Artefact Studies - Viking Age

This week I take you along a trip, in what appears to be in some respect a sort of the 'Antiques Roadshow' as initiated by the Vikings. The Norsemen weren't any different than us in their desire to hold the past. As the Viking Age is desirable mystery to us, the age of Anglo-Saxon England was captivating their minds in their own way.

This is for sure: the Vikings loved antiquities. It can be seen, per example, on the viking merchant weights.

In the modern world currently, there is an interest in and desire to understand ancient craft technologies, along with learning the practical side of these skills. Nålbinding is a craft which has been taught and demonstrated for the last 50 years, mainly within heritage and re-enactment communities. The cultural and social history of this craft has survived as a narrative better in some countries than others. In some places it has completely disappeared, leaving only fragmented archaeological remains behind. With a limited collection of archaeological examples surviving, each nålbinder or scholar comes up with their own way of assessing, learning and teaching this craft. In many cases it is this practical knowledge that is passed-down from archaeologists or fibre historians to a student; this then starts to create its own social application of the craft. Once that tutor has gone or the student moves on, nålbinding then can either evolve into an artistic craft form for the nålbinder, or frequently it slips back into the mists of time, until someone finds it again. It’s teaching, understanding and research needs to be constantly investigated so that it can be understood for others. Nålbinding is also not just a fixed historical craft, it has the ability to evolve and adapt into the modern world too.

The 2018 ReConference was a multidisciplinary gathering of professionals and amateurs engaging in the fields of living history and re-enactment, held in Copenhagen at the National of Museum of Denmark. Its aim was to ask the dangerous questions of what is that we are actually doing, and why? One of the results was the following collection of articles provided by the participants, which is set to be the beginning of a regular journal.

Until then we invite you to flip through the pages or download the whole publication in PDF form by following the link bellow.

Viking Age. Apparantly having had functionated as some kind of stopper, to my knowledge, there isn't a second example known, regarding this type of object. Stylisticallywise the decoration can be addressed as of Hiberno-Norse origin, the Norse-Gaelic. In Ireland, Scotland-including the Hebrids and the Isle of Man-from the 9th to the 12th centuries onwards a hybrid culture of people were living with a Gaelic background besides Norse immigrants-viking, or otherwise. These immigrants settled in these areas and adopted (partly) the culture of the Geal and intermingled via marriage. In-what we now call in hindsight-the Viking Age, these people distinguished themselves in their art outings on artefacts and in behaviour. They were very determined.

This week's blog I address one of the 'key' objects in the Viking Age, the key as a symbol of female status and independancy.

Keys were a symbol of a woman's status in the home and in society. Women would run farms both in the
presence of their husband or while he was away.

There is archaeological evidence of contacts between eastern central Sweden and south-western Finland through the ages: in the Neolithic, the Bronze Age, the Early Iron Age, and the Late Iron Age. Archaeologists in Finland have often pointed out the close links between the areas during the Viking Age, whereas Swedish archaeologists have surprisingly seldom discussed these connections. It has therefore been interesting to examine to what extent and during what period artefacts from Finland are found in Birka’s graves and thus what can be concluded about the contacts between Birka and western Finland. Furthermore this study has aimed at discussing what the artefacts and the find combinations show about the identity of the buried persons in Birka.

This is an article on collecting Viking Age artefacts and a warning to all collectors whereby I am adressing an experience I had with an auction house, in December 2015. In general it is addressing to be very cautious towards all online buying of Viking Age artefacts, wich stays important to address as unprovenanced items keep popping up on the net, still, even more..

The purpose of this study is to analyze the distribution, forms, and function(s) of iron amulets deposited in the late Iron Age gravefields of Lovö, with the goal of ascertaining how (and so far as possible why) these objects were utilized in rituals carried out during and after burials.  Particular emphasis is given to re-interpreting the largest group of iron amulets, the iron amulet rings, in a more relational and practice-focused way than has heretofore been attempted.  By framing burial analyses, questions of typology, and evidence of ritualized actions in comparison with what is known of other cult sites in Mälardalen specifically– and theorized about the cognitive landscape(s) of late Iron Age Scandinavia generally– a picture of iron amulets as inscribed objects made to act as catalytic, protective, and mediating agents is brought to light.

