The Materiality of Death - mikroarkeologi.se

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described upon it – both raising a stone and making a bridge – must have some kind of Christian meaning, albeit with a pre-Christian origin. Later on, even the early medieval church took interest in roads and bridges. The church encouraged the people to build, restore and repair bridges and roads, and considered this a holy act that pleased God. The purpose was to make it easier for the peasants and common people to get to church for their spiritual nourishment (Andersson & Boje-Backe 1999:34; Gräslund 1996:33). By going to church, believing in God and paying taxes the good parishioner could make sure he was going to paradise when his time came. Finally, it became a part of the indulgence. Building a bridge was a costly project that required great resources of time and manpower. The time, effort and resources that were invested in building and maintaining a bridge bear witness of its importance, an importance that reached beyond life on earth. Norse mythology has it that the bridge literally led to afterlife. Considering all these facts the bridge would consequently have an important function as a means for a safe journey and a proper arrival to afterlife. By crossing the bridge the surviving relatives made sure that the ancestor made it to the other side (fig. 4). References ANDERSSON, LARS & BOJE-BACKE, MARGARETHA. 1999. Jarlabankeättens gravplats vid Broby bro. Arkeologisk delundersökning. Stockholms läns museum, rapport 1999:4. Stockholm. BUDTZ, PALLE. 1992. Vägvisare till Forntiden. 55 utflyktsmål i Stockholms län. L Hertzog. (ed) Södertälje. Palle Budtz & Brombergs Bokförlag AB. GRÄSLUND, ANN-SOFIE. 1996. Arkeologin och kristnandet. Kristnandet i Sverige. Gamla källor och nya perspektiv. Projektet Sveriges kristnande. Publikationer 5. Uppsala. Nilsson, B (ed) pp 19-44. GRÖN, C. 2005. En av broarna i Broby. Norrortsleden. Riksantikvarieämbetet. UV Mitt, dokumentation av fältarbetsfasen 2005:17. Stockholm. GRÖN, CAMILLA. & SUNDBERG, KARIN. 2005. Ett gravfält vid Broby. Norrortsleden. Riksantikvarieämbetet. UV Mitt, dokumentation av fältarbetsfasen 2005:16. Stockholm. NORDBERG, ANDREAS. 2003. Krigarna i Odins sal. Dödsföreställningar och krigarkult i fornnordisk religion. Stockholms Universitet. NÄSSTRÖM, BRITT-MARIE .2001. ornskandinavisk religion. En grundbok. Lund. RUDEBECK, ELISABETH. 2002. Vägen som rituell arena. Plats och praxis – studier av nordisk förkristen ritual. Vägar till Midgård. SHIERBECK, AGNETHA. 1995. Norrvatten huvudvattenledning. Riksantikvarieämbetet. UV stockholm, rapport 1995:62. Stockholm. THUNMARK-NYHLEN, LENA. 1981. Bifrost. Vikingatidens ABC, Historia i fickformat. Thunmark-nyhlen, L. Lamm, J-P. Tegnér, G. Sandwall, A (eds). Statens historiska museum p 20. Camilla Grön, National Heritage Board, Archaeological Excavations Dept. Instrumentvägen 19, SE-126 53 Hägersten. Email: camilla.gron@raa.se 154
Chapter 16 Stones and Bones: The Myth of Ymer and Mortuary Practises with an Example from the Migration Period in Uppland, Central Sweden. Christina Lindgren ABSTRACT Mortuary practises are an effective way of transforming meaning between the dead and material culture. One example is the use of large amounts of quartz debris found in stone settings from the Migration Period site at Lilla Sylta, north of Stockholm. The active use of quartz is seen as a metaphor for the cremated bones of a body, and it may not be just any body. ‘The fields have eyes, and the woods have ears.’ G. Chaucer. Canterbury Tales In 2003 and 2004 the Department of Archaeological excavations, National Heritage Board UV Mitt, Sweden, excavated a gravefield from Migration Period at Sylta, Fresta parish in Uppland (Svensson & Andersson 2005). This gravefield has many of the characteristics of other Iron Age gravefields in central Sweden. The most common burial practice in eastern middle Sweden during the Iron Age is cremation. The cremated and crushed bones are usually placed in a container or a cremation layer. The cremated bones are then covered by a stone setting which can have many shapes. However, one thing that was found at Sylta was not that common, namely that several of the graves also included large amounts of crushed quartz. Quartz has been found previously in some Iron Age grave contexts. In some cases crushed quartz was found among the filling of stone settings. This particular custom of putting quartz in or on top of graves has been explained in many different ways over the years. First there is the more common explanation that the quartz is not associated with the graves at all. Instead, it belongs to a Stone Age site underneath the graves. Quartz is the predominant raw material at Stone Age sites in this region of Sweden, and in several cases it is probably true that there is an unknown Stone Age site underneath the site in question (cf ex Baudou 1962, Blomqvist & Åhman 1998). Then there are the second and the third explanations that both put the quartz in the same context as the grave. These are either that the quartz belongs to the grave and is part of ritual beliefs (Runcis 1996), or that the white quartz has been used to cover the graves, giving them a spectacular look, all white and shimmering. In the case of the Sylta gravefield I will suggest a slightly different explanation of why the quartz was put in graves, an explanation that is based on ideas of the materiality of both stones and bones. This concerns both the mortuary practices and the idea of the human body and how it can have different representations. The Sylta area - a man made landscape The gravefield at Lilla Sylta is a most common gravefield from the Migration Period in the region. It consists of some 50 stone settings, mainly rounded with a few triangular and square stone settings (Figs. 1-2). Cremation was the dominant burial practice. Along with the cremated and crushed bones there were also glass beads, clasp buttons, dress pins and bone combs (Fig. 3). The burial practice, the grave goods and