The Ritual Use of Brooches in Early Medieval Forts on Öland, Sweden

Abstract

In 2010, the largest find of exquisite gilded silver brooches ever made in Scandinavia came to light during a metal detector survey in a small fort on Öland in the Baltic Sea. It consisted of five hoards buried in five different houses within the fort. The brooches were of the Dreiknopfbügelfibeln/radiate-headed and relief types. Three of the hoards also contained large quantities of beads and pendants, some quite exclusive and rare. In addition, the upper part of another relief brooch probably belonged to a sixth hoard ploughed up in the late nineteenth century. In 2011, Kalmar County Museum excavations at the site of these hoard finds also revealed the traces of a massacre. Though a connection between the deposition of the hoards and the massacre is plausible, several elements suggest that the deposits are ritual in character and unrelated to the attack on the fort. The regular placing of the hoards in the right corner inside the entrance of the houses suggests ritual acts, and the composition of the hoards demonstrates that the deposits are symbolic. We conclude that the hoards and the brooches are props belonging to the interior of the forts and to activities conducted inside them; they may have been worn by some women during rituals. Why these hoards were left in the Sandby fort is, however, no doubt related to its destruction.

En 2010 le plus grand ensemble de fibules en argent doré jamais retrouvé en Scandinavie fut découvert au cours d'une prospection au détecteur de métaux à l'intérieur d'une petite enceinte située sur l’île d’Öland en mer Baltique. Il s'agit de cinq trésors enfouis dans cinq maisons à l'intérieur de l'enceinte. Les fibules sont de types connus sous le nom de Dreiknopfbügelfibeln (fibules à arc et trois boutons) ou des fibules à tête décorée en relief. Trois ensembles contenaient aussi de grandes quantités de perles et de pendentifs, dont certains de type rare. De plus, la partie supérieure d'une autre fibule ornée en relief faisait probablement partie d'un sixième dépôt endommagé par les labours de la fin du dix-neuvième siècle. Les fouilles entreprises par le musée du Comté de Kalmar en 2011 sur l'emplacement de ces trésors ont également relevé les traces d'un massacre. Bien qu'un lien entre les dépôts et le massacre soit possible, plusieurs éléments suggèrent que les dépôts d'objets de parure étaient d'ordre rituel et n’étaient pas liés à l'assaut sur l'enceinte. L'emplacement récurrent des trésors dans l'angle à droite de l'entrée des maisons indique qu'il s'agit d'actes rituels et la composition des ensembles d'objets démontre que ces dépôts remplissaient une fonction symbolique. Nous en concluons que ces trésors et fibules étaient des accessoires faisant partie des enceintes et impliqués dans les activités menées à l'intérieur; peut-être certaines femmes portaient ces parures lors de cérémonie rituelles. Sans doute la destruction de l'enceinte de Sandby a empêché ses habitants de récupérer leurs trésors. Translation by Madeleine Hummler

Der größte Fund von vergoldeten Silberfibeln in Skandinavien wurde in Jahre 2010 in einer kleinen Befestigung auf der Insel Öland in der Ostsee geborgen. Es handelt sich um fünf Schatzfunde, die in fünf verschiedenen Häusern innerhalb der Befestigung von Sandby verborgen waren. Die Fibeln sind Dreiknopfbügelfibeln und Bügelfibeln mit reliefverziertem Kopf. Drei Fundstellen enthielten auch zahlreiche Perlen und Anhänger, darunter einige seltene und außergewöhnliche Exemplare. Der obere Teil einer anderen reliefverzierten Bügelfibel weist auf einen sechsten Schatzfund, der im späten neunzehnten Jahrhundert umgepflügt wurde. In 2011 haben die Ausgrabungen, die das Museum von Kalmar in Bereich der Schatzfunde unternahm, auch die Spuren eines Massakers freigelegt. Obschon man die Deponierung der Schatzfunde mit diesem Massaker in Zusammenhang bringen könnte, weisen verschiedene Umstände eher auf den rituellen Charakter der Deponierungen, also ohne Beziehung auf die Eroberung der Befestigung. Die regelmäßig beobachtete Lage der Schatzfunde im rechten Winkel innerhalb der Hauseingänge deutet auf rituelle Handlungen, und die Zusammenstellung der Befunde zeigt, dass die Deponierung symbolisch war. Wir kommen zum Schluss, dass die Schatzfunde und Fibeln als Requisiten der Tätigkeiten innerhalb der Befestigungen dienten; möglicherweise waren sie von gewissen Frauen getragen, vielleicht bei bestimmten rituellen Gelegenheiten. Die Zerstörung der Befestigung von Sandby ist sehr wahrscheinlich für die Aufgabe der Schatzfunde verantwortlich. Translation by Madeleine Hummler

