Sponsors

Sponsors and Supports

The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities

Founded in 1753 by Queen Lovisa Ulrika – sister of Frederick the Great of Prussia, wife of King Adolf Fredrik of Sweden and mother of Gustav III – the present Kungl. Vitterhetsakademien was originally intended to promote ”letters” in the broad sense of contemporary usage, i.e. literature, history, criticism, and scholarship over a wide range of subjects corresponding, on the whole, to the ”humanities”, and ”social sciences” according to modern concepts. Special attention was to be given to the study, and supervision, of inscriptions, coins and medals.

Later on, the Academy became a forum for humanistic learning, initially with heavy emphasis on archaeology, inscriptions, coins, medals, and the preservation of national antiquities. In fact, through an unusual arrangement, the head of what is today the National Heritage Board (Riksantikvarieämbetet) – an office created by Gustavus Adolphus II in the early years of the 17th century – was made Perpetual Secretary to the Academy ex officio. This original symbiosis, which made the Academy, in fact, a kind of public agency in some of its doings and which also obviously tended to strengthen the position of Nordic archaeology as an object of the Academy’s work, lasted until 1975. In that year, the National Heritage Board was organized on the same pattern as other public agencies at the national level.

http://www.vitterhetsakad.se/

Stefan Lersten and Maggie Dan-Lersten

E Hellgren 's Foundation for the maintenance of the cultural and natural heritage