully record their findings. In this way, every decade adds new pieces to the unfolding story of our ancestors’ life and activities here in Ry and in the Lakelands.
Recently, the major excavations at Kildebjerg, prior to the lay out of the golf course and the new buildings in the area, have made important contributions to this story.
Among many exciting finds, are a number of stone pits northeast of Siim Mose. The pits have probably been used for cooking. Finding pits in a row is rare, and no one knows exactly their purpose. Maybe, they have been part of a burial ritual, maybe for the worship of ancestors. In any event, they are ancient, probably from the last part of the Bronze Age.
This find may indicate that, during the Bronze and Iron Ages, the village of Siim had been located at the northern end of Siim Mose. Later on perhaps, it was moved south of Siim Mose to its present location. It is not so unusual that villages moved around in the vicinity, and perhaps Siim has also done so.