I visited the petroglyph site at Roskaret in Herøy municipality on the 1st of September 2024. The site is known as Roskarristninga, and is found in a part of Herøy called Leikong,

The reddish rock-type here is olivine, which is a fairly soft mineral that in this case has a reddish color from the iron in the mineral.

There is only one, confirmed, petroglyph at Roskaret, and it is found under the big rock in the above picture.

The space under rock is narrow, so my photo of the petroglyph is taken at an angle. My guess is that the rock wasn’t there when the petroglyph was made, as it would be a very cramped space to work in.

Above is an information board found at the site, and there is a full drawing of the ship figure along with other markings around it. The markings around the ship is supposedly also made around the same time as the ship, but they are difficult to interpret. It is possible that they are fragments of more complete figures, that have faded away over time.

Most petroglyphs in Norway are dated to either the Nordic Stone Age or Nordic Bronze Age. But this one is actually assumed to be made sometime during the first parts of the Nordic Iron Age (500 BCE – 1050 CE). Accurately dating petroglyphs is difficult, and the reason this one is assumed to be made in the Iron Age is because of the way the ship figure is depicted: the type of ship with split ends on each side is considered to be a type of ship that was not common before the Iron Age.

Since olivine is easy to carve into, and a lot of recent graffiti can be seen in the area. Now there are information boards saying it is illegal to make new carvings at the site, as it can damage possible other signs of ancient petroglyphs that have faded away over time – but can still be found if the site is properly investigated with modern tools such as 3d scanning.

But around 30-50 years ago, and further back, there really were a lot of people carving their names into the rock – and this is really a part of the cultural heritage of the site now. Many people living in the area today will probably find the names of one or more of their older relatives if they visit the area.

Interestingly, a lot of these fairy recent carvings have already almost completely faded away:

Olivine is easy to carve into, because of the softness of the mineral. But that also means it’s prone to weathering. So, depending on how exposed the carvings are, some of the recent ones are almost already completely gone due to weathering. The only reason we still have this one petroglyph from around 2000 years ago is because it has been protected from weathering by the large rock covering it.

Most likely there were more petroglyphs made in this area, as it is rare for petroglyph sites to only have one figure. But if there were more carvings made thousands of years ago, they are long gone due to weathering- unless they also had some protection from wind and rain. I found reports from around 10 years ago mentioning the discovery of another ship figure in this area. But I was unable to find any confirmation that the figure actually is a petroglyph. Due to all the recent carvings at the site, and the quick weathering of them, it can be hard to tell the difference between a real petroglyph made in prehistoric times and a copy made more recently when looking at it with the naked eye. But an archeologist would be able to tell the difference with a fair amount of certainty aided by optical instruments.