The Oldest Odense - Klaregade
In the middle of modern Odense, traces remain of a town that was only just beginning to take shape. When you stand in Klaregade, you are in one of the areas where archaeologists have found some of the earliest evidence of activity in Odense. Here by the river, people were living, working and passing through more than 1,100 years ago.
Where the town began to take shape
The area around Klaregade lay close to one of the old crossing points over the Odense River. This made it an important place for people travelling through the area, and near the crossing archaeologists have found traces of pit houses dating from the 8th and 9th centuries.
Finds including tools, iron slag and loom weights show that different crafts were practised here. This suggests that the area was more than just a single farmstead – people met, worked and perhaps traded here at a time when Odense had not yet become the town we know today.
Imagine life 1,100 years ago
When I stand in Klaregade, surrounded by bicycles, tall townhouses and cars, I am actually standing in the oldest part of Odense. This neighbourhood lies on a tongue of land extending into the river, and it is also where we find one of the earliest crossing points over the Odense River.
If you had stood here 1,100 years ago, you would have seen something very different from today, but you would not have been alone. Around you there would have been low, thatched huts and somewhat larger houses. Children would have been playing, adults talking, craftspeople absorbed in their work, young people falling in love – and all the other things that are part of human life.
Poul Baltzer Heide, archaeologist and museum curator
The traces lie beneath the modern city
Today, early Odense is difficult to see with the naked eye. Streets, houses and pavements have been built over the older remains, while the city has expanded and changed over more than a thousand years.
But beneath Klaregade, traces still remain of the people who lived here before Odense truly became a town. It is one of the places where the story of Odins Vi and the later city of Odense come together – not through kings and great monuments, but through everyday life, craftsmanship and the movement of people through the town.
Follow the traces through Viking Odense
Klaregade is only one of the traces of Viking Odense. Follow the Viking route to discover Harald Bluetooth’s ring fortress at Nonnebakken, churches, kings and other places where the city’s early history still lies hidden beneath modern Odense.
Follow the Viking route and discover more places where history still lies just beneath your feet.
Last updated by:VisitOdensejmjen@odense.dk
