Norwegian national poet, Ivar Aasen, wrote a poem entitled Haraldshaugen to commemorate the event.
[3][4] The monument was opposed by Norway's political left, which questioned the merits of celebrating a figure whom they viewed as a brutal, authoritarian conqueror.
At the top of the mound stands a 17m high granite main obelisk, with four bronze panels around the base.
The Battle of Hafrsfjord has traditionally been regarded as the point in which western Norway was for the first time unified under one monarch.
Tradition holds that Haraldshaugen is the burial site of King Harald I, who died circa 933 at Avaldsnes on nearby Karmøy, south of Haugesund, but currently there is no clear archeological evidence of this.