Oscar Montelius facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Oscar Montelius
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Oscar Montelius, painted by Emerik Stenberg (Photo of painting from the Swedish periodical Ord & Bild 1913)
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| Born | 9 September 1843 |
| Died | 4 November 1921 (aged 78) Stockholm
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| Nationality | Swedish |
| Known for | seriation |
| Awards | Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts (1898) Anders Retzius Medal (1913) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | archaeology |
Gustaf Oscar Augustin Montelius, known as Oscar Montelius (born September 9, 1843, died November 4, 1921) was a famous Swedish archaeologist. He was known for making a special way to figure out how old ancient objects are. This method is called seriation. It helps us put old things in the right time order.
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What Did Oscar Montelius Do?
Oscar Montelius made a method called typology better. Typology is a way to guess the age of old things. It works by putting similar objects from a culture in order. This helps us see how things changed over time. This idea led to seriation, which was first used by Flinders Petrie, an archaeologist who studied ancient Egypt.
Montelius first wanted to date objects in museums. Many old items did not have good records. He compared them to other objects from the same area. His method helped create a timeline for each place. Later, when old writings were found, these objects could be given exact dates.
The Three-Age System
Montelius also improved the three-age system. This system divides history into the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. It was first created by a Danish expert named Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. Thomsen used it to organize museum collections in Denmark.
Montelius took this system and divided it even more. He split the Neolithic (New Stone Age) in Scandinavia into four parts (I-IV). He also divided the Nordic Bronze Age into six parts (I-VI).
Dating Ancient Objects
He was the first to show that many Swedish petroglyphs (rock carvings) were from the Nordic Bronze Age. He did this by comparing axes in the carvings to real axes found by archaeologists. He also supported Thomsen's way of dating gold objects called bracteates from the Migration Period.
Montelius used dates from ancient Egyptian writings. These writings had recently been figured out. He used a complex system to compare objects from different places. This helped him give exact dates to archaeological finds all over Europe.
His ideas about how cultures spread were later changed. But his system of dividing time periods is still used today. Montelius became a member of the Swedish Academy in 1917. This is a very important group in Sweden.
His Family Life
Oscar Montelius was married to Agda Montelius. She was a Swedish helper of others and a supporter of women's rights. They are buried together in a special grave. It is a dolmen grave, which was a common type of grave in Sweden during the Nordic Bronze Age. Their grave is in Norra begravningsplatsen in Solna, Sweden.
See also
- Hans Hildebrand
