by Einar Østmo, Professor Emeritus, Archaeology
When I began studying archaeology at the University Museum of National Antiquities in the mid-60s, Gutorm Gjessing, to me and most of my fellow students, was little more than a name on the reading list. However, in 1972, when I for private reasons had established closer contact with the Ethnographical Museum, it became clear that he did in fact exist, occupying the largest office in the Museum. What’s more, he was easy to get in contact with and happy to talk to a completely unknown undergraduate. Soon Gjessing was invited to a meeting in our student society to talk about archaeology and archaeologists in the 1920s and 30s, something that to us seemed almost as remote as the Pre-Cambrian. The task seemed to please him, because he entertained us with anecdotes about A. W. Brøgger, Sigurd Grieg, Anathon Bjørn, Anders Nummedal and other legendary figures all night.
Gjessing was born in Ålesund in 1906, and grew up in Kragerø. He got his examen artium at the Oslo Cathedral School in 1924, and immediately began reading archaeology at the University Museum. This was only one year after his uncle, the archaeologist Helge Gjessing had passed away merely 38 years old. He had received his Doctoral degree in archaeology in 1920 and at the time of his death was deputy director of the University Museum.
Gutorm Gjessing became part of a very active and quite self-aware academic environment at the University Museum in 1925, just as the Museum Director, A. W. Brøgger, launched his new and modern view of Norwegian pre-history and the goal of archaeology. It was a nationally orientated form of archaeology and was the theme of a famous series of lectures published that same year as «The Norwegian People in Antiquity». The young Gjessing, who that same autumn had moved to Bergen where Haakon Shetelig resided, did not shrink from reviewing Brøgger’s book in the Bergen journal «Naturen». He was actually encouraged by Shetelig to do it. The review was both respectful and positive, but still critical enough for Gjessing to experience, upon his return to Oslo, overhearing at the University Museum the loud and familiar voice of Brøgger senior, A.W.’s father, the famous geologist W. C. Brøgger, exclaiming: «Anton! Who the Devil is this Gutorm Gjessing?» He might well ask. Gjessing was 19 years old at the time, but was soon to make his mark among the still quite few archaeologists in the country.
The slight tension between the young student Gjessing and his professor following this incident was soon to be relieved, especially when Gjessing presented his work on Norwegian gold bracteates in 1929. Gjessing soon showed himself to be, and became widely acknowledged as a prolific author. He also continued to cause slight, but sufficient stir in the archaeological community for him to earn from its youngest members, the epithet «Veslefaen», meaning «Little Devil»! Nevertheless, he was nothing if not industrious, and already in 1934, he completed his doctoral thesis about «The Merovingian Age in Norway». It was finished in time for the International Congress of Anthropology and Archaeology in Oslo in 1936, and happily coincided with Brøgger’s hope that all the staff at the University Museum should have a doctoral degree when the congress commenced. On that note, it is well to remember that in those days it was far from common for university teachers to possess a doctoral degree. It was more often something one completed as the last crowning glory of a lifetime of work.
Then, from 1936 to 1940, Gjessing worked in Tromsø as a conservator as it was called then. It meant that he was the only educated archaeologist at Tromsø museum and in sole charge of the collections there. I think it is reasonable to say that the years in Tromsø were quite decisive in Gjessing’s future career – first as an archaeologist, but also later when he transferred into anthropology. When in Tromsø he conducted fieldwork, both excavating and documenting rock carvings in the whole of north Norway. He was also kept particularly busy with the excavation of the large rock shelter Kirkhellaren in Træna. His efforts in both cases produced important publications. Then, in 1942, followed the groundbreaking publication Yngre steinalder i Nord-Norge (The Late Stone Age in Northern Norway). Its importance was due to its examination of a material which previously had been commented on chiefly by A.W. Brøgger in his doctoral thesis Den arktiske stenalder i Norge (The Arctic Stone Age in Norway) from 1909. The material was otherwise virtually unknown, but Gjessing presented it within a wide-ranging perspective, introducing the theory about the circum-polar slate (or schist) culture. At the same time, the theory was presented to an international audience, and it became, without a doubt, Gjessing’s passport to prominence among the world’s cultural anthropologists.
Then, shortly after the war, appeared the large publication Norges steinalder (Norway’s Stone Age), which was based on lectures Gjessing had given during the war when he was back at the museum in Oslo. It too has been an important work, and remains the most recent comprehensive overview published about the Stone Age in Norway. About the same time, another interesting book appeared which to this day is unique in Norwegian archaeological literature – Arkeologiens metoder (Methods of Archaeology).
Politically, before the war, Gjessing had rather been a national conservative. However, the war, and the immediate years following it, and perhaps especially a stay in the US right after the war, contributed to a marked shift and radicalization of his views. In 1961, he became one of three founding members of Sosialistisk Folkeparti (The Socialist People’s Party), a precursor of the present SV. Possibly a similar personal development led to his leaving archaeology and turning instead to ethnography as anthropology was called then. From 1947 until his retirement in 1973, he was professor of ethnography and director of the Ethnographical museum in Oslo. It was reasonably clear that Bjørn Hougen would succeed Brøgger as professor in archaeology, and Gjessing was one of several archaeologists at that time who changed to pastures new – Sigurd Grieg moved to Maihaugen in Lillehammer and Thorleif Sjøvold took over the position in Tromsø after Gjessing’s successor there, Harald Egenæs-Lund.
Gjessing’s career as an anthropologist and director of the Ethnographical museum can certainly be better illuminated by those who know the subject matter better than I do. However, there can be little doubt that his global perspective and in particular his interest in Saami culture has made its mark on Norwegian anthropology in the years after the Second World War. Certainly, Gjessing was a pioneer in the study of Saami culture, an interest that arose during his Tromsø years in the 1930s. These important years imbued him with a respect for all things Saami, which he considered should no longer be regarded as an exotic curiosity, but as a worthy part of Nordic culture. An expression of this respect was when Gjessing in 1951 saw to it that the Saami collections of the Ethnographical Museum were transferred to Norsk Folkemuseum, where he considered they belonged.
In 1953, his two-volume Mennesket og kulturen (Humanity and Culture) was published. According to Arne Martin Klausen in Norsk biografisk leksikon (Norwegian Biographical Lexicon), Gjessing himself considered Socio-Culture. Interdisciplinary Essays on Society and Culture (1957) to be his magnum opus. Otherwise, as mentioned earlier, Gjessing delighted in the renewed contact he established with archaeology later in life, in particular his contact with the young 1970s archaeologists. It led to more publications, and to Gjessing being invited to the student association «Nicolay» as well as to the Christmas parties at Oldsaksamlingen. Shortly before he passed away, I had the pleasure of a long conversation with him, mostly about his early years in archaeology at Oldsaksamlingen and in Tromsø. Last but not least, I was invited to take over much of his archaeological library, which he did not want to contemplate moving from his office on the second floor of the Historical Museum to his home at Blindern.
Litterature:
Gjessing, Gutorm 1929: De norske gullbrakteatene. I A.W. Brøgger (red.): Universitetets Oldsaksamlings skrifter. Bind II:127-175. Oslo.
Gjessing, Gutorm 1942: Yngre steinalder i Nord-Norge. Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning. Oslo.
Einar Østmo (born 1946) was professor of archaeology at the University Museum of Cultural History from 1993 until retirement in 2013. He received the degree of dr. philos. in 1986. His main research interests are the Neolithic Stone Age and Bronze Age rock art.