Ruins of ‘lost medieval town’ unearthed after yearslong search in Norway. See it
For years, theories swirled about a “lost medieval town” buried under a grassy field in southern Norway. The legend attracted the attention of archaeologists, but early radar scans repeatedly found nothing so no one had bothered digging — until now.
The Domkirkeodden/Anno Museum commissioned a team of archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) in 2023 to “locate the medieval market town of Hamar,” the institute said in a July 4 news release.
Hamar, or Hamarkaupengen, was an “urban settlement” founded in the 11th century but later abandoned, archaeologists said. Historical records mentioned the town, but its exact location had been “lost.”
NIKU archaeologists had spent “almost a decade” searching for Hamar. They often focused on a grassy field near Domkirkeodden, a medieval cathedral, which matched historical records of the town’s location, but initial scans using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) revealed no buried ruins.
Still, in 2023, researchers decided to try again using a newer type of GPR scanner. This time the scans revealed “urban-like features with clusters of buildings, narrow passageways, and street alignments,” the institute said.
Photos show these scans, which archaeologists interpreted as likely being “the long-lost medieval town.”
But had they actually found Hamarkaupengen? Or did the scans show something else entirely?
To answer these questions, archaeologists excavated a small portion of the field in late June 2025, the institute said. They chose the location based on the radar scans and dug through a 3-foot-thick layer of “cooking stones” before uncovering some wooden ruins.
The “wooden elements lay exactly where the radar had indicated” and were identified as the “walls and floorboards” of a “two-room dwelling,” NIKU said. Photos show the ruins.
Archaeologists had “finally found physical remains of buildings” and concluded they’d located the lost town of Hamarkaupengen, the institute said.
NIKU described the results as “significant,” a “testament to the power of geophysical methods (and) patient investigation” and “an encouraging sign for future investigations.”
Researchers did not say how old the wooden structures were but said they sent wood samples to a laboratory for radiocarbon dating.
Excavations at the Domkirkeodden site are scheduled to end July 9, the institute said in a Facebook post. The site is in modern-day Hamar and a roughly 80-mile drive north from Oslo.
Google Translate was used to translate the Facebook post from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research.
This story was originally published July 8, 2025 at 10:50 AM with the headline "Ruins of ‘lost medieval town’ unearthed after yearslong search in Norway. See it."
