Amulettringar snarare än ämnesjärn : metallografisk analys tyder på ojämn materialkvalitet hos vendeltida järnringar från Åselby i Stora Tuna, Dalarna

29 iron rings with diameters between 9 and 15 cm were excavated in 1989 at a Vendel Period settlement site with a longhouse, located at Åselby in Dalecarlia, Sweden. Most of the rings had between one and three smaller rings attached. Rings of this type and size are fairly common at Scandinavian Vendel and Viking Period sites – settlements, cemeteries and cult precincts – but their function remains debated. The rings from Åselby have been interpreted as iron/steel bars, to be used or traded as raw material for e.g. weapons production. Previous metallurgical analysis of one Åselby ring showed it to consist of somewhat uneven but still decentquality carbon steel. General conclusions should however not be drawn from a single observation. Here, we have sampled six Åselby rings for metallographic examination of the cross-sections. The material quality and carbon content of the sampled rings were found to be very uneven, and relatively large inclusions of unworked slag were common. We conclude that the rings were not bars of raw material. Instead, they may have been amulet rings, intended for ritual use. If so, our results suggest that the material properties of amulet rings may have been less important during rituals – it may have sufficed that the rings had the right shape

Niklas Luhmann, Carl Schmitt and the Modern Form of the Political

Niklas Luhmann elaborated his account of the political system in a complex, though often implicit, debate with Carl Schmitt. Underlying his systems-theoretical model of politics, and of the legitimacy of politics, is the anti-Schmittian view that modern society's communications about itself are neither coordinated by, nor embodied in, a political centre, and that politics is always an unemphatic aspect of these communications. However, this article proposes an immanent critique of Luhmann's analysis of the political system, and it argues that his theory uses highly selective and puristic techniques to support its limitation of society's politics. If interpreted critically, in fact, Luhmann's political sociology illuminates the specific politicality and political emphasis of certain communications, it underlines the distinction of politics from other systems of social communication, and it calls for a re-insistence on the political as a primary category of social analysis. Copyright © 2007 Sage Publications