Birger Nerman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birger Nerman (October 6, 1888 – 1971) was a Swedish archaeologist and writer. Born in Norrköping, he was the younger brother of the Swedish Communist leader Ture Nerman, and the twin brother of the artist Einar Nerman.

Birger Nerman taught as a temporary professor at Uppsala University in 1917 and in 1920. In 1923 he became professor in archeology at the University of Dorpat (Tartu, Estonia). There he led the excavations of Izborsk (1924) and Grobin in Latvia (1929), among other early medieval sites.

In 1925 the Swedish Armed Forces published his "The Rise of the Swedish Realm" (Det svenska rikets uppkomst) in which Nerman argued that the formation of the Swedish state had been completed by the 8^th century, that it was the direct continuation of the "powerful Svea kingdom" mentioned by Tacitus, and that Sweden with its history of two millennia held senior rank among the existing nations of Europe.[1]

In 1938, Nerman became the head of the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities.