SITUNE DEI 2009 The Assault on Helgö and Birka and the end of the Iron Age Peter Lindbom Abstract. In this article I propose that there was only have the Norse Sagas, and other writ- an assault on the island of Helgö at the end of the ten sources like Chronicles, that tell us of 10th Century, and that this attack was orches- the “mythical” battles that took place in the trated by the Swedish king or his Rus allies. The past present a problem with stories about attack on Helgö was synchronied with a simul- battles like the Teutoburger forest, Fyrisval- taneous assault on Birka. Both attacks have larna or Helgeå. Unfortunately we seldom common characteristics: the hall buildings were have information about these places. As thoroughly destroyed and a huge amount of ar- these sites are rarely found and excavated, rows was shot at the houses. The majority of the the credibility of these sources has de- arrowheads from the isles are of foreign origin, creased and they have been dismissed as and more specifically, of Rus making. This fantasies. However, recently discovered means that the attackers either were Rus pirates finds from Kalkriese have provided more or Rus warriors that ransacked Helgö and plun- evidence that historical texts such as Taci- dered Birka. These attacks somehow made it tus’ tale about the Germanic massacre on a easier for the king to move the trade from Birka Roman army might after all be true. to his new town Sigtuna, and that Helgö and Bir- What do we do when we stumble on a ka gave way to the urbanisation process and the find that consists of a lot of weapons, and Medieval period in Sweden. which only makes sense if they are put into a martial context? Do we dare to interpret he title of this article is meant to be them as the remains of an ancient battle- Tprovocative, as it is a statement about field, and what further conclusions can we how we are to understand and interpret the draw from these materials concerning the past. However, it is also a case study in the past? use of Battlefield Archaeology, and the aim In this article I present the arrowheads is to show that we tend to belittle the results from Helgö and Birka, and argue that the and interpretations that this new discipline only logical explanation of these finds is the makes possible, when analysing traditional assumption that they are remains from an archaeological materials. The fact that we assault that took place in the 970’s. As ‘un- 83 PETER LINDBOM tidy houses’, both the Hall on Helgö and the The fact that so many arrowheads have “Garrison” on Birka can be thought of as a been found on Helgö and Birka is also a rare unique phenomenon in Swedish Archaeolo- phenomenon, which only has parallels in gy, since most houses seem to have been the Danish bog finds, where an equal num- cleaned and emptied before they were aban- ber have been found. There are different doned (fig. 1, 2). Both houses show signs of theories on the origin of the Danish finds. intentional destruction, and are full of bro- The traditional view is that an attacking ken glass, weapon details and other debris, force was defeated, and was then offered to as if they were left in a hurry or after a fight the Gods (Ilkjær 2001, 2003). Amore recent or disturbance of some kind. In order to perspective sees the depositions as a Danish present these attacks, I will first give an ar- version of the Roman triumphal marches chaeological background and present the (Storgaard 2001, 2003). It is interesting to arrowheads found on the two isles. It is note that in this Danish example, two com- these artefacts which form the basis to my pletely different interpretations concerning explanation of ‘how’ and ‘by whom’ these the origins of the weapons have been pro- assaults were carried out. posed based upon the same material: one My theory is based on the finding of where the foreign attacking troops lost and more than 300 arrowheads on the two isles, their gear were sacrificed, while the other where the majority of the points either be- imagines the Danes made victorious cam- long to foreign types of eastern or Russian paigns abroad and brought the spoils home origin. Both on Helgö and Birka there are a to sacrifice. One common observation made number of special Russian arrowheads, by both interpretations is that the arrows which belong in the 10th Century, which and weapons were deposited or offered in have only been found in a few other places heaps