History of Gotland

Gotland is a remarkable island with beautiful nature, a mild climate, stunning beaches, and picturesque meadows. The island's rich history is visible everywhere: nearly 100 medieval churches adorned with paintings and sculptures, 400 large Bronze Age cairns, thousands of ancient house foundations, over 500 picture stones, and a well-preserved medieval city with a surrounding wall.

However, the deeper history that shaped this island is often overlooked. In the popular imagination, it's reduced to the myth of Visby’s "ransacking"—an event that likely never occurred—and scattered across museums in Sweden as part of artifact distribution.

Even many Gotlanders themselves are unfamiliar with their own history. Since the 1600s, Swedish history has been taught in schools, but the story of what happened on Gotland is less widely known.

Compared to the grand histories of eastern and southern European cultures, Gotland’s past may seem modest. But extraordinary things have happened here. Some highlights include:

• The earliest evidence of higher Germanic culture
• The first iron production
• 80% of all Roman denarii found in Sweden, dating from the early centuries AD
• Vendel-era colonies
• 80% of all Viking-age silver hoards in the Nordic region
• The medieval churches, a remarkable feature of European Christianity