Keywords: Iron Age, Viking Age, burial, amulets, Thor’s hammer ring, torshammarringar, practice theory, ritual studies, New Materialism, cognitive archaeology, archaeology of ritual

In the year 795 AD, a band of seagoing Norsemen had the idea of crossing the North Sea's well and ca. 300 km in straight line - to explore the previously unknown new land. This visit had serious consequences for several of the Irish monasteries located on the fleet's itinerary north and southwest of Scotland and further southward along the Irish west coast.

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In the forthcoming blogs I like you to take me along with a journey to Cumbria, England wich I just visited. Several interesting Viking Age stone sculpture artefacts can be seen there. The attractiviness is, they can be seen 'on the spot' (or very nearby, sheltered in the churches !) where they have always been. Almost no need to go to musea here - it is still there, in the wild..

Follow link for PDF: http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1417789/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Frühgeschichtliche Bilder sind ein besonders Quellenmaterial. Zumeist  handelt  es  sich  nicht  um  Zufallsprodukte,  sondern  um  Zeichen,  die  Botschaften  vermitteln  sollten.  Dies  gilt  nicht  zuletzt  für  die  Bilderwelt  der  Wikingerzeit.  Jedoch  sind  freistehende Bildmonumente aus dieser Epoche relativ selten. Häufiger  haben  sich  Bilder  im  kleineren  Format  erhalten, genauer  gesagt  als  Tierornamentik  auf  Gebrauchsgegen-ständen. Den Ausgangspunkt zu meinen Überlegungen bildet eine  prachtvolle  Spange  aus  Elec  im  heutigen  Russland.  Im  reichen  Dekor  der  Spange  findet  sich  eine  Mischfigur bestehend  aus  einem  anthropomorphen  Kopf  und  einem  vogelähnlichen  Körper.  Diese  Bildfigur  bindet  die  Elecer Spange möglicherweise an das Fürstenhaus der Rjurikiden. Da es  sich  um  einen  Funktionsgegenstand  aus  der  Frauentracht  handelt, muss man sich fragen, ob die Spange die Machtfülle der gesamten Dynastie symbolisiert oder sich auf eine einzig-artige Frau bezieht.

I write this blog deliberately in English, enabling everone around the world reading it, as English is a common language. Im am (very) sure I'm not making myself popular raising the subject, but it has to be dome (again) and I will explain why. Sometimes, as a collector, in this case of genuine artefacts from the Viking Age, one encounters the most beautiful objects on the net, for sale.

This master thesis investigates the phenomenon of men with filed (modified) teeth in Scandinavia during late Iron Age. More than 100 buried men with filed teeth have up till now been discovered. Of these, 92 are included in my analysis. Burials containing men with filed teeth have been discovered on Gotland, in Skåne, Uppland, Västergötland and Öland in Sweden, on Fyn in Denmark and in one mass grave in Dorset, England. Most of the men derive from burials on Gotland.

The men with filed teeth have hitherto mostly been studied from an osteoarchaeological approach. Instead, this study regards the burial contexts in which they were found. In order to study this, I have compiled a data base in which available information about these men and their burial contexts have been gathered. The term ¨burial context¨ in this essay refers to the grave finds and the aspects of the burial itself, as well as the landscape in which it is situated.

The aim of the study is to try to determine what unites, and separates, the men with filed teeth; what can be said about the dating of their occurrence, the men’s origin/provenance and what social status and occupation they may have held.

