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Abstract
The flexibility of material culture encourages material phenomena to take a dynamic part in social life. An example of this is material citation, which can provide society with links to both the past and connections to contemporary features. In this article, we look at the diverging ways of relating to and reinventing the past in the Viking Age, exploring citations to ancient monuments in the landscape of Gammel Lejre on Zealand, Denmark. Complementing the placement of landscape monuments, attention is also brought to examples of mortuary citations related to bodily practices in Viking-age mortuary dramas, such as those visible at the mound of Skopintull on the island of Adelsö in Lake Mälaren, Sweden. Through these case studies, we explore the variability in citational strategies found across tenth-century Scandinavia.
La flexibilité de la culture matérielle encourage les phénomènes matériels à jouer un rôle dynamique dans la vie sociale. La citation matérielle en est un exemple: elle permet à la société de tisser des liens avec le passé et de créer des rapports avec le monde qui lui est contemporain. Dans cet article nous examinons les diverses manières de relier et de réinventer le passé à l’époque viking en explorant les références à d'anciens monuments établis dans la campagne autour de Gammel Leyre sur l’île de Seeland au Danemark. En plus de la situation des monuments dans le paysage, nous attirons l'attention sur des exemples de citations dans le domaine funéraire ; ces dernières se rapportent aux pratiques relatives au traitement des corps dans les rituels funéraires de l’époque viking, documentées par exemple dans le tumulus de Skopintull sur l’île d'Adelsö au centre du Lac Mälar en Suède. A travers ces études de cas nous explorons les diverses stratégies référentielles employées au Xe siècle apr. J.-C. en Scandinavie. Translation by Madeleine Hummler
Die Anpassungsfähigkeit der materiellen Kultur gibt den materiellen Erscheinungsformen die Möglichkeit, eine dynamische Funktion im Sozialleben zu spielen. Die materiellen Zitate, die der Gesellschaft die Gelegenheit geben, Verbindungen mit der Vergangenheit und mit ihrer eigenen Gegenwart aufzubauen, ist ein Beispiel solch einer Rolle. In diesem Artikel werden die in der Wikingerzeit unterschiedlichen Arten, mit der Vergangenheit einen Zusammenhang zu bilden und neu zu definieren untersucht; die Weisen, wie die Denkmäler in der Landschaft von Gammel Lejre auf Seeland in Dänemark zitiert wurden, dienen hier als Beispiel. In Ergänzung zu der Lage der Landschaftsdenkmäler wird auf Fälle hingewiesen, wo Bräuche, die mit der Behandlung von Leichen bei wikingerzeitlichen Bestattungsvorgängen verbunden sind, zitiert werden; solche Sitten sind im Grabhügel von Skopintull auf der Insel Adelsö im Mälarsee in Schweden erkennbar. Diese Fallstudien ermöglichen es, die Veränderlichkeit der verschiedenen Zitierungsweisen im zehnten Jahrhundert in Skandinavien zu untersuchen. Translation by Madeleine Hummler
Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to Howard Williams for inviting us to contribute to this issue of the European Journal of Archaeology, and for his and the three peer reviewers’ helpful comments. We also wish to express our sincere thanks to senior curator Gunnar Andersson at the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm for generously sharing information about the new find of the eggshell from the Skopintull grave.
Notes
1 The full inscription can be translated as ‘Tjodvi raised this stone after Odinkar. Futhark. Use the memory place/object (kuml) well. I sat the runes right. Gunne, Armund (…)’.
2 The excavations of Gammel Lejre have been published in an impressive new volume (CitationChristensen, 2015), published after this article was submitted.
3 Unknown meaning, from the context it may possibly mean destroys.
4 Unknown meaning, but the context clearly indicates that it is not a good thing.
5 For example, the well-known Vendel Grave III, dated to the eighth century, contained the bones of a falcon, an eagle-owl, and a crane, as well as bones of horses and dogs.
6 In the East Mound fragments of comb, a mirror, and a stone palette, perhaps used as an instrument for face make-up, were also found. CitationArrhenius & Sjøvold (1995: 35) have suggested that they were used as grooming utensils. If such is the case, it would emphasize the importance of practices associated with enhancing looks and appearance.
7 The significance of the combination of burnt and unburnt items, as well as their similar position in the urns has also been addressed by senior curator Gunnar Andersson. For him these features are clear indications of a shared practice for the two cinerary depositions (email communication with senior curator Gunnar Andersson dated 31 January 2015).
8 That this practice could have been a regional paraphrase is suggested by yet another find. In a mound from Skederid in Uppland dating to the ninth or tenth century, the cremated bones of a woman were found together with broken pieces of unburnt egg shell (CitationBratt, 2008: 319).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Julie Lund
Julie Lund, Associate Professor in Archaeology, Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History, University of Oslo. Her research focuses on changes in mentalities and world-views studied through ritual actions, the cognitive landscape, the ontological status of objects, diverging concepts of personhood, and ideas of corporality and varying ways of relating to pasts in Viking Age Scandinavia.
Elisabeth Arwill-Nordbladh
Elisabeth Arwill-Nordbladh, Professor emerita in Archaeology, Department of Historical Studies, University of Gothenburg. Her research interest is focused around gender studies, the active position of material phenomena, memory and the past in the past, and the historiography of archaeology.