Miniature Spears in the Viking Age: Small Symbols of Óðinn?

ABSTRACT: The spear is doubtlessly one of the most iconic weapons of the Viking Age. In addition to its numerous applications in armed conflict, where it was used by foot- and horseback warriors, the spear served as a potent emblem of power and social prominence. Furthermore, archaeological discoveries of spears in ritual contexts demonstrate unequivocally that these weapons played important roles in pre-Christian religious practice, in some instances perhaps echoing myths about Óðinn. This paper examines a group of rare Viking Age miniatures shaped like spears and spearheads. Made of a variety of materials, including iron, silver, copper alloys and wood, these intriguing artefacts were probably carried on the body singly or as part of elaborate sets of religious paraphernalia. By investigating the contexts of their discovery, as well as their materiality and different practical applications, new ideas will be offered about the miniature spears’ social and symbolic significance. RESUME: Spyddet er utvivlsomt et af de mest ikoniske våben fra vikingetiden. I tillæg til dets mange funktioner i væbnede konflikter, hvor det blev brugt af krigere til fods og til hest, var spyddet også et stærkt symbol på magt og social status. Ydermere viser arkæologiske fund af spyd i rituelle kontekster utvetydigt, at disse våben spillede en vigtig rolle i førkristen religiøs praksis, i nogle tilfælde måske forbundet med myter om Odin. Denne artikel undersøger en gruppe af sjældne miniaturer fra vikingetid, der er formet som spyd og spydspidser. Disse spændende genstande er fremstillet af forskellige materialer, såsom jern, sølv, kobberlegeringer og træ, og de blev sandsynligvis båret på kroppen som enkeltgenstande eller som del af mere omfattende sæt af religiøst udstyr. Ved at undersøge den kontekst, hvori de findes, samt materialer og diverse praktiske anvendelser byder artiklen på nye idéer om miniaturespyddenes sociale og symbolske betydning(er)

Citations in Stone: The Material World of Hogbacks

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in European Journal of Archaeology on 06/07/2016, available online: doi 10.1080/14619571.2016.1186910This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in European Journal of Archaeology on 06/07/2016, available online: doi 10.1080/14619571.2016.1186910This article explores a meshwork of citations to other material cultures and architectures created by the form and ornament of house-shaped early medieval recumbent stone monuments popularly known in Britain as ‘hogbacks’. In addition to citing the form and ornament of contemporary buildings, shrines, and tombs, this article suggests recumbent mortuary monuments referenced a far broader range of contemporary portable artefacts and architectures. The approach takes attention away from identifying any single source of origin for hogbacks. Instead, considering multi-scalar and multi-media references within the form and ornament of different carved stones provides the basis for revisiting their inherent variability and their commemorative efficacy by creating the sense of an inhabited mortuary space in which the dead are in dialogue with the living. By alluding to an entangled material world spanning Norse and Insular, ecclesiastical and secular spheres, hogbacks were versatile technologies of mortuary remembrance in the Viking Age

Viking Mortuary Citations

Introducing the European Journal of Archaeology’s special issue ‘Mortuary Citations: Death and Memory in the Viking World’, this article outlines the justification and theoretical framework underpinning a new set of studies on Viking-age mortuary and commemorative practice as strategies of mortuary citation. The contributions to the collection are reviewed in relation to strengths and weaknesses in existing research and broader themes in mortuary archaeological research into memory work in past societies

A Place to Rest Your (Burnt) Bones? Mortuary Houses in Early Anglo-Saxon England

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Archaeological Journal on 5th October 2017, available online: doi: 10.1080/00665983.2017.1366704This article presents a fresh interpretation of square and rectangular mortuary structures found in association with deposits of cremated material and cremation burials in a range of early Anglo-Saxon (fifth-/sixth-century AD) cemeteries across southern and eastern England. Responding to a recent argument that they could be traces of pyre structures, a range of ethnographic analogies are drawn upon, and the full-range of archaeological evidence is synthesized, to re-affirm and extend their interpretation as unburned mortuary structures. Three interleaving significances are proposed: (i) demarcating the burial place of specific individuals or groups from the rest of the cemetery population, (ii) operating as ‘columbaria’ for the above-ground storage of the cremated dead (i.e. not just to demarcate cremation burials), and (iii) providing key nodes of commemoration between funerals as the structures were built, used, repaired and eventually decayed within cemeteries. The article proposes that timber ‘mortuary houses’ reveal that groups in early Anglo-Saxon England perceived their cemeteries in relation to contemporary settlement architectures, with some groups constructing and maintaining miniaturized canopied buildings to store and display the cremated remains of the dead

