Germanshepherd Rex stunning walk to Viking fort on Bornholm. Unedited.

Gamleborg was a fortification on Bornholm from around 750. It was the seat of the island's king in the Viking Age (approx. 750-1050) and the early Middle Ages. The great fortress is 264 m long from north to south and 110 meters wide from east to west, but gates in the north and southwest. Around the year 1100, major changes took place at the castle, and it was reinforced, but shortly afterwards it was abandoned in favor of Lilleborg , which lies about 700 meters to the northeast.

History

One of the castle's ramparts.
Gamleborg is Bornholm's oldest stone fortification. It is unknown who built it, but Wulfstan of Hedeby tells in 890 in his travelogue from the Baltic Sea that Bornholm already had its own king at that time. The fortress was used under Harald Bluetooth (940-986) and Canute the Holy (1080-1086). Gamleborg was used as a place of refuge in the 9th century during Viking raids. Gamleborg was abandoned in 1150, and people moved to Lilleborg , which is only 700 meters to the northwest. It is not known why they moved, but there is no indication that it was due to war. An excavation in the 1950s has shown that the fortification dates from the Viking Age, although there are signs that the area was used as a refuge as early as the Iron Age . The ruins are mainly the result of a reconstruction that was completed around 1100. [6]

Architecture
The castle is about 27,000 m². Parts of the walls, built of rock and large stones, are still in good condition, and the extent of the castle is astonishingly clear, considering its age. The castle had a moat and an outer wall, and the walls to the north and south were about 6 meters high.

The area
The fortress is built in Almindingen on a hill almost in the middle of the island. It is several hundred meters from the main road between Rønne and Svaneke . The area is particularly protected to the south by cliffs that are up to 20 meters high. A waterhole on the northwest side was the castle's primary water supply. The ruins are located on a hilltop.


One of the gates as it looks today.
The defenses consisted of large ramparts made of large boulders , earth and clay. Originally there were gates to the north and south with additional protection from moats and outer castle walls. There were several other buildings in the area for the castle's residents and storage. Two ramparts of stone can still be seen at the western entrance. Outside the old western rampart, the area was fortified with a stone wall that was about 275 meters long, 2 meters wide and 6 meters high. The northern gate was quite wide, and there was certainly a gate tower in the north-west corner of the rampart. The old south gate was walled up and replaced with a larger entrance in the south-west corner.