Two 10th-century animal head terminals - a lost harness bow?

The Sösdala horsemen – and the equestrian elite of fifth century Europe. Jutland Archaeological Society.Fabech, C. & Näsman, U. (eds)., 2017

Based on the rich chamber grave from Högom, Medelpad, Central Sweden, dated to c. AD 500, the saddle and the so-called battle bridle are discussed. The well-preserved artefacts could be analysed in detail. The battle bridle can be reconstructed in detail since most of the leather straps were preserved. A reconstruction of the ring saddle is presented. It is also argued that most of the Scandinavian saddle finds had the same construction. The differences are mainly the curvature of the front saddle bow and the style in which the mounts were shaped. There is a large gap in knowledge about what the saddles of high-ranking Roman riders looked like. Since no ring saddles are known among contemporary nomads, the Scandinavian use of ring saddles could either be a regional invention or more plausibly a copy of such elements used by the late Roman aristocracy. The saddle could have been transformed in much the same way as Roman belt mounts were transferred to the Sösdala and Nydam styles and later Style I.

A considerable number of bows or fragments dating from the Mesolithic Age have been discovered at different sites in Northern Europe, most of them in what is now Denmark (DK). All are made of elm wood, and while they show great similarity in general design, they differ in detail. The finds from the Mesolithic site Holmegaard IV in Zealand/DK – one complete bow, one fragment – are dated to ca 6,500 BC, making them the oldest bows in the world discovered to date. They were made of elm wood (Ulmus glabra) with very narrow growth rings. Since they are of very distinctive design, later bows of similar shape are often said to be of the „Holmegaard type“. Characteristics of this design are: a deep and narrow grip section; wide and flat limbs; the widest parts of the limbs are above and below the handle, tapering towards the ends; limb cross-section of a flat D shape, with rounded back and flat belly. Roughly one dozen complete bows of this design and a number of similar fragments dating from ca 6,500 BC to 1,700 BC have until now been found in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. The paper offers an overview of some of the bows from Mesolithic Denmark which has been compiled from a variety of sources, sometimes contradicting each other, and tries to present the most reliable data and facts concerning these artefacts. First published in Lee, Noh-Shin (Ed.), Study of Structures, Materials & Manufacturing Processes of World Traditional Bows & Arrows, Cheonan 2009, pp. 155-180.

The Vikings in Ireland and beyond: Before and after the battle of Clontarf, eds Howard B. Clarke and Ruth Johnson. Dublin: Four Courts Press for the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 2015

Royal Insignia of Late Antiquity from Mšec and Řevničov. Magnificent Finds from the Migration Period from Central Bohemia, 2023

The chapter of the book describes the meaning of the find of the horse harness components from Řevničov and Dřevíč - decorated in Salin’s Style 1 and 2 (so called zoomorphic style) - in the context of the cultural and artistic development in Scandinavia and England.

The Medieval Low Countries, 2018

Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.

MEDIEVAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 2017

No convincing explanation of the function or functions of a very small group of decorated medieval gilt copper-alloy mounts has yet been put forward. They are characterised by an integral flat flange that projects from the reverse and which is unpierced and is accompanied by an integral rivet in Type 1, while in Type 2 there are one or two holes for separate rivets and the flange is pierced. One Type 1 example, from Somersham (Suffolk), has been published. The others noted below have been recorded by the PAS and/or in the Norfolk HER. Decoration can be simply described as zoomorphic, foliar and geometric. The paper was published in Medieval Archaeology 61.2 (pages 412-14 ). It runs from page 13-15 in the PDF.

2018

In 1935-36, at Stellmoor, near Hamburg, the archaeologist Alfred Rust recovered over 100 wooden arrow shafts and thousands of reindeer bones and antlers, from a gyttja layer attributed to the Younger Dryas. The arrow shafts were – and still are – the oldest direct evidence of bow-and-arrow hunting in the world. Rust described them in detail in his 1943 monograph on Stellmoor, but all the recorded wooden artefacts were lost in an air-raid in 1944. However, several small pieces of wood, resembling fragments of arrow shafts in the 1943 publication, were discovered in 2013 among Rust's personal effects. Two fragments were dated, to test their proposed attribution to Stellmoor. Both had clearly been treated with unknown compounds, which Rust may have applied in an early experiment in waterlogged wood conservation. Infrared spectroscopy and biomolecular analysis suggest that these consolidants consisted of plant oils mixed with rosin, which should be removed by solvent extraction. Whi...

1997

Two recent finds of unusual trefoil mounts from England have led to a reappraisal of the trefoil mount from Jarlshof, Shetland. This study supports Eldjdrn's proposition, based upon two closely related finds from Iceland, that this series of trefoil fittings was produced in the British Isles, although Scandinavian influence is apparent in their form, decoration and metallic composition.