The Management Plan for the Vestfold ship burials has been prepared in conjunction with the World Heritage nomination of Viking Age Sites in Northern Europe. If the nomination is successful, the current management plan will be replaced by a second-generation management plan in keeping with UNESCO’s routines for monitoring and periodic reporting.
The component part of Vestfold ship burials consists of the archaeological sites of the Borre mounds, the Oseberg mound and the Gokstad mound. Together with the Hyllestad Quernstone Quarries, the Vestfold ship burials constitute the Norwegian component parts of the transnational, serial nomination Viking Age Sites in Northern Europe. Altogether the transnational, serial nomination incorporates five countries with seven component parts that together shed light on the Viking Age as the transition between politically unstable chiefdoms to early states. The preparation of the nomination dossier has been coordinated by an Icelandic secretariat in co-operation with each of the five States Parties. In Norway, the Directorate for Cultural Heritage, on behalf of the Ministry of Climate and Environment as the State Party, has served as the national point of coordination.
Author(s): Kjersti Løkken, Herdis Hølleland
Series: UNESCO World Heritage List. Viking Age Sites in Northern Europe
Edition: Revised
Publisher: Working Group for World Heritage Status for Vestfold Ship Burials
Year: 2013
Language: English
Pages: 126
City: Oslo
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Descriptions of the Vestfold ship burials 1
1.1.1 Delimitation of the nominated sites and their proposed buffer zones 2
1.1.2 Research and conservation history 4
1.1.3 History of ownership 9
2 Potential Outstanding Universal Values 10
2.1 Proposed statement of Outstanding Universal Value 11
2.2 Potential Outstanding Universal Values and the Vestfold ship burials 15
3 Impact assessment 16
3.1 Natural disasters and emergency preparedness 17
3.2 Climate change 18
3.3 Infrastructural development pressures 18
3.4 Pressure from visitors and tourism 19
3.5 Other challenges 20
3.5.1 Impact of agriculture 20
3.5.2 Regrowth 20
3.5.3 Other factors 21
4 Visions and goals 21
4.1 Main goals 21
4.2 Sub-goals 21
4.3 Measures 21
5 Instruments of management 22
5.1 Legal protection/legislation 22
5.1.1 International conventions and charters 22
5.1.2 National legislation 23
5.1.3 Regional and local plans and instruments 25
5.2 Sources of finance 27
5.2.1 National schemes 27
5.2.2 Regional and local schemes 27
5.3 Care and maintenance of the nominated areas 28
5.3.1 Borre 28
5.3.2 Oseberg 29
5.3.3 Gokstad 29
5.4 Access and on-site amenities 29
5.4.1 Access and information along the main routes of communication 29
5.4.2 On-site infrastructure and amenities for visitors 29
5.5 Knowledge production and knowledge-based dissemination 31
5.5.1 World Heritage knowledge and dissemination 31
5.5.2 Vestfold ship burials’ cultural history 31
5.6 Tourism Potential 32
6 Monitoring and evaluations 32
6.1 Planned measures 32
6.2 Unpremeditated changes over time 33
6.3 Emergencies 33
6.4 Earlier reviews 33
7 Revision of the management plan 33
8 Administrative division of responsibility 33
8.1 International level 33
8.2 National level 34
8.3 Regional level 35
8.4 Local level 35
8.5 Available expertise 35
9 Action Plan 2012-2016 36
9.1 Joint measures within the Action Plan 36
9.2 Measures within the action plan framework, Borre mounds 38
9.3 Measures within the action plan framework, Oseberg mound 39
9.4 Measures in the action plan framework, Gokstad mound 40
Bibliography 41
Online sources 44
Lists of maps and photos 47
List 1. Maps 47
List 2. Photos 48
Annex I. Maps 52
Annex II. Photos 68
Annex III. Extract from plans of maintenance 88
Extract from 89
Overall plan for Borre Park 2007–2015 89
Extract from 107
Plan of maintenance of Oseberg archaeological site and heritage trail 107
Extract from 110
Plan of maintenance of Gokstad archaeological site 110
Annex IV. Declaration of Intent 114
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1 The size of the nominated areas and buffer zones (in hectares). 2
Table 2 Archaeological excavations and surveys of the Vestfold ship burials 8
Table 3 The legal protection of the Vestfold ship burials. 9
Table 4 Owners of the Vestfold ship burials (2013) 10
Table 5 Indicators of the state of the property 17
Table 6 Numbers of inhabitants in the nominated areas and buffer zones 18
Table 7 Annual visits (2012). Figures the cultural rucksack, organised visits and paying visitors
to midgard are based on actual figures. Other figures are estimates 20
Table 8 Status for regional plans 26
Table 9 Annual care and maintenace (2011) 28
