PhD, Doctor of Philosophy, Ingemar Nordgren

Stefan Ingesson's writing The Goths and Scandinavia-myth or reality is an very important writing as it summarizes facts from the latest research results both on an international level and a national level. It also covers the entire history of research dealing with the Goth. This means that the article provides a total review of all significant people who were active during the early Iron Age migration period and their emergence from the Bronze Age.

 

You get a coherent and easy-to-read description of the origin of different tribes, how they then identify themselves and, for example, in the case of the Goths, define themselves in cultically cohesive units linked to their god Gaut, a secondary name for Odin. Many of these tribes are originally detached and not always of Germanic origin but they later on choose a common definition and cult. We get to follow the development of the archaeological cultures from Pomerania and Poland and down to the Black Sea and the early contacts with the Roman Empire that made Rome dependent on Germanic mercenaries and the alliances with Rome that eventually lead to the Gothic seizure of power both in Italy and in southern France and the Pyrenean Peninsula.

 

A complete review of both language and religion and the most relevant archaeological results both in Sweden and in Eastern Europe is presented. The publication is highly recommended as a necessary publication for those who want to keep up to date with research in this area.

 

Källby 25th of July 2023
Ingemar Nordgren, PhD and author of Goterkällan*

* This book is the first major scientific review of the Goths by a Swedish researcher, which has also been published in Swedish. Ingemar Nordgren received his PhD from Odense University in January 1999 with the thesis ”The Goth Source. The Goths-religion, organization, structure. On Gothic ethnicity.”