AQUANAUTS - Expeditionen till Siljansringen 1897
The old ironworks’ most formidable chamber – the seventy-metre-deep hall where the openhearth furnaces hissed and the rolling mills turned – opens now for a shocking world premiere. For the first time ever, a hitherto unknown research expedition is presented, along with the researchers’ peculiar and remarkable findings. In the 1890s, the people of the Western World stood at the crossroads between ancient agricultural societies and a new and modern highly industrialized and urban era. The interests of researchers ran in both directions. The possibilities of mass production begin to improve daily living conditions for many people. But the societal changes are great and in response to this, the writers and artists in Sweden are drawn in a romantic direction. Education for the masses – with the ideal of growth and good living conditions for the general population – strikes a nerve in public debate, with key figures such as Verner von Heidenstam, Gustaf Fröding, Selma Lagerlöf, Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Karin and Carl Larsson and Ellen Key setting the tone. In the Avesta ironworks, production pulses – the Works are still young and under development.
Expedition to the Siljan Ring 1897
At this time, a research expedition embarks – quite unnoticed – to the Siljan Ring in Dalarna. The year is 1897 when two young scientists, Beata Gardelius and Inga-Lisa Blomgren, each specialized in a different field, head out to Skålberget, northeast of Rättvik. Beata is a palaeontologist and thus studies the remains of prehistoric life and how the organisms of ancient epochs evolved and interacted both with each other and with their contemporary environments. Inga-Lisa is a geologist and reads in rocks and soils how the landscape was formed and changed through millennia. What happened to Beata and Inga-Lisa is shrouded in mystery. Through an anonymous shipment to the Museum of Ontology in Stockholm, their legacy has become known and is now being presented for the first time at Avesta Art. It was Olof Hedengren, curator of the museum, who received the suitcases and crates that proved to contain the women’s journals, a camera, rolls of film and other astounding finds dating to the inception of the Siljan Ring. “Beata Gardelius and Inga-Lisa Blomgren’s findings refute all established research on human prehistory,” says Olof Hedengren. “Their discovery is related to the Siljan Ring, which was
formed 377 million years ago when a celestial object five kilometres in diameter crashed into the Earth’s crust. The meteorite strike gave rise to new minerals and peculiar species of rock.” “Homo aquatis, or Aquanauts, was the researchers’ astonishing discovery. This is a prehistoric human being whose existence no one has previously imagined or found traces of. Everything indicates that the dust around the meteorite combined with the planet’s water to form new organisms, and that from these, a new species of human evolved. The researchers’ portfolio, herbarium, photographs, films and authentic finds make the story clear and credible.” In a rushing stream, the researchers found a cranium exhibiting both human features and the shape of a shell. In the depths of the forest, they saw a silvery creature move near the water in the moonlight. This was thus not an extinct species. Homo aquatis lived. Beata Gardelius and IngaLisa Blomgren were able to study their lives, and found a humanity borne by love and warmth. The individuals were at once both uninhibited and respectful. The circle was their symbol – round like the moon and the iris of the eye.
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