The Nordic countries comprise Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, and have a shared history of wars, alliances and common rulers. By 1831, Denmark had lost Norway (held in personal union since the fourteenth century) to Sweden in 1814 under the Treaty of Kiel. Norway remained in a personal union with Sweden until 1905, when it broke away and elected its own king. Iceland, under Norwegian rule since the thirteenth century, remained under the Danish crown, in personal union from 1918, and gained complete independence in 1944. Finland had been under Swedish rule prior to 1809 and a Russian grand duchy from 1809 to 1917, after which it became independent. It is obvious that Egyptology developed individually in the respective countries, but at the same time there are many points of contact, parallel developments and collaborations, never more so than when the Scandinavian Joint Expedition was formed in 1963 to help document Nubia’s heritage before much of it was lost to the rising waters created by the Aswan High Dam.