scholarly journals Bones of the Earth: Imitation as Meaning in Viking Age Burial Ritual

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-37
Author(s):  
Tore Artelius ◽  
Mats Lindqvist
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Human Body ◽  
Natural Stone ◽  
Burial Ground ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Burial Grounds ◽  
Ritual Context

From excavation results of a pre-Roman Iron Age and Viking Age burialgroundin Västergötland, an example is presented ofhow religious meaning became projected into Viking Age burial ritual through imitation of an already then ancient custom. The burial-ground was abandoned for a period of at least 600 hundred years in between the two periods. In the Pre-Roman Iron Age and Viking Age graves the custom of depositing flakes of firecracked natural stone was documented. From a Viking Age perspective the tradition was imitated and derived from the urnfield burial-grounds ofther late pre-Roman Iron Age. The authors link the Viking Age ritual behaviour  to the sagas, where stones are presented as symbolical representations of the human body and as cosmological parts of the skeleton that kept the earth together. In the interpretation it is argued that the very concrete use of older graves was essential in the Viking Age burial custom. In this specific example, the deposition of stones in the Viking Age ritual context is interpreted as a projection and representation of the past and the bodies of the dead.

Communities of the dead

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Harding
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Burial Ground ◽  
Burial Site ◽  
North West ◽  
Sacred Landscapes ◽  
The North ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Burial Grounds

Burial monuments of the Neolithic and Bronze Age, individual or in cemeteries, were often located in topographically prominent positions, or in zones of concentration that might qualify as ‘sacred landscapes’. In the Iron Age by contrast it is not obvious what governed the choice of location for cemeteries and smaller burial grounds, whether they were sited in relationship to settlement or whether there were traditional locations dedicated to burial. For some of the eastern Yorkshire square-ditched barrow cemeteries Bevan (1999: 137–8) considered proximity to water may have been a factor. Dent (1982: 450) stressed the siting of Arras type barrows and cemeteries adjacent to linear boundaries and trackways, a factor that is very apparent in the linear spread at Wetwang Slack. Though we may distinguish burials that are integrated into settlements from those that are segregated into cemeteries, therefore, there is no implication that cemeteries were remote from settlements. In fact, the contrary is often demonstrably the case. There is some evidence that small cemeteries or burial grounds were located immediately beyond the enclosure earthworks of hillforts. At Maiden Castle, Dorset (Fig. 3.1; Wheeler, 1943), the picture is prejudiced by the dominance of the ‘war cemetery’ in the eastern entrance, but the reality is that there had been a burial ground just outside the ramparts well before the conquest. A possible parallel is Battlesbury, where Mrs Cunnington (1924: 373) recorded the discovery of human skeletons from time to time in a chalk quarry just outside the north-west entrance to the camp. Some of these were contracted inhumations, and apparently included one instance of an adult and child buried together. The attribution of a ‘war cemetery’ (Pugh and Crittall, 1957: 118 evidently refers to this external burial site, which should be distinguished from the burials excavated more than a century earlier by William Cunnington within the hillfort at its north-west end (Colt Hoare, 1812: 69). Iron Age inhumations were also found, just within the rampart circuit, at Grimthorpe in Yorkshire (Mortimer, 1905: 150–2; Stead, 1968: 166–73). One of these was the well-known warrior burial, found in 1868.