English summary included (p. 77)

PEER REVIEWED
Three-dimensional (3D) laser scanning provides archaeologists with non-destructive analytical tools that can be applied to a variety of questions and artefact types. In this work we explore the utility of 3D modelling as an ‘autopsy’ tool for Viking Age artefacts with complex morphologies. Highly ornate Viking Age brooches from Scandinavia and Russia were digitized with a portable 3D laser scanner, and the resulting 3D models were used in three case studies of artefact reconstruction, tool mark analysis, and motif documentation. The results revealed both strengths and limitations of the laser scanner. 3D-modeling proved to be very well suited for artefact reconstruction, and was also useful for analyses of applied ornament. Because of the resolution limits of the employed laser scanner, the tool mark analysis gave mixed results. Our combined ‘artefact autopsy’ revealed that two circular brooches in the famous Gnyozdovo hoard, Russia, should be regarded as locally made reconstructions of an elder brooch type, once imported from Scandinavia. Furthermore, an iconographic analysis of a grandiose baroque-shaped brooch from Yelets, Russia, identified an anthropomorphic figure with a bird-like body, possibly linking the object to the princely House of Rurik. Overall, 3D-model-based analysis appears to be useful for answering traditional questions in Viking Age artefact studies, and may also inspire novel methodological approaches.

Who isn't interested in a Thor's hammer - when it comes to Viking Age addiction ? The season of Vikings 4 had started, and being season 4, proof of our ongoing 'hunger' for the attractive world of the Viking Age when people were fighting but were free in a way nowadays we seem quite jealous of and attracted by in a strange form of way..

Any comments ? Please contact me at: vikingsandartefacts@yahoo.com

🎉 𝕊𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕠 𝕔𝕖𝕝𝕖𝕓𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕖 🥳

𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘈𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴 has finally lifted the paywall from our study the famous '𝐀𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐡'-finger ring from the Viking Age town of Birka! (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/sca.21189). Back in the day, our study sparked a world wide media echo.

Улав Триггвасон вошёл в историю Киевской Руси после появления в дружине князя Владимира I. В Норвегии, куда Триггвасон вернулся и был избран королём в 995 г., современные историки рассматривают его как одного из правителей, заложивших основы государственности, собирания земель и христианизации страны. Он стал энергичным реформатором эпохи викингов, времени проведения глубоких религиозных и финансовых преобразований. Именно в правление Владимира на Руси появляются собственные деньги, а в правление Улава – в Норвегии. Одновременно с Норвегией началась чеканка монеты викингами в Дании и Швеции. Для всех, интересующихся наиболее ранним этапом денежной политики Киевского княжества, статья предоставляет возможность узнать, какие денежно-финансовые процессы протекали одновременно в трёх королевствах викингов.

Polemiki i recenzje 329 Joanna W o j t k o w i a k, Skandynawskie wpływy kulturowe w Wolinie (IX-XI wiek), Wrocław 2012, ss. 162, Wydawnictwo Chronicon Wolin -wczesnośredniowieczne emporium handlowe położone nad Bałtykiem. Liczne źródła pisane oraz obfite wyniki prowadzonych od ponad wieku badań archeologicznych poświadczają bogatą i barwną historię miasta, w którym Słowianie współegzystowali z przedstawicielami innych ludów. Problem obecności przybyszów obcych etnicznie, zwłaszcza Skandynawów, i wpływu, jaki wywarli na miejscową społeczność, nurtuje naukowców od dziesięcioleci. Nie może zatem dziwić, że z różnym skutkiem próbują analizować go coraz to nowi badacze. W nurt ten wpisuje się książka autorstwa Joanny Wojtkowiak. Jej lektura skłania do kilku krytycznych uwag 1 .

The Late Viking-Age Urnes style was subject to a detailed survey by Olwyn Owen at the thirteenth Viking Congress in 1997.  There she developed notions of an eclectic English variant which mostly decorated metalwork, as opposed to a Scandinavian bias towards runestones.  In this paper it was argued that the small 20th-century English corpus of artefacts decorated in the Urnes style was being mapped selectively until the 1990s to demonstrate a focus for the style in the Danelaw area.