Odwróceni. Fenomen pochówków na brzuchu w Polsce wczesnośredniowiecznej

This paper examines the phenomenon of prone burial in early medieval Poland in the period between the 10th and 13th centuries. Among individuals treated this way were mainly adult men, but several examples of prone burials of females have also been discovered. Over the years prone burials from Poland have been interpreted by many archaeologists in the light of so-called ‘antivampire’ practices which were allegedly intended to protect the society against the living dead. By adopting an intercultural perspective, this article seeks to nuance these one-sided views and attempts to demonstrate that prone burials may have held a much wider range of meanings. It is argued that they may have been burials of criminals or various social deviants and that in some instances they could have perhaps signalled a religious and post-mortem act of penanc

Wojownicze kobiety w wikińskiej Skandynawii? Wstępne studium archeologiczne

This paper seeks to provide a new contribution to the debates on Viking Age women by focusing on a rather controversial notion of ‘female warriors’. The core of the article comprises a preliminary survey of archaeological evidence for female graves with weapons (axes, spears,swords and arrowheads) from Viking Age Scandinavia. Attention is focused not only on the types of weapons deposited with the deceased, but first and foremost on the meanings which similar practices may have had for the past societies. The author discusses why, where and how the weapons were placed in female graves and attempts to trace some patterns in this unusual funerary behaviour. In addition to exploring the funerary evidence, the iconographic representations of what could be regarded as ‘female warriors’ are also briefly considered. Lastly, a few remarks are also made on the notion of armed women in the textual source

Miniatures with nine studs : interdisciplinary explorations of a new type of Viking Age artefact

This paper investigates the materiality and symbolic significance of a recently emerging group of Viking Age miniature pendants decorated with nine studs. Artefacts that make up this group, typically made of silver or copper alloy and known exclusively from Denmark and Norway, have all been discovered stray as a result of amateur metal detecting. Although their designs are varied and no two specimens are ever exactly the same, it appears that the number nine was of fundamental importance to their designers and users. Drawing on the ‘conceptof citation’ and theoretical approaches to miniaturisation, this study exploresthe conceptual correspondences between miniatures with nine studs and other Viking Age objects that creatively utilised the number nine motif. In creating a ‘web of citational relationships’ with a host of other artefacts, these finds can be interpreted in the context of textual sources that emphasise the importance of the number nine in the Norse worldview

Miniatures with nine studs : interdisciplinary explorations of a new type of Viking Age artefact

This paper investigates the materiality and symbolic significance of a recently emerging group of Viking Age miniature pendants decorated with nine studs. Artefacts that make up this group, typically made of silver or copper alloy and known exclusively from Denmark and Norway, have all been discovered stray as a result of amateur metal detecting. Although their designs are varied and no two specimens are ever exactly the same, it appears that the number nine was of fundamental importance to their designers and users. Drawing on the ‘conceptof citation’ and theoretical approaches to miniaturisation, this study exploresthe conceptual correspondences between miniatures with nine studs and other Viking Age objects that creatively utilised the number nine motif. In creating a ‘web of citational relationships’ with a host of other artefacts, these finds can be interpreted in the context of textual sources that emphasise the importance of the number nine in the Norse worldview

Shield-maidens and Norse Amazons Reconsidered Women and Weapons in Viking Age Burials in Norway

This paper provides new insights into the custom of burying women with weapons in Viking Age Norway. Possible female graves furnished with swords, axe heads, spearheads and arrowheads are known from Rogaland, Sogn og Fjordane, Telemark, Trøndelag and Vestfold, and although each case is unique, they share some intriguing confluences. In additionto weapons, their assemblages often contain high quality jewellery, curated objects, amulets, and items imported from distant locations. This paper investigates various source critical and methodological issues associated with these finds and situates them in an interdisciplinary context, seeking to propose new ideas on who the deceased were in life and how their mourners wanted to remember them in death

The influence of visual identification on marketing communication on a given example.

Praca przedstawiająca wpływ identyfikacji wizualnej na komunikacje marketingową.Master’s dissertation talking the influence about visual identification on marketing communication