in the Danish bogs, whereas the ar- in Sweden: in Estuna and in the Saami met- rows from Helgö and Birka are found in a al depots (Lindbom 2006, Lindbom in very haphazard manner near settlements press). These facts strengthen my idea that and buildings, and in some cases have been the attackers were foreigners. found stuck in the walls and the houses. One may speculate that the arrows One problem is that the foreign arrow- would have been part of some kind of of- heads from Birka and Helgö come from fering, and that they have been intentional- “open contexts”, while most of the Swedish ly spread over the settlements on Birka and arrows come from “closed contexts” or Helgö. But this is hard to accept, as some of graves. If we realise that the traditional the arrows were stuck in the walls of the grave finds are part of an ideological in- houses, and seem to have been shot from a vestment that Iron Age man chose to make, certain direction. There may have been and was part of his “social capital” that some bizarre ritual, where one shot arrows showed who they were and to what social at one’s houses in order to achieve some un- strata they belonged, we can start to com- known purpose, but this seems highly un- pare the two sets of material in order to un- likely, as there is a clear intention behind the derstand the finds from these different con- shots (see figures below). texts. If the grave finds are part of the social capital that was invested by the mourners at 84 THE ASSAULT ON HELGÖ AND BIRKA A1 A2 M 62 Fragm M 46 A1 M 62 M 62 Frag M 62 Frag M 46 M 5 l å k skål s r e v l i silver s M 62 R 540 R 539 M 5 Frag M 62 R 539 Frag R 539 R 540 Fragm A1 M 62 M 62 Fragm M 46 R 538 A2 Frag M 62 M 5 R 539 M 5 Frag M 46 A1 R 538 M 62 A1 Frag Fig. 1. The Hall on Helgö. Observe the devastation of the house and all the things that have been left in this very “untidy house’’. SHIELD N SHIELD SKÖLD 3177 A X SHIELD W E A73 A 181 SHIELD 1141:1 S SHIELD SHIELD 5314 E SHIELD AXE A7 SHIELD A14 BIG KNIFES YXA SHIELD SHIELD 5272 A1344963 A9 4597 4311 Byzantinian A131 X 1294 E 4641 Chape SHIELD A133 1296 Sak n as 5059 6571 4291 4992 164 L A125 5273 BIG KNIFE A7 5192 Hedeby 4732 Hedeby 4872 AXE 5125 A105 S SHIELD Fig. 2. The untidy house on A119 2004 Birka or “the warrior’s house’’. The Garrison was probably at- Arbman SHIELD tacked, and much like the Hall well SHIELD ’s on Helgö, it was abandoned in a hurry. There are plenty of Arbman A 13 ’s trench 1934 weapons and military equip- SHIELD Trench 2 ment in- or outside the Garri- A 14 SHIELD 615 son, suggesting that it was at- A 11 Trench 1 tacked, and that this is the re- 558 Byzantinian A 12 Terrace edge SHIELDcoin mains of the Battle of the Gar- A 6 164 AXE rison described in the text. SHIELD SHIELD? 85 PETER LINDBOM the funeral, one can state that “the grave ar- elite graves from different phases of the rows” are part of the indigenous traditions Iron Age. that were in vogue during a specific time pe- The tang point thus has a long and con- riod, as the contents and the types in the tinuous development in the Scandinavian graves vary through time during the Iron material, where the Norwegian is especial- Age, while the foreign arrows only describe ly suited for a “longue durée” type of study a frozen moment when the attacks hit the of the progression of different arrow types isles. during the Iron Age. In the Norwegian ma- In order to analyse the materials from terial one can observe the transition from Birka and Helgö, I will present the indige- less malleable materials such as stone and nous types and their development during bone to iron sometime during the middle of the Iron Age. I then turn my attention to the the Roman Iron Age, a development that al- atypical arrowheads from these two sites to so had technological consequences, where show that these finds are a combination of the traditional flat rectangular tang was Russian types and points that have to be transformed to pointed spike-like tang characterised as “Rus” arrowheads. In this (fig. 4). article I will assume that the Rus were a hy- This transformation has both technolog- brid culture that developed between Scandi- ical and ideological reasons, as the older flat navian colonisers and the indigenous Slav tang was prone to split the wooden shaft on population during the latter part of the Iron impact due to the shape of the tang, which Age (see Duczko 2004; Hedenstierna-Jon- acted like a wedge.