Illerup Ådal, excavations 1976

                      Illerup Ådal, excavations 1976 The 1976 excavations of the lllerup Ådal weapon offerings were the hitherto most extensive with respect both to area and finds. The material was augmented with about 600 items and the excavated area doubled to about 1600 m2 The disposition of the finds also shows that an area of about the same size remains to be investigated. The 1976 excavations were carried out with the purpose of rescuing artefacts from the partly destroyed area near the original lake shore and of delimiting the two offering sites. The action went according to plan, a large part of the threatened area being investigated. One of the most important finds came from this very area. This was a shield-handle mount of bronze with a runic inscription. The runes have not been completely deciphered yet, but possibly read swarta, an Old Norse form of the word black. The inscription is one of the oldest known. The delimitation of the two offering areas was not entirely successful on account of the large amount of material, but there is reason to hope that the younger offering place can be defined in the course of 1977. It was in particular the older area from the time around 200 A. D. which furnished the greatest surprises. Hitherto by far the greater part of the finds from this area has consisted of weapons, while other equipment in the form of mounts, buckles, etc., has been largely lacking. It emerged that these missing elements lay in heaps further out in the bog, where we had expected to find a clear demarcation of the artefact-bearing area. These heaps lay in fact more than 30m out in the bog, and it was soon apparent that this material could not have been cast into the Iron Age lake from the shore, but must have been sailed out and dumped overboard or laid on the frozen lake. These new features of the offering finds from Illerup mean that we do not know how many artefacts the bog still holds, but the distribution shown in the survey plan, fig. 1, does show that we have to move further and deeper into the bog. Our efforts have been richly rewarded. This may be seen from a couple of finds from last summer, an arm-ring of fire-gilt silver on a bronze core, fig. 9, and a brooch of bronze and silver with inlaid blue glass beads. Jørgen Ilkjær og Jørn Lønstru

Nye udgravninger i Illerup ådal

New excavations in Illerup Ådal In the summer of 1975 study of the weapon offerings in Illerup Ådal was resumed. The first excavations of this extensive site were undertaken by Harald Andersen in 1950-1956. Since then no work has been carried out in the field, but certain analyses of the excavated material have been made. The present interim report describes the 1975 excavations and deals with some of the problems raised in connection with the find.Harald Andersen demonstrated that the Illerup find comprised several offerings: Site 1, the east area, from about 400 A. D., site 2, the west area, from about 200 A. D. and site 3 about coeval with site 2. The location of these three areas is shown in fig. 1.Examination of the material excavated earlier has revealed that items recovered from the north-western part of site 1 are synchronous with those recovered from sites 2 and 3. These specimens cannot have been cast from the spot from which site 2 objects were thrown, because the distance of 40 m is too great.These objects, with Harald Andersen's site 3, raise problems which can only be solved by excavating the area west of site 1 and north of site 2.Experimentally, in the hope of easing excavation, we carried out in co-operation with Niels Abrahamsen, Geophysical Institute, University of Århus, proton magnetometer measurements in the area in question, and a test area was selected (fig. 2), where strongly diverging values could be checked and any extension of site 3 be registered.The results exceeded expectations (fig. 3). A dense concentration of shield bosses, swords, spear- and lance heads, arrowheads, knives and shafts of thrusting weapons and missiles was found.We also established a test area close to the old lake shore in order to observe the circumstances of preservation and possibly to find a limit of site 2. No boundary was found, site 2 objects being present. Preservation was found to be poor due to the subsidence of the top ½ m of the bog. The artefacts now lay just at the transition to the topsoil.At a distance of 6-7 m from the ancient lake shore was a compact stone pavement which must have been hidden at the bottom of the lake and probably covered by a growth of rushes. No marking of these stones with posts was found. They probably served as a platform for throwing artefacts into site 3, the area of the summer excavation and the outer part of site 1. This can, however, first be ascertained with certainty, when the area has been completely excavated.The excavation has yielded a broad cross-section of artefacts in the new site 3, which comprises Harald Andersen's site 3 and the area excavated last summer. The recent excavation yielded 20 swords and sword fragments, 8 of which were entire or nearly so, and 3 point fragments. Stamps and trade marks were common and an example is seen in fig. 6. The inscription should probably be rendered ACRISSIM MA, 'by Acrissim's hand'. On another sword is written EGO FE, 'I have made'.The hilt on Acrissim's sword (fig. 7) has been ingeniously made. Bronze rings and iron rivets held together an organic material which has not survived the stay in the bog.The sword in fig. 8 had a partially preserved hilt of bone. The guard is made of a hollow bone formed into a half cylinder. The holes in the bone must have been closed with bronze plates. The grip is likewise of hollow bone, decorated with longitudinal grooves.The shield bosses were of forms known from the Vimose find. Two had an added top as Vimose pl. 5 :7 (7) and the others are of the type illustrated Vimose pl. 5:10 (8).The 21 spear- and lance heads correspond closely to those dealt with in the article on the Vimose weapon find (9). Some examples are shown in fig. 9. From the left are shown the Vennolum type of lance head, the Simris spearhead type and the Skiaker lance and spearhead types.A prominent single find is shown in fig. 10. This is a silver plated bronze fitting, which has been fastened to a strap and possibly served as a strap gatherer.The objects in the test area must be dated on the basis of the content of spear­ and lance heads to the beginning of the late Roman Iron Age and be approximately coeval with the weapon find from Vimose (10). Chronologically, the objects found in the recent excavation also correspond very closely to those known from sites 2-3 and 1 north-west. A brief summary of the content of these sites, in comparison with artefacts from the somewhat later site 1, shows this in greater detail. In fig. 11 and 12 are shown spear- and lance heads from sites 2-3 and 1 respectively and in fig. 13 a sword from site 2 (left) may be compared with a sword from site 1 (right). Fig. 14 shows a shield boss from site 2 and fig. 15 one from site 1.The coming excavations will perhaps supplement the rich finds of weapons with fittings, fibulae and belt buckles, which are so far few. In sites 2-3 there are possibilities, but site 1 must be considered almost depleted.Jørgen Ilkjær og Jørn Lønstru