Commemorating Dwelling: The Death and Burial of Houses in Iron and Viking Age Scandinavia

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Hem Eriksen
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
The Past ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Material Turn ◽  
Burial Mounds ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Social Markers ◽  
Deceased Individual

Current debates on the ontology of objects and matter have reinvigorated archaeological theoretical discourse and opened a multitude of perspectives on understanding the past, perspectives which have only just begun to be explored in scholarship on Late Iron Age Scandinavia. This article is a critical discussion of the sporadic tradition of covering longhouses and halls with burial mounds in the Iron and Viking ages. After having stood as social markers in the landscape for decades or even centuries, some dwellings were transformed into mortuary monuments — material and mnemonic spaces of the dead. Yet, was it the house or a deceased individual that was being interred and memorialized? Through an exploration of buildings that have been overlain by burial mounds, and by drawing on theoretical debates about social biographies and the material turn, this article illuminates mortuary citations between houses and bodies in Late Iron Age Scandinavia. Ultimately, I question the assumed anthropocentricity of the practice of burying houses. Rather, I suggest that the house was interwoven with the essence of the household and that the transformation of the building was a mortuary citation not necessarily of an individual, but of the entire, entangled social meshwork of the house.

Dead Sea Levels during the Bronze and Iron Ages

Radiocarbon ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Joy Kagan ◽  
Dafna Langgut ◽  
Elisabetta Boaretto ◽  
Frank Herald Neumann ◽  
Mordechai Stein
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Lake Level ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
The Past ◽  
Organic Debris ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead

The history of lake-level changes at the Dead Sea during the Holocene was determined mainly by radiocarbon dating of terrestrial organic debris. This article reviews the various studies that have been devoted over the past 2 decades to defining the Dead Sea levels during the Bronze and Iron Ages (≃5.5 to 2.5 ka cal BP) and adds new data and interpretation. In particular, we focus on research efforts devoted to refining the chronology of the sedimentary sequence in the Ze'elim Gully, a key site of paleoclimate investigation in the European Research Council project titled Reconstructing Ancient Israel. The Bronze and Iron Ages are characterized by significant changes in human culture, reflected in archaeological records in which sharp settlement oscillations over relatively short periods of time are evident. During the Early Bronze, Intermediate Bronze, Middle Bronze, and Late Bronze Ages, the Dead Sea saw significant level fluctuations, reaching in the Middle Bronze an elevation of ≃370 m below mean sea level (bmsl), and declining in the Late Bronze to below 414 m bmsl. At the end of the Late Bronze Age and upon the transition to the Iron Age, the lake recovered slightly and rose to ≃408 m bmsl. This recovery reflected the resumption of freshwater activity in the Judean Hills, which was likely accompanied by more favorable hydrological-environmental conditions that seem to have facilitated the wave of Iron Age settlement in the region.

scholarly journals Plots and Motives about the Creation of the Earth and Man in the Mythology of the Altaians

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-62
Author(s):  
N. R. Oinotkinova
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Folk Tradition ◽  
The Devil ◽  
Close Contacts

The paper analyzes the plots and motives of Altai myths about the creation of the earth and man with the use of comparative material from the folklore of peoples with which the Altai people had close contacts in the past, in particular from Russian and Buryat-Mongolian folklore. The motives characteristic of these versions are considered: diving behind the earth; creation of the earth; the creation of man; the dog protects the human body; desecration of the human body; spilled elixir of immortality; lost heaven; the overthrow of the devil from heaven; competition of deities for primacy in the rule of the world. In the Altai folk tradition, two versions of the myth of the creation of the world and man are distinguished: the first is dualistic (pagan) and the second is “Buddhist”. In the dualistic version of the myth, the main characters are two deities – Ulgen and Erlik. In the plot of the “Buddhist” version of the myth, unlike the dualistic one, 4 deity brothers participate in the act of creation: Yuch-Kurbustan (Three Kurbustan) and Erlik. This story is joined by a Buddhist legend about how bodhisattvas competed in order for the victor to become the ruler of the world.

scholarly journals Stone Burial Grounds to the East of Lake Peipsi: To the Statement of the Problem

2021 ◽  
pp. 310-324
Author(s):  
Е. Р. Михайлова
Keyword(s):  
Burial Ground ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Lake Peipsi ◽  
North West ◽  
Cultural Phenomenon ◽  
Roman Time ◽  
Russian North ◽  
Burial Grounds