Mots-clés:

• trésors de parures
• haut moyen âge/époque des migrations
• Öland
• dépôts rituels
• fibules à arc et trois boutons
• Dreiknopfbügelfibeln
• fibules à tête ornée en relief
• perles

Stichworte:

• Schatzfunde
• Frühmittelalter/Völkerwanderungszeit
• Öland
• rituelle Deponierungen
• Dreiknopfbügelfibeln
• reliefverzierte Bügelfibeln
• Perlen

Keywords:

• ornament hoards
• early medieval/Migration period
• Öland
• ritual deposition radiate-headed brooches
• Dreiknopfbügelfibeln
• relief brooches
• beads

Acknowledgements

Our thanks go to Kenneth Alexandersson (Kalmar County Museum, Sweden) for information regarding shoreline changes on Öland, to Professor Anders Andrén (Stockholm University) for the reconstruction of Sandby fort, and to Max Jahrehorn (Oxider AB, Kalmar) for the photographs of the finds. We also thank Dr Lisa Collinson (King's College, Aberdeen University) for proofreading, Dr Ludvig Papmehl-Dufay and Dr Helena Victor (Kalmar County Museum) for information about the ongoing excavations of Sandby borg, and Ylva Bäckström (Lund University) for designing the maps and figures. The osteological analysis of the Sandby borg human remains was conducted by Helene Wilhelmson (Lund University).

Notes

1 Although no one today appears to be quite sure of the Migration period shoreline on Öland, most researchers seem to agree that it was at least 1 m higher than in the present day. This means that the fort was built right on the water's edge, and must have been periodically flooded. This also applies to a few other island forts, like Eketorp (Holdar, 1979: 109) and Gråborg (Mats Blohmé, pers. comm.), whose eastern parts were flooded seasonally. This may also apply to the forts of Lenstad and Vedby.

2 Bygd in Swedish, scir in Old English, mag in Old Irish, pays in French, campus in Classical Latin, and regio in Medieval Latin.

3 Detailed studies of all the villages on the island and the remains of Roman Iron Age to Merovingian period houses and field systems, together with a study of all the maps of the island's villages from the 1600s onwards, show that the early medieval settlements and cultivation were located in the very same places in which seventeenth- and eighteenth-century villages and farmland were situated (Fallgren, 2006). Therefore, Figure 1 illustrates where in the landscape the early medieval farmland was located.

4 The older gold torques have also been interpreted in a similar way. Several of these are found in connection or within hillforts in Britain and on the Continent (Nylén, 1962: 99, 2005: 27; Herrmann, 1998; Cunliffe, 2001: 338; Isaksson, 2005: 155–56; Brown, 2009: 168).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jan-Henrik Fallgren

In 2006, Jan-Henrik Fallgren presented his PhD thesis, ‘Kontinuitet och förändring’ (‘Continuity and Change—Settlement and Society on Öland 200–1300 ad’), at Uppsala University. Between 2009–2010 and 2011–2015 he held post-doctoral positions at the Centre for Scandinavian Studies and at the Department of Archaeology at King's College, Aberdeen University, United Kingdom. In the research project ‘The Political Geography of the pre-Viking Period, a comparative study between Scandinavia and the British Isles’, he studied the spatial organization of early medieval tribal societies and stateless kingdoms and the role hillforts and other ritual and symbolic places played in these contexts. Within the second research project, ‘Expression of Power in Post Roman North: A Comparative Approach’, farm- and settlement hierarchies in Scandinavia and the British Isles were compared, with the purpose of investigating how different lordship and kingship structures affected the layout of settlements and the field-systems.

John Ljungkvist

John Ljungkvist presented his PhD thesis, ‘En Hiar atti Rikr’, at Uppsala University, in 2006. His thesis revolves around the structural character of elite milieus in Late Iron Age Middle Sweden, with special emphasis on the Uppsala region. Since then, he has covered a wide variety of topics, including the dating and character of elite burials. Other studies deal with continental and Byzantine imports to Scandinavia during the Migration and Viking periods. Since 2009, John has directed the long-term project: Gamla Uppsala—the emergence of a mythical centre. On the basis of his substantial experience of finds, centres, productive sites, and imports, John has increasingly been involved in issues revolving around the relation between historical ecology and Late Iron Age resource exploitation, networks of power and economy, as well as over-exploitation in relation to colonization and conflict.