The Materiality of Death - mikroarkeologi.se

More documents

Recommendations

Info

The solid construction of a bridge can well be interpreted as a symbolic construction. The context can indicate that the work itself was a ritual and the purpose was sacral. A bridge can also be interpreted as an expression of a mix between the old heathen thoughts of a bridge and the Christian thought of the journey of the soul. The tradition of burying the deceased with a certain amount of grave goods was a heathen tradition. This behaviour was however more or less out of fashion when Christianity became the one and only permitted religion. So one may have to elaborate another way to materialise and ease the journey of the soul. The bridge materialised the way to the other side and made the concept of a soul’s journey comprehensible and visible. Therefore, one interpretation that seems most likely is that the building of bridges was not only carried out because the living persons needed a bridge for practical reasons in their daily life. It was not only a construction for transportation for the Viking Age farmer or the warrior’s horse. It was made primarily for one reason, namely exactly what the formulation in the rune inscription says. They made it for his soul, and may god help him. To the other side, on his way to paradise! References ANDERSSON, LARS 1999. Jarlabankeättens gravplats vid Broby bro; Arkeologisk delundersökning av gravplats med tre skelettgravar vid Broby bro, Täby socken och kommun, Uppland. Rapport 1999:4. Stockholms Läns Museum. HOLMBÄCK, ÅKE & WESSÉN, ELIAS 1979. Svenska Landskapslagar. Östgötalagen och Upplandslagen. Tolkade och förklarade av Åke Holmbäck och Elias Wessén. Stockholm. LUND, JULIE 2005. Thresholds and passages. The meanings of bridges and crossings in the Viking Age and Early Middle Ages. In Viking and medieval Scandinavia 1 (2005), Turnhout: Brepols, 2005, pp 109-135. SAMNORDISK RUNTEXTDATABAS, [Electronic], http://www.nordiska.uu.se/forskn/samnord.ht m Åke Johansson, National Heritage Board, Archaeological Excavations Dept. Instrumentvägen 19, SE-126 53 Hägersten. Email: ake.johansson@raa.se 150
Chapter 15 A Road to the Other Side Camilla Grön ABSTRACT An excavation of a Viking Age road/bridge which was situated next to a Viking Age grave-field aroused many questions concerning roads, bridges, graves and phenomena connected to their role and significance for the people who actually used them and the grave-field. Based on a combination of different sources such as rune-stones, Norse mythology and excavation data, this article deals with the road and the bridge and it’s role as a means of transport to afterlife. In 2004 the author had had the opportunity to excavate a bridge lane in Broby, Täby parish Upland, Sweden. Broby is situated about 25 km north of Stockholm in an area with a great deal of ancient, mostly Iron Age, monuments. The excavation revealed that the bridge was about 36 m long and 2 to 5 m wide, widest on its southern part. It was entirely built of stones, even if some stones were placed upon a kind of organic material that could be twigs or wood chips, probably in order to protect the stones from sinking into the muddier areas. Smaller stones and stone material were used as filling to level out the surface of the bridge, making it even and thus easier to walk on. The edges were marked with larger stones or boulders every 1,6 meters, possibly just for aesthetic reasons – a specific detail that makes this bridge more or less a look-a-like to the well known Jarlabanke bridge in Central Täby, about 2 km northeast of Broby (figs. 1 and 2). As we can see in fig. 2, the Jarlabanke Bridge had both rune stones at the ends as well as upright stones or boulders built into the stone rows at the edges. The construction details and the typology dated the excavated bridge lane in Broby to the Viking Age, about 700-1050 AD (Grön 2005:12pp). new place by the church, but often they were used as building material, not only in churches but also in secular buildings. The shape of a rune stone is often oval or rectangular which makes it suitable for building material. Since they are only fragments of (two different) rune stones, the runic texts are also fragmentary. Neither do the fragments give any information whatsoever about the place where they once had been raised, nor are the words “bridge” or “road” to be read on any of them. Not even the almost classical rune stone phrase “NN raised the stone after NN” is to be found on either of them (for examples of rune stone inscriptions, see Åke Johansson’s article). Nevertheless, I have suggested in other contexts that one or possibly both of these rune stone fragments found in Broby Gård may have been raised near the bridge that we excavated (Grön 2005: 16). One special detail is yet to be mentioned: a foundation for a rune stone. It showed similarities to a large paved posthole in