Arkeologi & Historiebloggen

Arkeologi & Historiebloggen handlar om arkeologi, pågående expeditioner och egna utgrävningar, nya upptäckter, kultur- och religionshistoria, antiken, myter, resor och kuriosa samt tidlös politik. Slutledningar och åsikter i inläggen är författarens egna.

Richard Holmgren är arkeolog med fokus på Mellanöstern, författare, föreläsare, illustratör och guide, är religiöst liberal och partipolitisk agnostiker som driver företaget ARCDOC Arkeologisk Dokumentation. Han är också stolt sambo med Virginia och husse till Milou.

2021 > 08

Tectors grav. Foto: R. Holmgren
Tector

An almost forgotten and currently overgrown grave. Under the tombstone lies a man without his head. His name was Tecktor and he rests below the tower of Stenkumla church on the island of Gotland in Sweden. After a failed attempt to rob the postal stagecoach between Sparreholm and Eskilstuna, which resulted in two murders, it made Tecktor Sweden's last publicly executed person. A few hundred were gathered to see his appalling execution on May 18, 1876. Many fainted. We read: 

“…The executioner Steineck then grabbed the broadax, and after Tecktor's position had changed somewhat, he raised the ax... It fell and death seemed to have followed, but the blow was misaligned. Therefore, yet another blow had to be prepared; this one hit better, but the ax had to be raised and lowered a third time, this before the head was completely separated from the torso...".

Let Tecktor be a deterrent for a disgusting form of punishment to which we shall never return.

Tectors gravplats. Foto: R. Holmgren
Ericsbergs slott. Foto: Virginia Wallin
Photo: R. Holmgren / still from the movie "The Seventh Seal" from 1957.

Ingmar Bergman released his now iconic movie "The Seventh Seal" in 1957. Sixty-four years later it is still possible to locate the specific boulders on the beach at Hovs Hallar, southwestern Sweden. What a more telling place to walk on the eve of yet another dystopian period in history - this time with a trusty death buddy instead of Death himself.

Photo by Virginia Wallin with inserted photo of Max von Sydow in the film "Det Sjunde Inseglet".

There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us.
They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones;
it all depends on how you use them.

(Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) 

The Sevent Seal - Ingmar Bergman

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