the grave monuments looked nothing but ordinary. The landscape around Sylta is typical for the region, with several higher hills with forest and lower arable areas, here facing down to the lake Fjäturen in the south (Fig. 2). At Sylta four neighbouring hills were all used during the Migration Period (Fig. 4). One of them contained the above mentioned gravefield, another hill 250 m to the east had a single stone setting with clasp buttons (Holback 2005), the third hill was used for three large chamber tombs with finds of game pieces, glass and other prestige objects (Victor et al 2005). The fourth hill just close to the hill with the gravefield was used for a major farm, Kocktorp, dating to the Roman and Migration Period. This farm was of high status with a large hall building, terraced houses, and what probably was a founder’s grave with many rich objects such as dress pins, clasp buttons, and silver (Edenmo et al 2005). The first traces of human presence at Sylta can be confirmed by radiocarbon dates from the Late Bronze Age. During the Pre-Roman and Roman period there was a minor farm situated in the lowland just adjacent to the gravefield and the high status farm (Pettersson & Eklund et al). However, by 200 AD things began to happen and someone, probably the family who lived at Kocktorp, started to build more impressive monuments on the nearby hills, thus creating an almost scenic landscape. 155
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The Materiality of Death Bodies, bu
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Contents Chapter 1. The Materiality
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Fig. 1. Pieter Bruegel, The Triumph
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ather one has to emphasise the mate
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dead are often regarded as unfriend
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Fig 3. The old man Tei Tetuna by hi
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The Materiality of Social Change: H
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The Materiality of Eternity - The A
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FAHLANDER, F. & OESTIGAARD, T. 2004
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Susanne Kuechler-Fogden, Webb Keane
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Chapter 2 More than Metaphor: Appro
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discuss death and the treatment of
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had to deal with. This is not to sa
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hide that could be removed to expos
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pp111-123. Philadelphia: University
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Chapter 3 A Piece of the Mesolithic
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The main point is that the division
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A Piece of the Mesolithic: Skatehol
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question we need to construct some
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Fig. 4. Skateholm I (above) and Ska
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visible many years after the origin
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Phase Area Properties Interpretatio
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phase of one site with a contempora
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MILNER, N. & WOODMAN, P. 2005. Meso
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with dead people belonging to other
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Fig. 2. Due to the extraordinaire c
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As with all cremations in Hinduism,
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Based on the amount of scattered bo
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To have an ethical approach involve
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Chapter 5 From Corpse to Ancestor:
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Figure 2. Isola Sacra, Tomb 100. Ph
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Figure 4. Isola Sacra, Tomb 87. Pho
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69 Burials
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through careful recording of the or
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Figure 4: Pencraig Hill: Distributi
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focussed on use of partial sets of
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Chapter 7 Ritual and Remembrance at
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urial (tomba a doppio loculo tipo M
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‘original’ walls of the tomb. L
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chambers cut into two earlier trenc
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Madison: Prehistory Press, Monograp
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Well-organized cemeteries or messy
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influenced who was buried inside th
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it was quite short, which could ind
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References ARTELIUS, TORE 2004. Min
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Chapter 9 Life and Death in the Bro
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Fig. 5.1. Cremation necropolis at P
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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
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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 and 154: Figure 2. The Jarlabanke Bridge tha
Page 155 and 156: Chapter 15 A Road to the Other Side
Page 157: Fig. 4. Clearing the bridge on an e
Page 161 and 162: Fig. 4. An Iron Age scene at Sylta
Page 163 and 164: Fig. 7. The resemblance between cru
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