Heligas

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Location of Heligas marked on a map of Östervallen from 7580.
Location of Heligas marked on a map of Östervallen from 7580.

Heligas (even called Helagen or Hailags) is an archaeological site covering about 45 hectares between the Old Town of Östervallen (Vittmark) and the Dämman reservoir in the Fyrirån river. The site encompasses about half of the core of the historical capital of Skiöldavik of the Orkanan Realm, which was destroyed about 2000 years ago.

The entire area has the highest level of protection in Vittmark and is under the joined custody of the City of Östervallen, the Federal Government of Vittmark, the University of Östervallen, and the Mellanhand Orkanan Congregation in the form of Kulla Stift. Parts of it are open to the public, in the form of the Helagen Open Air Museum, which is a polular tourist and pilgrim destination.

History

Excavations started already during the early days of the Greater Stoldavic Empire. The shantytown outside the Old Town (then called Kungsvik) was pointed out as possible location for an imperial complex, but when the area was assessed for this new purpose, the surveyors wondered what the highly regular stone deposits in the area, in use as source of building material for Kungsvik, were made off. At that time, the location of Skiöldavik was unknown and surrounded by myths and legends, but the new emperor Råger wanted to avoid the further destruction of a potentially important site in Stoldavic history. The government complex was located on nearby Lövön instead, but scholars from the local university got the task of researching the area more.

While research was biased towards proving that the site was the location of Skiöldavik, the evidence recovered supported the hypothesis nevertheless. At some locations, archaeologists found structures resembling a part of the "Great Shield of Vind", the central shrine of the Orkanan Realm in the form of a low pyramidal structure measuring about 300x300 meters and reaching a height of 65 meters.

However, when southern Stoldavia reverted to Stellist Orkanan in the latter half of the 72nd century, the site became the stage of a religious conflict. Stellists started to remove all the wooden residential dwellings from the area, clearing it for a more large scale excavation instead of the small pockets the Mellanhand Orkanans had researched up until then. It was the Stellists who gave the area the name Heligas, referring to the place as a holy site for all Orkanans. They wanted to excavate on a large scale in order to prove the extraterrestrial origin of the pyramid.

After the fall of the empire in 7204, local scholars and the remaining nobility realised how vulnerable the holy site was. They issued a ban on building and using the site for building materials, but they also decided only to continue with excavations on a small scale. This because of the fact that any uncovering in the area only could be done once. The vast majority of the site was put under strict protection in order to give future generations of archaeologists an opportunity to do new excavations with new technologies or hypotheses.

During conflicts like the Pan-Anarian War (lasting from the 7520's to 7550's in this region) work was stopped completely and already uncovered areas were filled with sand to prevent any damage. This also meant that uncovering areas during times of peace took a large part of the scholars' work. In 7564, when Vittmark was formed as a nation state, King Karl (and later Queen Anna) invited scientists from all over the world to formulate a common policy for the site as point of origin for this world religion.

Reconstruction map of the urban core of Skiöldavik, capital of the Orkanan realm of Stoldavia.
Reconstruction map of the urban core of Skiöldavik from 7561, capital of the Orkanan Realm of Stoldavia.

At King Karl's conference, for the first time a concise image of the site, and as such the former capital of Skiöldavik, was presented to the outside world, with the invitation to study the evidence and test the hypothesis. The Great Shield of Vind was the central shrine of the city, approximately 280x280 m square and according to descriptions from visiting cultures was a low pyramid with a centrally located dome building, probably raising itself some 65 m above the hill it was built upon. Most of the sand- and limestone from this pyramid was re-used as building material in the Old Town. The Vittmarker government extended the protection of the archaeological site to the entire Old Town, since every rock, stone or brick could be archaeological evidence from Skiöldavik.

The shrine is said to have been a recreation of the diversity of the known world, with botanical gardens, a zoo (including two aquariums) and an exhibition of foreign artefacts. The city center had a circular structure, with the enwalled center measuring about 1100 m. The southern half was protected by an artificial lake still present today with a water level of 22 m above sea level, the northern half had an earthen wall, which later was fortified with natural rock.

During the Pan-Stoldavic War (7584-7598) the Stellists from Häverist Helreich targeted Heligas once more, this time aiming at proving that the so-called pyramid actually was the crash site of the interstellar ship that the Stellar Race had used to reach Gotha. They accused Mellanhand and Peratolian scientists to withhold any evidence of ancient and extraterrestrial technology from the site, in order to protect their hypothesis of a pyramid structure. So Heligas became a target in the conflict, which led to damage at the site itself, the Old Twon and the world's oldest watermill building in the form of Dämmanö Fortress.

After the war, the joint Orkanan and archaeological communities slowly kept on unearthening findings from the site. Even when tunnels were dug partially underneath the area the archaeologists were involved. However, at a depth of 5 meters above sea level and about 20 meters under ground level, not a single archaeological evidence could be found in the sandstone rock. This completely dismissed the Stellist claim of an ancient extraterrestrial crash site.

In 7664 it was celebrated that the archaeological work at Heligas had been going on for 622 years now, which is the exact same age as the Orkanan Realm of Stoldavia's existence. The celebration was used to start a new phase in the excavations, which was reconstructing some parts of the site so they could be experienced as Realm environments by visitors. At that time, about 75% of the site had been researched. Since the 7660's parts of the site have been opened for the public, culminating into the re-opening of a 40 meter long stretch of paved road underneath som reconstructed arches.