Rock Carvings at Tennes - Discovery and Rediscovery

Discovery and Rediscovery

Prehistoric rock art (Bergkunst) was first mentioned in 1799 in the travel notes of professor Martin Vahl, where he described a stag carved in the mountain at a farm in Balsfjord. Prof. Vahl was a botanist at Copenhagen University, and the first botanist to visit Northern Norway.

However, these notes remained forgotten until 1913, when employees at University of Copenhagen Botanical Garden went through the notes of Prof. Vahl. At that time archeologist had started to gain an interest in rock carvings, and the finding triggered Swedish archeologist Gustaf Hallström to travel to Balsfjord to find the rock carving.

To find the carvings located somewhere along the 70 km long fjord, Hallström exploited the knowledge that a professor travelling in the 18th century must have lived on one of the ten large farms that existed along Balsfjord. One of these farms was Tennes where the locals recognized Prof. Vahl’s drawing of the stag.

The locals led Hallström to Bukkhammaren, where they found the stag and five other animal figures. A few hundred meters away at Gråbergan they found additional figures. At this time these were the northernmost rock carvings in the world (today rock carvings have been found further north such as the several thousand figures at Alta).

Later in 1938 at a meeting in the local knitting circle, the priest's wife showed books describing the rocks carvings above the priest’s farm. Tordis Larsen from the neighboring farm became inspired and shortly after found the field with most figures at Tennes on the Larsen farm. This field known as Kirkely had about 40 figures.