Wijnaldum is nowadays an unassuming rural village in the north of the
province of Friesland, no more than a small dot on the map of the
Netherlands. But during the Early Middle Ages, this probably was a
lively political center, a kingdom, with intensive contacts with other
kingdoms along the North Sea coasts, and with the Frankish realm to the
south. The search for the king that resided at Wijnaldum was the major
goal of the excavations that were carried out at the terp
Wijnaldum-Tjitsma between 1991 and 1993. These excavations yielded a
wealth of information, although tangible remains of the king or a royal
residence were not found. What was found was a lot of pottery. The
ceramic assemblage from the first Millennium consists of local handmade
and imported wheel-thrown pottery, revealing contacts with the wider
world. The first results and an overview of the habitation phases were
published in 1999, in Volume 1 of The Excavations at Wijnaldum. The
ceramic assemblage, and its consequences for the habitation history of
Wijnaldum, are the main subjects of this second volume.