size, although it had no depth (fig.1). During excavation much effort was made to find a rune stone, or pieces of one, unfortunately with negative result. However, two pieces of rune stones originating from two different stones have been found some 400 meters north of the excavated bridge in the old village of Broby (today’s Broby Gård). At least one was used as a brick in an old cellar wall. (A third fragment was in fact found in Broby Gård in the early 19 th century but unfortunately that piece is missing today) (Budtz 1992:161). We know, and we have come across several examples of this throughout the years, that rune stones have often been moved from their original places, especially in the early Middle Ages. Sometimes the rune stones were raised in a Fig. 1. Photo of the bridge. The contours of the boulders are marked with lines while the fundament for the rune stone is marked with a broken line. Photo. C. Grön. 151
Page 1 and 2:
The Materiality of Death Bodies, bu
Page 3:
Contents Chapter 1. The Materiality
Page 6 and 7:
Fig. 1. Pieter Bruegel, The Triumph
Page 8 and 9:
ather one has to emphasise the mate
Page 10 and 11:
dead are often regarded as unfriend
Page 12 and 13:
Fig 3. The old man Tei Tetuna by hi
Page 14 and 15:
The Materiality of Social Change: H
Page 16 and 17:
The Materiality of Eternity - The A
Page 18 and 19:
FAHLANDER, F. & OESTIGAARD, T. 2004
Page 20 and 21:
Susanne Kuechler-Fogden, Webb Keane
Page 23 and 24:
Chapter 2 More than Metaphor: Appro
Page 25 and 26:
discuss death and the treatment of
Page 27 and 28:
had to deal with. This is not to sa
Page 29 and 30:
hide that could be removed to expos
Page 31 and 32:
pp111-123. Philadelphia: University
Page 33 and 34:
Chapter 3 A Piece of the Mesolithic
Page 35 and 36:
The main point is that the division
Page 37 and 38:
A Piece of the Mesolithic: Skatehol
Page 39 and 40:
question we need to construct some
Page 41 and 42:
Fig. 4. Skateholm I (above) and Ska
Page 43 and 44:
visible many years after the origin
Page 45 and 46:
Phase Area Properties Interpretatio
Page 47 and 48:
phase of one site with a contempora
Page 49:
MILNER, N. & WOODMAN, P. 2005. Meso
Page 52 and 53:
with dead people belonging to other
Page 54 and 55:
Fig. 2. Due to the extraordinaire c
Page 56 and 57:
As with all cremations in Hinduism,
Page 58 and 59:
Based on the amount of scattered bo
Page 60 and 61:
To have an ethical approach involve
Page 63 and 64:
Chapter 5 From Corpse to Ancestor:
Page 65 and 66:
Figure 2. Isola Sacra, Tomb 100. Ph
Page 67 and 68:
Figure 4. Isola Sacra, Tomb 87. Pho
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73:
69 Burials
Page 76 and 77:
through careful recording of the or
Page 78 and 79:
Figure 4: Pencraig Hill: Distributi
Page 80 and 81:
focussed on use of partial sets of
Page 83 and 84:
Chapter 7 Ritual and Remembrance at
Page 85 and 86:
urial (tomba a doppio loculo tipo M
Page 87 and 88:
‘original’ walls of the tomb. L
Page 89 and 90:
chambers cut into two earlier trenc
Page 91:
Madison: Prehistory Press, Monograp
Page 94 and 95:
Well-organized cemeteries or messy
Page 96 and 97:
influenced who was buried inside th
Page 98 and 99:
it was quite short, which could ind
Page 100 and 101:
References ARTELIUS, TORE 2004. Min
Page 103 and 104: Chapter 9 Life and Death in the Bro
Page 105 and 106: Fig. 5.1. Cremation necropolis at P
Page 107 and 108: place. These burials were very simp
Page 109 and 110: Chapter 10 Norwegian Face-Urns: Loc
Page 111 and 112: The recurring themes in the debate
Page 113 and 114: The local context of the Norwegian
Page 115 and 116: Death is the inevitable conclusion
Page 117 and 118: OESTIGAARD, T. 1999. Cremations as
Page 119 and 120: Chapter 11 The Use of Ochre in Ston
Page 121 and 122: Ochre was used so intensively that
Page 123 and 124: Fig. 5. Zvejnieki burial ground. Th
Page 125 and 126: grave has been dated to 5690±45 BP
Page 127 and 128: Khanty of northern Siberia, the col
Page 129 and 130: 125 Beliefs
Page 131 and 132: Chapter 12 ”Death Myths”: Perfo
Page 133 and 134: Variation within the same cist Bø,
Page 135 and 136: Variation within the same mound Lyd
Page 137 and 138: Figures 6 and 7. Modvo, Luster muni
Page 139 and 140: To what extent there have been corr
Page 141 and 142: when they die, a probable explanati
Page 143 and 144: fragmented spindles, iron weaving s
Page 145 and 146: Chapter 13 Reproduction and Relocat
Page 147 and 148: may be questioned, and analysed mor
Page 149 and 150: References Andersson, G. 1997: A st
Page 151 and 152: Chapter 14 A Road for the Viking’
Page 153: Figure 2. The Jarlabanke Bridge tha
Page 157 and 158: Fig. 4. Clearing the bridge on an e
Page 159 and 160: Chapter 16 Stones and Bones: The My
Page 161 and 162: Fig. 4. An Iron Age scene at Sylta
Page 163 and 164: Fig. 7. The resemblance between cru
show all

The Materiality of Death - mikroarkeologi.se

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?