In the intervening period many metal items decorated in this style have come to archaeological attention through the recording of metal-detected finds, especially through the Portable Antiquities Scheme: more than double the corpus presented by Owen in 1997.  The Danelaw focus is no longer tenable, and the characterisation of objects decorated in the style has moved firmly from the ecclesiastical sphere to the secular.  Scholars have begun to use this new corpus to examine differences in distribution, drawing out interesting discrepancies between object types.  This paper explored these patterns further, drawing on results of the first systematic survey of the style since Owen’s study.  It noted a markedly southern and eastern distribution pattern for equestrian equipment, which for the first time included mounts previously associated with boxes or books.  If current dating is accepted in the Anglo-Norman period for the English Urnes style the equestrian equipment shows an orientation towards northern France and the Low Countries.  By contrast, the distribution of dress accessories, especially brooches, suggested an enduring cultural alignment with the Scandinavian world.  Evidently the Urnes style was being used by different groups to simultaneously express different identities in the early Anglo-Norman period.

Drinking horn finals from the early medieval period are extremely rare. Let aside, those having an outspoken viking (or hybrid Anglo-)Scandinavian style as the example here published. This bronze example had been found near Lincoln in Lincolnshire, England. The, complete, example seemingly having a simple form of decoration and casting, but, and here one recognizes the distinguished, and what it sets it apart from everything else, viking art, once again, zooming in, taking a closer look. The details are of an astonishing quality-and if I might say: force. Looking at the end of the final where one sees an animal face, a slight rotation of it unravels the intimate perspective looking at a wolves head.

Viking Jewellery under the Hammer!
- Status on Viking graves on Funen and the adjacent islands


Between 1932 and 2014, Odense City Museums acquired five pieces of bronze jewellery and approximately twenty-five fragments of iron objects from a gravel pit near Rolsted, eastern Funen. The most recent of these, originating from a private collection of antiquities, were discovered at an Internet auction! Unfortunately, no accurate information on the finds of any of the objects exists, but they all appear to have been discovered whilst digging for gravel in the1930s. Today, the site has been completely dug away and new information can no longer be obtained by making further excavations on the burial site.

By comparing the objects, presumably representing at least four inhumation graves, with corresponding finds from other burial sites on Funen, it would seem that this one may originally have contained approx.. fifty graves dating from the 800s until well into the tenth century. Thus the burial site has been in use from most of the Early and Middle Viking Age and it was, by Funish standards, a large site. The graves had been established in continuation of a barrow from the Neolithic period, long since disappeared, and traces of this practice are evident in several other burial sites from the Viking Age. It has been suggested that this ancient barrow, already 4000 years old by the Viking Age, may have served as a ’podium’ in connection with burial rites.

