The medieval city in Suhmhuset is recreated based on building remains found below the city streets. The exhibition brings you close to the medieval everyday life through artifacts from work, play and leisure: tools, shoes, game pieces, children’s toys (like a wooden sword with the inscription «Ivar»), ice skates made from bone, and the medieval version of an electric torch.  

Here, you find everything from beautifully wrought silver crucifixes to rags found in the city’s latrines – probably used as toilet paper or sanitary pads. On the building’s ground floor, you can meet Tora; a medieval woman from the 13oos, reconstructed from her skeleton.  

The exhibition also includes a few artifacts from the Viking age, like the famous Kuli stone, which is widely regarded as Norway’s baptismal certificate, since it contains the earliest known mention of the word «Nóregi» – «Norway». The runic inscription also states that «Christianity had been in Norway for twelve winters …», which makes the Kuli Stone one of the earliest accounts of the new religion in Norway.  

Photo: Åge Hojem/NTNU University Museum