Hop - The royal mounds

Names such as “Royal mound” or “Royal beacon” are normally associated with unusually large and well-shaped burial memorials. Askøy has no less than two such mounds, one at Ask and one at Hop.

The royal mound at Ask was disrupted and much of it destroyed already in the 1840s. There have been no finds recorded. The mound now lies as remains and measures roughly 15 metres across.

The Royal mound at Hop is three metres high, even and fine, with a 22 metres wide brim at the base. Above the brim the cross-section is 19 metres. On the flat top of the mound there used to be a tradition of bonfires at St. John’s eve (24 June) in earlier times. No finds have finds recorded here either. Thus we know very little of the royal mounds at Askøya, but it is assumed that they stem from the later part of the iron age, between 500-1000 A.D. Which “kings” may have lain there, the history seems to have forgotten.