What is the ’Internationales Sachsensymposion’?
The ‘Internationales Sachsensymposion. Arbeitsgemeinschaft zur Archäologie der Sachsen und ihrer Nachbarvölker in Nordwesteuropa’ (International Sachsensymposion. Research network for the archaeological study of the Saxons and their neighbouring peoples in northwestern Europe) is an association of archaeologists and historians that was founded in Cuxhaven, in 1949, as the ‘Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Sachsenforschung’ (Study Group for Saxon Research) on the initiative of a group of German and Dutch scholars.
The aim of the members of the ‘Internationales Sachsensymposion’ is the continuous, joint – international – study of the history and ethnogenesis of the Germanic saxones, i.e. the continental Saxons of the Migration Period and early Middle Ages and the Anglo-Saxons of the British Isles, as well as those of the neighbouring peoples. A further aim is to discuss the relevant relationships that existed between all these populations and that can be detected in the countries bordering the North and Baltic Seas.
Today, the network is an association constituted under Belgian law: the present members are about 230 elected archaeologists and various historians from Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and the USA. Their annual meeting, lasting several days, is known as ‘the Symposion’ of the ‘Internationales Sachsensymposion. Arbeitsgemeinschaft zur Archäologie der Sachsen und ihrer Nachbarvölker in Nordwesteuropa’, and is a leading international academic forum for the archaeology of the early history of northwestern Europe.