Jakten på Odin

Jakten på Odin (Norwegian: The Search for Odin) is the project title of Thor Heyerdahl's last series of anthropological excavations, which took place in northern Europe.

His intention was to seek the origins of the Asas, following the trade set out by Snorri Sturluson in the Ynglinga saga, from the Black Sea and the river Don (former Tanakvisl[?]) via Saxon homelands in northern Germany, Odense on Fyn, Denmark to Sigtuna, ancient Sweden. When he died, the second season of excavations were just finished.

The excavations performed in Azov, Russia, near the fall of Don into the Black Sea have shown that Azov actually have had a population at the time for the emigration of the Asas (sometimes around 60 B.C., according to the references to Roman expansion into the Kaukasus). Furthermore, there exists today a people called the Odin-people, living in Azerbadjan[?], who consider themselves to be ancestors to the very same old people that supposedly emigrated to Scandinavia a long time ago. Last, but not least, the idea in Scandinavia that no people like the Asas and the Van have ever existed - well, to Heyerdahl's findings, Russian written sources from the Kaukasus area verifies not only the Asas - the Odin people of today - but also an ancient tribe living around the lake Van in todays Turkey.

Further reading

The background for the project is described in a book, Jakten på Odin - På sporet av vår fortid, written by Thor Heyerdahl himself and Per Lillieström (ISBN 82-7201-316-9).

External link

• Bjornar Storfjell's account (http://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/ai102_folder/102_articles/102_heyerdahl_storfjell.html): A personal account of an anthropologist who wroked with Thor Heyerdahl