The reason for allocating a whole article to a group of objects with so few find details is the fact that Viking Age burial sites on Funen and the adjacent islands are rather uncommon – especially when compared to the number of burials from the Early Iron Age. In 2018, close to fifty-five burial sites had been registered on Funen and the adjacent islands, containing a total of approximately 550 graves, the vast majority of which were inhumation graves dating from c.800 to 1050. In comparison, almost five thousand graves are known from year c.1-400 and they are distributed across more than two hundred burial sites. The majority of the graves from the Early Iron Age are cremation graves where selected remains from the pyre were buried, perhaps in an urn. From the time between c.400-800, only a couple of burial sites are known, containing less than ten graves in total. The marked drop in numbers of graves around year 400 does not reflect a corresponding drop in population numbers, since the spread of dwellings, treasure finds, etc., show that the landscape was still populated and it is generally assumed that there was a population growth during the first millennium. On the contrary, indications suggest that the almost total absence of graves from 400-800 and the relatively few graves and burial sites from the Viking Age may derive from the fact that inhumation burials were not part of the sole or predominant burial rite during these centuries. A comparison with burial sites from marginal and recently cultivated landscapes, especially in Jutland, suggests that, from 400 at the latest, the practice of inhumation burials had all but ceased. In contrast, the widespread practice of incinerating the deceased on pyres arranged directly on a field was continued on Funen and the adjacent islands. When the fire had burned out, the burnt remains, which rarely occupied an area of more than three 3 m² at a thickness of a few centimetres, were covered by a low mound. Early Iron Age practice of burying selected remains from the pyre had also ceased and the mound did little to protect the grave against the ploughshares compared to the layer of soil that had covered the buried urns. Since the Funen landscape, from early times, has been intensively cultivated, the mounds and fire-debris strata have long since disappeared – perhaps with a few exceptions in the coastal forested areas. Not until the ground burial rite became more widespread in the region during the Viking Age were the graves traceable once again in the archaeological material. Inhumation burials rose significantly towards the end of the Viking Age when Christian influence began to assert itself. When inhumation graves seem to have been the most common type of burial in the Viking Age, it should simply be seen as an indication that the far commoner cremation burials can no longer be traced.

Replica so called 'kubbstol' (original in Swedish National Museum). Reading all kind of sorts of books about Viking Age artefacts, recently I dived into the world of so called miniature objects. Few publications had been dedicated on this kind of objects. Bo Jensen's Viking Age amulets in Scandinavia and Western Europe and Leszek Gardela's Scandinavian amulets in Viking Age Poland the two best known.

A technical analysis of the silver bossed penannular brooches suggests that these are not late and diminished examples of Insular metalwork but instead are the work of settled Viking craftsmen, marrying their native techniques to a mixed Pictish and Irish iconography, probably as a result of intermarriages.

Prehistoric pictures are a special sort of source material. Pictures are not random products – they were created to convey messages. This statement applies especially to the oral culture of the Viking Age. However, Viking Age pictures rarely occur as independent monuments. More often, they appear as animal art on metal artefacts. The starting point for my reflections is the grandiose brooch from Yelets, Russia. Here, we find an anthropomorphic figure with a bird-like body, possibly linking the object to the princely House of Rurik. Being a female dress adornment, we might ask whether it represents the might of the dynasty or the power of an individual female known from written sources.

In the modern world currently, there is an interest in and desire to understand ancient craft technologies, along with learning the practical side of these skills. Nålbinding is a craft which has been taught and demonstrated for the last 50 years, mainly within heritage and re-enactment communities. The cultural and social history of this craft has survived as a narrative better in some countries than others. In some places it has completely disappeared, leaving only fragmented archaeological remains behind. With a limited collection of archaeological examples surviving, each nålbinder or scholar comes up with their own way of assessing, learning and teaching this craft. In many cases it is this practical knowledge that is passed-down from archaeologists or fibre historians to a student; this then starts to create its own social application of the craft. Once that tutor has gone or the student moves on, nålbinding then can either evolve into an artistic craft form for the nålbinder,...

Three-dimensional (3D) laser scanners are becoming increasingly more affordable and  user-friendly, making 3D-modeling tools more widely available to researchers in various  countries and disciplines. In archaeology, 3D-modeling has the particular advantages of  facilitating the documentation and analysis of objects that are fragile, rare, and often difficult  to access. We have previously shown that 3D-modeling is a highly useful tool for shape  analysis of archaeological bone material, due to the high measurement accuracy inherent  in the latest generation of 3D laser scanners. In this work, we  explore the utility of 3D-modeling as a tool for Viking Age artefact analysis. To test the  usefulness of 3D-modeling when analyzing artefacts with a very complex morphology, we  chose highly ornate Viking Age baroque shaped brooches as study objects. These baroque  shaped brooches constitute a group of dress ornaments mainly encountered in eastern  Viking Age Scandinavia. Due to their large cast and/or attached bosses they obtain an almost  baroque appearance, hence their name. They appear in two  major versions, i.e. circular or equal armed, and in two kinds of material, i.e. silver- and  copper-based alloys. Because of the position of bronze brooches in burial contexts, it appears  they were used to fasten the cape or shawl in the female dress. For the present  work a recently excavated brooch from Denmark was analyzed, together with three Russian  brooches with nearly iconic status in the field of Viking Age studies. In the three case  studies, we investigated possible uses of 3D-modeling for artefact analysis, artefact reconstruction,  and tool mark and motif analysis. Exploring the usefulness of 3D-modeling for  these purposes allowed us to draw conclusions regarding how 3D-analysis can be best  incorporated into future artefact analysis. In addition, the case studies allowed us to gain  new insights about the baroque shaped brooches and their uses.