Runefundene fra Illerup ådal. En arkæologisk vurdering af vores ældste indskrifter

The Runes from Illerup River Valley From the sacrifices of war booty at Thorsbjerg and Vimose, early runic inscriptions are known. Expectations of further finds of runes from the Late Roman Iron Age were therefore great when in 1975 we resumed the excavations in Illerup river valley, and so far the results have been abundant. The first of four inscriptions was found on a shield handle mounting of bronze (fig. 1). On the one handle surface of the mounting was the inscription swarta, a man's name, probably that of the owner of the shield. The inscription would have been visible to the bearer of the shield. The next two inscriptions were identical, oj ingaz, one of which was carved, the other stamped, on lance heads of Vennolum type (4) (fig. 2). The runes were placed on the blades of the lance heads, which were also ornamented with chasing. The two inscriptions were not made on the lance heads later than the other ornamentation. The last inscription was found on a plane excavated in 1980, and dates from one of the great piles of objects which were part of the earliest sacrifice in the find. Fig. 3 indicates the fragmented condition of the plane. On the basis of a comparison to a similar plane from the Vimose find (5) we can estimate its original length to about 40 cm. Its greatest dimension is now 22.3 cm. The underside of the plane is hollow, and there can be no doubt that it was used for planing off spear and lance shafts. Fig. 3 also shows ornamentation which had covered most of the surface of the plane. Straight lines, carved with a sharp knife, are placed in various patterns. The runes, which are read as afi(l)aiki (7) are carved in exactly the same manner, and the inscription must have been made at the same time as the rest of the ornamentation. Dating All the runic inscriptions were found on objects which were part of the earliest sacrifice of the Illerup find. Investigations in recent years have shown that this sacrifice covers a considerable area, at present at least 30,000 sq. m. On the basis of the assembling of fragments from different areas to one and the same weapon, we believe it certain that site 2 was sacrificed on a single occasion. As an absolute chronological fixed point for the dating of the runes from Illerup, we have the coins, the Roman denarii. The youngest among the approximately 125 denarii found at site 2 was struck 187-88 AD, and consequently the sacrifice must have been made after this date. The difference between the latest denarius and the sacrifice can hardly be greater than 10-15 years. This evaluation is based in part upon the chronological distribution of the coins, in part upon the relative chronology of the Late Roman Iron Age in Northern Europe. The site 2 sacrifice contains leading types (such as early variants of shield bosses of Jahn's form 6) for Godlowski's horizon 2a, that is, in per. C 1b of the relative chronology (12). To elucidate the relative weapon chronology, we have worked out a diagram of type combinations (fig. 4) in which the vertical columns are the weapon graves and the horizontal rows are the various weapon types of chronological importance. The limits of the periods are indicated in the diagram. In connection with his treatment of the Thorsbjerg find, (14), Raddatz has juxtaposed the North European relative chronology to the absolute, Roman chronology. One of the most significant results was the determination of period C 1's beginning to before the Marcomanni Wars (166-180). Inscriptions found in bogs In an earlier work (8), an attempt has been made to evaluate the complex Vimose find. The spear head and lance head types indicated