Cogent Arts & Humanities

ISSN: (Print) 2331-1983 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/oaah20

A storm of and spears: The weapon dancer as an enduring symbol in prehistoric

Timmis Maddox |

To cite this article: Timmis Maddox | (2020) A storm of swords and spears: The weapon dancer as an enduring symbol in prehistoric Scandinavia, Cogent Arts & Humanities, 7:1, 1747804 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2020.1747804

© 2020 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.

Published online: 16 Apr 2020.

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HISTORY | RESEARCH ARTICLE A storm of swords and spears: The weapon dancer as an enduring symbol in prehistoric Scandinavia

Timmis Maddox

Cogent Arts & Humanities (2020), 7: 1747804

Page 1 of 24 Maddox, Cogent Arts & Humanities (2020), 7: 1747804 https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2020.1747804

HISTORY | RESEARCH ARTICLE A storm of swords and spears: The weapon dancer as an enduring symbol in prehistoric Scandinavia Timmis Maddox1*

Received: 26 August 2019 Abstract: The past fifteen years have witnessed increasing effort to study and Accepted: 07 March 2020 understand the belief system of Age Scandinavia. Different forms of material *Corresponding author: Timmis culture—including rock art and metalwork—and allusions to texts such as the Vedic Maddox, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, USA Rig Veda, have led many to suggest the existence of a shared belief system with an E-mail: [email protected] Indo-European solar focus. Yet certain symbols attributed to this Indo-European Reviewing editor: system seem to have striking parallels in later Norse religious iconography—sym- Peter Stanley Fosl, Transylvania University, USA bols such as weapon dancer imagery. Several examples of rock art display scenes of weapon-bearing figures, performing ritualistic motions that some Additional information is available at the end of the article have interpreted as dancing. Could this represent a case of prehistoric continuity? By presenting and comparing the and Bronze Age evidence, this paper suggests a possible continuity in representations of warrior rituals on figurative material, underlining the importance of advertising a warrior identity and mentality in Prehistoric Scandinavian communities. In doing so, it also emphasizes the endur- ance of Prehistoric Scandinavian symbolic structures overall.

Subjects: Anthropology; ; Medieval European Archaeology; Prehistoric Archaeology; European Archaeology; Ancient Religions; Scandinavian Religion

Keywords: weapon dancer; rock art; Norse faith; Indo-European; Bronze Age; symbolic structures; Longue Durée

ABOUT THE AUTHOR PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT Timmis Maddox is a PhD student for the For the past fifty years the archaeological com- Anthropology department of the University of munity has worked to better understand Bronze Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the . As Age Scandinavia; a period where our lack of a prehistoric archaeologist whose interests lie in information has often painted it as one of myth Bronze and southern Scandinavia, and legend. Much of the archaeological evidence, Mr. Maddox’s research focuses on power and the including the numerous rock carvings found use of symbolic structures—includin