Since the discovery of a set of mounts for a pair of harness bows in a Viking-age grave at Møllemosegård on Fyn in 1826, these copper alloy mounts have been the object of great interest. The Møllemosegård burial was published in 1832 with a plate showing a top ornament (a guide for the reins) and a terminal shaped as an animal head. Another animal-head terminal, a single find which had been in the collections of Oldnordisk Museum in Copenhagen for some years, was included on the plate for comparison. This terminal and another almost identical mount are the subjects of this article. Both have previously been presented, but in most instances only one of the two is mentioned or shown. It is rarely clear that two remarkably similar mounts have been preserved. The article presents the results of technical analyses which indicate that the mounts were most likely made in the same workshop, possibly as part of a set of mounts.

Volume 1: Main body of thesis (text)
Volume 2: Catalogue of objects

This thesis provides a comprehensive comparison and analysis of portable inscribed objects from all ethno-linguistic cultures in early medieval Britain and Ireland, in the period between the post-Roman era (c. AD 400) and ending just after the Norman Conquest (c. AD 1100).  It looks at the relationships between people and objects, observing differences in inscribing practices between object types, the application of text onto material culture, and the differences and similarities of the types of inscriptions found on these objects.  Where past research has placed focus on only a single script, culture, or object type, this thesis is the first to combine all Insular scripts (runes, Roman, ogham) and languages (Old English, Old Norse, Latin, Irish/Early Gaelic) on portable objects from all major cultures in early medieval Britain and Ireland (Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, Pict, Irish, Scots). In total, 270 objects are catalogued and discussed, consisting of personal adornments and dress accessories, household and personal tools, weaponry and armour, ecclesiastical objects and church equipment, objects related to writing and reading in learned environments, funerary and memorial-related objects, and objects that cannot be identified but are categorised by raw material (i.e. metal, bone, stone). The types of object show a trend towards inscribing jewellery and dress accessories in Anglo-Saxon contexts and scripts (runes and Roman letters), whilst most of the objects of Scandinavian character and text (only runes) are made of ephemeral material including complete and incomplete pieces of bone and antler. Objects with ogham inscriptions follow a similar pattern and are primarily inscribed onto tools made of antler and bone, but, like the inscriptions in Scandinavian runes, can also be found on metal dress accessories and household items.

To analyse these objects in their social, personal, and political environments, this thesis employs the theories of object biography, gift and social exchange, and agency to look at the contexts in which the objects were used and inscribed and to consider the purposes behind the inscriptions. Additionally, ideas behind the power of writing and text, in particular those texts that are described as ‘gibberish’ or non-lexical, gives insight into how text was perceived and used in those cultures that engaged with it and how this evolved over time. The inscriptions include personal names and statements of ownership, maker, and commissioner, demonstrating direct relationships between people and things, and religious texts indicating that objects were used as vehicles for devotion and faith. This thesis has revealed that a wide variety of objects were given text in early medieval Britain and Ireland. It presents new and different perspectives on concepts of cultural and personal identity in regard to the study of material culture, providing discussions that are consistently growing and evolving as more objects and inscriptions are discovered each year.