В статье рассматриваются каменные могильники второй половины I - начала II тысячелетия, расположенные к востоку от Псковско-Чудского озера в зоне интенсивных культурных контактов между территориями российского Северо-Запада и Эстонии. Выделяется две группы памятников: на западной окраине Ижорского плато и в Псковско-Изборском регионе. Могильники Ижорского плато, аналогично каменным могильникам Северо-Восточной Эстонии, представляют собой так называемые могильники с оградками (таранды), сооруженные в римское время и использовавшиеся для захоронений в середине - третьей четверти I тысячелетия. Могильники Псковско-Изборского региона датируются эпохой викингов (за исключением могильника Выбуты) и представляют собой отдельное культурное явление. Каменные могильники обеих групп часто топографически связаны с позднейшими курганно-жальничными могильниками, в которых встречены аналогичные каменным могильникам кладки. Stone burials of second half of 1st - the beginning of 2nd millenium, located to the east from Lake Peipsi (Pskov-Chudskoe) in the zone of intensive cultural contacts between territories of the Russian North-West and Estonia are considered. Two groups of monuments are distinguished: on the western outskirts of Izhora Plateau and in Pskov-Izborsk region. Graves of Izhora plateau, similarly to stone burials of NorthEastern Estonia, are so called fenced burials (tarands), built in Roman time and used for burials in middle - third quarter of the 1st millennium. Graves of Pskov-Izborsk region date from the Viking Age (with the exception of Vybuty burial ground) and represent a separate cultural phenomenon. Stone burial grounds of both groups are often topographically connected with later barrow-zhalnik cemeteries, in which fences similar to stone burial grounds are found.

MOUNDS OF THE ELITE OF THE LATE ANTIQUITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES IN THE SOUTH OF KULUNDA (NECROPOLIS OF THE VOLCHIKHINSKY DISTRICT OF THE ALTAI TERRITORY)

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 116-125
Author(s):  
FROLOV Ya. ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Steppe Zone ◽  
Border Zone ◽  
Burial Ground ◽  
The South ◽  
Large Group ◽  
Burial Grounds ◽  
The Middle Ages

The Volchikhinsky District of the Altai Territory is located in the southern part of the Kulunda Plain. This territory is the border zone of the southern Kulunda and the Priobskoye plateau. Most of the region is a steppe zone. This area is plowed. A large group of burial grounds of the elite of antiquity and the Middle Ages is concentrated in the Volchikhinsky district. It belongs to a large group of burial grounds with large mounds in the southern part of Kulunda. The Volchikha group includes 17 burial grounds. These are such necropolises as Pyatkov Log-I, Solonovka-I, Vostrovo-I, III. The most grandiose grave structures were found at the Pyatkov Log-I burial ground. They reach 90-100 m in diameter. These are large burial mounds 6 m high. They are surrounded by a wide ditch and rampart. To the south of this burial ground on the border of the northwestern foothills of Altai in the Aleiskaya steppe, a similar monument, Bugry, was investigated. This necropolis dates back to the end of the Scythian-Saka time. The mounds of the Pyatkov Log-I burial ground and most of the other elite mounds of the Volchikhinsky region also belong to this period. Keywords: Altai Territory, barrow group, "elite" burial structures, early Iron Age, Scythian-Saka time, Kulunda, Priobskoe plateau

scholarly journals Death and the City: The Cemeteries of Amarna in Their Urban Context

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Stevens
Keyword(s):  
Urban Environments ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
The Past ◽  
Unique Character ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Amarna Period ◽  
The City ◽  
Burial Grounds

Burial grounds are increasingly being considered as components of lived urban environments in the past. This paper considers how the ancient Egyptian city of Akhetaten, built by king Akhenaten (c. 1349–1332 bc), was constructed and experienced as a space inhabited both by the living and the dead. Drawing upon results from ongoing excavations at the burial grounds of the general population, it considers how the archaeological record of the settlement and its cemeteries segue and explores how the nature of burial landscapes and the need to maintain reflexive relationships between the living and the dead in the midst of a changing religious milieu contributed to the unique character of Akhetaten as a city. It asks what kind of city Akhetaten was, and what it was like to live through the Amarna period.

