‘To Alleviate the Night-Black Darkness that Conceals our most Ancient Times:’: Carl Georg Brunius’ trailblazing rock art thesis from 1818

This article presents the second thesis and the first explicit goal-orientated fieldwork about rock art in northern Europe. This was accomplished by Carl Georg Brunius (1792–1869), a priest, professor in Greek, who is best known for his language skills, as a Middle Ages specialist and restorer of churches. His novel fieldwork began in 1815 and ended in 1817. During three long summers, Brunius localised and documented 65 rock art panels in Tanum Parish in northern Bohuslän, Sweden. His fieldwork resulted in an unpublished thesis from 1818, which is thoroughly presented in this article. Later fieldwork in 1838 added another c. 35 panels, before Brunius finally published a monograph in 1868, with the title ‘An Attempt to Explain the Rock Carvings with 15 posters’ (translated here). He considered that rock engravings were related to an early form of picture-writing, reflecting wars and feuds which were caused by raw and brutish amorous escapades.