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Iron Age Myth and Materiality www.RodnoVery.ru www.RodnoVery.ru IRON AGE MYTH AND MATERIALITY Iron Age Myth and Materiality: an Archaeology of Scandinavia AD 400–1000 considers the relationship between myth and materiality in Scandinavia from the beginning of the post-Roman era and the European Migrations to the coming of Christianity. It pursues an interdisciplinary interpretation of text and material culture and exam- ines how the documentation of an oral past relates to its material embodiment. While the material evidence is from the Iron Age, most Old Norse texts were written down in the thirteenth century or even later. With a time lag of 300 to 900 years from the archaeological evidence, the textual material has until recently been ruled out as a usable source for any study of the pagan past. However, Hedeager argues that this is true regarding any study of a society’s short-term history, but it should not be the crucial requirement for defining the sources relevant for studying long-term structures of the longue durée, or their potential contributions to a theo- retical understanding of cultural changes and transformation. In Iron Age Scandina- via we are dealing with persistent and slow-changing structures of world views and ideologies over a wavelength of nearly a millennium. Furthermore, iconography can often date the arrival of new mythical themes, anchoring written narratives in a much older archaeological context. Old Norse myths are explored with particular attention to one of the central mythical narratives of the Old Norse canon – the mythic cycle of Odin. In addi- tion, contemporaneous historical sources from Late Antiquity and the early Euro- pean Middle Ages are examined. No other study provides such a broad ranging and authoritative study of the relationship of myth to the archaeology of Scandinavia. Lotte Hedeager is Professor of Archaeology and Head of the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History at the University of Oslo, Norway. www.RodnoVery.ru IRON AGE MYTH AND MATERIALITY An Archaeology of Scandinavia AD 400–1000 Lotte Hedeager www.RodnoVery.ru First published 2011 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2011 Lotte Hedeager The right of Lotte Hedeager to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Hedeager, Lotte. Iron Age myth and materiality: an archaeology of Scandinavia, ad 400–1000 / Lotte Hedeager. p. cm. “Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada”–T.p. verso. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Iron Age–Scandinavia. 2. Scandinavia–Antiquities. 3. Material culture– Scandinavia–History–To 1500. 4. Oral tradition–Scandinavia–History–To 1500. 5. Mythology, Norse. 6. Cosmology–Scandinavia–History–To 1500. 7. Old Norse literature–History and criticism. 8. Scandinavia–History–To 1397–Sources. 9. Scandinavia–Historiography. 10. Annales school. I. Title. GN780.22.S34H4 2011 936.3–dc22 2010038671 ISBN 0-203-82971-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN: 978–0–415–60602–8 (hbk) ISBN: 978–0–415–60604–2 (pbk) ISBN: 978–0–203–82971–4 (ebk) www.RodnoVery.ru For friends, colleagues, and students from whom I have learned so much www.RodnoVery.ru CONTENTS List of figures x Acknowledgements xvi Preface xxviii Introduction 1 PART I A mythic narrative 5 1 The mythic cycle of Odin 7 The myth 7 The constitution of primacy 9 Personification/Agency of objects 11 The underlying nature of reality 13 PART II Words of identity 19 2 Written sources on the pre-Christian past 21 Early Scandinavian literacy 21 The Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda 23 Other Nordic texts 26 European sources 30 www.RodnoVery.ru viii Contents 3 Origin myths and political/ethnical affiliations 33 Migration Period Europe: a historical survey 33 European national history 37 Origin myths from the Early Middle Ages 41 Historical ‘meaning’ of the Scandinavian origin myth 45 Formation of a political mentalité 48 Material manifestations: Germanic styles in a historical perspective 50 PART III The constitution of ‘otherness’ 59 4 Embodied in animals 61 Scandinavian animal style AD 400–1200 61 Animals in the styles 66 The fi gurative art 75 Animals in names 80 Humans as animals – animals as humans: hugr, hamingja, fylgjur 81 The snake 85 The eagle and the