The Foundation aims to promote the coordination of all documentation of rock carvings in Bohuslän in close cooperation with all responsible authorities and institutions that themselves lack economic resources for carrying out this vast task. The Foundation sees as its primary task to gather and coordinate financial resources to ensure continuous and broad-based documentation.
The rock carvings of Bohuslän constitute one of the worlds´ most remarkable ancient imagery existing today.
This means there is a special responsibility to see that these images are made available for national as well as international studies and that this body of documentation, as well as all research findings, is made available to the large interested public.
A very rough estimate of what is needed to complete the documentation suggests that a workforce of four persons would have to work 100 days per year for fifty years while still only documenting the carvings known to us so far. The total cost which amounts to about 20 million SEK is staggering. Hence, there is an urgent need for the education and formation of a great number of documentation taskforces.
The Foundation is continually seeking funding for its activities. Because this work is quite specialized and focused, funds have been obtained have promptly been exhausted.
The work is done parish by parish as is customary in Swedish archaeology. A number of volumes have already been published in the form of reports that are very useful in further studies, not to mention the joy they provide the public interested in seeing the images depicted in a clear manner.
This Foundation, with its seriously stated aims and focus on producing results, deserves all support and sponsoring available, especially since the Foundation offers such a credible course of action. The mere quantity of carved images makes it impossible for any one of the concerned antiquarian authorities and museums to take on this task to satisfactory degree.
Professor Jarl Nordbladh