that by far the largest part of the find was sacrificed in per. C 1b. It is probable that the five objects with runes from the Vimose find belong to the main sacrifice. In any case, they are not later, as a subsequent intermixture of military equipment cannot be observed. For the past fifty years, the Thorsbjerg find has been regarded as a gradual accumulation of objects belonging to the local population (25). A new study of the find, however, shows that Thorsbjerg can be interpreted as three sacrifices of war booty, the largest of which, from per. C 1b, includes more than 90% of the material. On the basis of the fibula types, it has also been shown that the sacrificed objects from this period belonged to an army which originated in the region between the Elbe and the Rhine (26). The ferrule and the fragmented bronze shield boss with the runic inscriptions belonged to the main sacrifice, and the ferrule inscription, at least, comes from the West Germanic region. The shield boss inscription was possibly made in connection with the sacrifice. Inscriptions from graves and stray finds The Norwegian grave complex from Stabu contains a lance head with runes (37). Stabu consists of at least three interments, but the runic lance of Vennolum type can only be ascribed to per. C 1b. The Mos grave on Gotland has not been professionally investigated (42). The lance head with incrusted runes is linked to the Gamme type (8), but differs from this by the shape of the socket. The spear head with a bead on the socket from the Mos grave appears most frequently in per. C 1a, but in the Norwegian Hunn grave, for example, it is found in a C 1b context. If the shield handle mounting and the shield boss belong together with the runic lance, then a dating to per. C 1b is certain. The Mos lance is related to the incrusted lance heads from Dahmsdorf (46), Kowel (47), and the spear head from Rozwadow (48). A dating of the three East European pieces to per. C 1a is not improbable, but on the other hand it cannot be proven. In the earliest group of runic inscriptions, we ought to include the five inscriptions on fibulae from Gårdlösa (49), Værløse (51), Næsbjerg (52), Himlingøje (53), and Nøvling (54), which are dated to per. C 1b or slightly later. Comparative remarks With the find of the plane from Illerup, a total of 21 inscriptions from the period c. 200 AD is known. This sudden and overwhelming appearance of runes can be explained on the basis of the nature of the source material: first, the thousands of well-preserved objects from the sacrifices of war booty at Vimose, Thorsbjerg, and Illerup; second, the rich graves from the beginning of the Late Roman Iron Age. In a runic context, there is a fundamental difference between the find groups. Whereas the graves are exponents for the local society, the sacrifices of war booty are characteristic for a society other than that of the find area. The available maps of the distribution of the runes (56) therefore cannot form a basis for the determination of the area in which runic script originated. The archaeological determination of the spreading of the runes to the Scandinavian as well as the East and West Germanic areas c. 200 AD confirms the assumption prevailing in alphabet history that runes were known far earlier. In an attempt to explain why and how runes originated, runologists stress the strong connections between the Roman Empire and Germania Libera in the first centuries AD (58). This explanation is plausible, but can be further elaborated by calling attention to the massive presence of Latin letters on Roman coins throughout Germania in that very period, the couple of centuries AD. Jørgen llkjær, Jørn Lønstrup                        &nbsp