raven 86 The wild boar 89 The wolf 90 The bear 91 Embodied and transformative existences 95 5 Other ways of ‘being in the world’ 99 Analytical categories and perceptual realities 99 Phallus, fertility and death 104 The power of penetration 115 Women in men’s image 118 Gender images/identities 122 Betwixt and between: gold-foil fi gures on display 126 PART IV Materiality matters 135 6 Commemorative places 137 Objects as agents 137 The smith in Old Norse sources 140 Gold in the Old Norse sources 144 Places for acquisition and transformation 145 Central places as ‘centre of the universe’ 148 www.RodnoVery.ru Contents ix Asgard: home of the gods 150 A ‘central place’ par excellence: Gudme on Funen 152 The coastal site of Lundeborg 157 The cemetery of Møllegårdsmarken 158 Gudme’s sacred features 158 Gudme: the paradigmatic model of Asgard? 159 Cosmological emulation 162 7 The cosmic order of landscapes 164 Hoards as ritual and economic agents 164 ‘Tournaments of value’ 170 Sacred topography 172 PART V The making of Norse mythology 175 8 Knowledge production reconsidered 177 Epic poetry and historical reality 177 The enigma of Widsith 181 The topography of Widsith and the archaeology of Gudme 184 Widsith: a political narrative of the Migration Period 187 9 Hypothesis I: the Huns in Scandinavia 191 Historical framework: the impact/blueprint of the Huns 191 Archaeological framework: transferable cosmologies 194 Archaeological framework: Hunnic material culture 195 The Huns in Scandinavia: diagnostic features 198 Evidence of a new cosmology 205 Summarising the evidence 210 10 Hypothesis II: Attila and the recasting of Scandinavian mythology 212 Ornamentation – innovation – migration: a hypothesis 212 The migration story and myths of descent among the Scandinavians 214 Embedded knowledge – Greco-Roman tradition 220 Attila’s cosmological blueprint 220 11 Stranger kings: intruders from the outside world 224 Notes 229 Primary sources, including translations 240 Bibliography 245 Index 279 www.RodnoVery.ru LIST OF FIGURES 3.1 Map of Migration Age Europe, ad 406. Modified after McEvedy (1975: 17). 35 3.2 Map of Migration Age Europe, ad 420. Modified after McEvedy (1975: 19). 35 3.3 Map of Migration Age Europe, ad 450. Modified after McEvedy (1975: 21). 36 3.4 Map of Migration Age Europe, ad 476. Modified after McEvedy (1975: 23). 36 3.5 Early Scandinavian animal style. Denmark. After Salin (1904: Abb. 134). 52 3.6 Early Scandinavian animal style. Lister, Norway. After Salin (1904: Abb. 490). 52 3.7 Style II. Udine, Italy. After Salin (1904: Abb. 655). 53 3.8 Style II. Uppland, Sweden. After Salin (1904: Abb. 554). 53 3.9 Style I. Kent, England. After Salin (1904: Abb. 700). 54 3.10 Style II. Wurzburg, Bayern. After Salin (1904: Abb. 641). 54 3.11 Gold bracteate, Funen, Denmark. Drawing by H. Lange after Hauck (1985–89: IK 75). 55 3.12 Gold bracteate. Nordic replica of a Roman gold medallion. Lilla Jored, Sweden. Drawing by H. Lange after Hauck (1985–89: IK 107). 56 3.13 Gold bracteates. Reverse side of Figure 3.12. Drawing by H. Lange after Hauck (1985–89: IK 107). 57 3.14 Style II. Uppland, Sweden. After Salin (1904: Abb. 570). 58 4.1 Style I. Tveitane, Norway. After Haseloff (1981: Abb. 21). 62 4.2 Style I. Bifrons, Kent, England. After Haseloff (1981: Abb. 25). 63 4.3 Style I. Nancy, Lothringen. After Haseloff (1981: Abb. 26). 63 www.RodnoVery.ru List of figures xi 4.4 Style I. Kajdacz, Hungary. After Haseloff (1981: Abb. 487). 64 4.5 Style I. Nocera Unbra, Italy. After Haseloff (1981: Abb. 388). 64 4.6 Urnes style. Urnes Stave Church, Norway. After Hohler (1999, II: 235). 65 4.7 Ål Church, Norway. After Hohler (1999, II: 93). 66 4.8 Tunic band from Evebø Eide, Norway, with interwoven animal figures. From Dedekam (1925). 67 4.9 Late animal style. Gotland, Sweden. After Salin (1904: Abb. 607). 68 4.10 Belt buckle, Sutton Hoo, England. The eagle and the snake can be identified; however, two other species, one with its mouth closed, the other with an open mouth, cannot. Drawing by Per Persson. Used with permission. 69 4.11 Wolf, wild boar, and eagle. A: buckle from Zealand. Drawing by C. Borstam in Gaimster (1998: 77). B: plate from a shield, Valsgärde, Sweden. After Arwidsson (1977: Abb. 146). C: belt fitting from Esslingen-Sirnau grave 8, Germany.
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