scholarly journals Cranial materials from the Oglakhty burial ground

2021 ◽  
pp. 124-137
Author(s):  
Andrey Gromov ◽  
◽  
Tatiana Savenkova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Canonical Variate ◽  
Burial Ground ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Cranial Measurements ◽  
Cranial Index ◽  
Variate Analysis ◽  
Age Series ◽  
Burial Grounds ◽  
The Brain

In this article means of cranial measurements and indexes of the Tashtyk sample from the Oglakhty burial ground obtained as a result of analysis and integration of the measurements of G. Debets, V. Alexeev and I. Gokhman are presented. Also we updated the means of the pooled Tashtyk sample. It was demonstrated that the Oglakhty cranial sample cover the whole spectrum of variability of the Tashtyk population. The data on 37 male and 35 female Early Iron Age series of the Tashtyk culture, Early Tes tombs, Tes flat-grave burial grounds, Podgornovo, Bidzha, and Saragashen stages of the Tagar culture, were subjected to canonical variate analysis. The results of the analysis reveals that Tashtyk male and female series are very similar to the Early Tes samples mainly due to higher cranial index in both male and female samples and smaller nose protrusion angle in male sample. Describing the variety of options for postmortem trepanations of the Tashtyk skulls, we argue that the trepanation process was not a ritual in itself, but was a routine procedure aimed at extracting the brain.

Osteometric Study of an Early Iron Age Postcranial Sample from Lower Kama Region (Novo-Sasykul Burial Ground).

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 268-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir V. Kufterin ◽  
Elizaveta V. Volkova
Keyword(s):  
Discriminant Analysis ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Canonical Discriminant Analysis ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Burial Ground ◽  
Body Type ◽  
Burial Grounds ◽  
Average Body Length ◽  
Culture Sample ◽  
Average Body

The article outlines results of an osteometric study of a postcranial sample (22 male and 30 female skeletons) from Novo-Sasykul burial ground in the Lower Kama region (Pyany Bor culture). Novo-Sasykul necropolis dates back to between the I and the turn of the II–III cc. AD. In total, the Sasykul population is characterized by a mesomorphic (with a tendency to dolichomorphism) body type proportions and an average or higher than average body length. Results of intragroup analysis allow to conclude that the studied sample was mixed. Results of the intergroup canonical discriminant analysis demonstrate the greatest proximity of the Novo-Sasykul postcranial skeletons to the Mazunino culture samples (Pokrovsky, Dubrovsky and Boyarsky “Arai” burial grounds), as well as to the Pyany Bor culture sample from Stary Chekmak cemetery. The latter thesis does not apply to female skeletons from Stary Chekmak, characterized by a rather “harmonious” ratio of the limb segment lengths and do not show a tendency towards relative lengthening of the tibia. A slight increase in the crural index may be a specific feature of the Pyany Bor and Mazunino culture population groups from the Kama region.

The Useful Dead: Bodies as Objects in Iron Age and Norse Atlantic Scotland

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Shapland ◽  
Ian Armit
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Social Memory ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
Domestic Life ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Dead Bodies ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Early Historic

This paper discusses a group of modified human remains from Iron Age and Norse sites in Atlantic Scotland, several of which have been discovered or rediscovered over the past decade, and all of which have recently been radiocarbon dated. It investigates the ways in which these remains seem to have been recovered, used, modified and deposited by living communities, and what this may reveal about past attitudes towards the bodies of the dead. These practices are placed within a wider European later prehistoric and early historic context, to highlight how this group of evidence may add to current debates surrounding social memory, the ritualization of domestic life, and the place of the dead within the world of the living.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document