Most Danes have been taught that Bishop Absalon founded Copenhagen around 1160. But according to archaeologists from the Copenhagen City Museum, the city had already existed - and was a thriving trading centre - long before Absalon was born.

"There has been a lot of focus on Absalon being the founder of Copenhagen. But we now have proof that there was a major urban area long before he arrived on the scene. Copenhagen was doing very well without Absalon," Copenhagen Museum Director Jane Jark Jensen tells videnskab.dk.

Discoveries
Archaeological discoveries in Copenhagen show that the town was already thriving around the year 1000 and stretched from what is now Kongens Nytorv to Rådhuspladsen. A large and splendid property was found at one end and a marketplace and early church and graveyard at the other.

Both predate Skt. Clemens Church, which has generally been considered to be Copenhagen's oldest church, by about a century.

Re-writing history
The archaeological discoveries and conclusions come as a surprise to the Saxo Institute at Copenhagen University.

"For a century we have been discussing whether the Pope gave Absalon a petty village - or something larger. Up to now I have been convinced that it was an unimportant fishing community surrounded by an embankment. The new discoveries will fundamentally change our knowledge of Copenhagen and mean that we will have to rewrite its early history," says Historian Karl-Erik Frandsen, an expert on Copenhagen's history at the Saxo Institute.