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#viking burial
hyacinths-cottage · 4 months
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Female Warrior: A warrior or symbolism?
I ask people to read the article below for context. Essentially, a burial was excavated in the 1800s. Due to the individual being buried with warrior objects, the archaeologists at the time said that the individual was male. More recently, science has been used to confirm that the individual was female. There has been controversy about calling this female 'a warrior' as modern ideas (albeit influenced by the more recent past) dictate that warriors are male/masculine/men. May I ask, why? Why are we putting modern gender ideas onto a female from over 1000 years ago of a culture that is now deceased. As the quote states below, we only contested the warrior narrative when we discovered the individual was female.
Hedenstierna-Johnson states: “Since [the site] was excavated in the 1870s, it has constantly been interpreted as a warrior grave because it looks like a warrior grave and it’s placed by the garrison and by the hillfort,” she says. “Nobody’s ever contested it until the skeleton proved to be female, and then it was not a valid interpretation anymore.”
Another argument is that the individual was born female but identified as a transgender man. That could be possible. Though, why choose that narrative instead of thinking that this female was just a woman warrior? The rules of gender were different in the viking age. The Norse Goddess Freyja was associated with war, and she was called a woman. So if they can believe in warrior Goddesses, why can't their women be warriors as well?
As Loki switched between male and female, I am sure norse individuals had this idea of gender non-comformity. Though there is no physical evidence that shows how he was worshipped or how he was thought of. There are many texts that state that there were female warriors, and now we have evidence. So, I ask those who say she wasn't a warrior, why argue?
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vonkickass · 2 years
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bonerdonorxxx44 · 10 months
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elisabethwheatley · 1 year
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Cooking implements have been most often been found in the graves of male vikings. Make of that what you will.
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ancientorigins · 4 months
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The discovery of a pre-Viking ship burial in Scandinavia challenges the notion that Vikings were the pioneers of this fascinating tradition. The ancient ship burial was discovered within a mound on Norway’s island of Leka.
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thesilicontribesman · 8 months
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Skeletons of a Young Man and a Boy, Llanbedr-Goch, Anglesey, circa 900CE, St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff, Wales.
Whilst we often imagine Anglesey as a peaceful location, the two skeletons indicate this wasn't always the case. The adult had cut wounds to wrists and the skull and had his hands tied behind his back at point of death. Initially thought to be the victims of a Viking raid, this idea has now been rejected.
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The first intact boat burial site found on the UK mainland, Ardnamurchan, dated ca. 1000 CE (Read more at the Daily Mail, which is also the source of this picture). Update: a nice 2017 research article.
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merovingian-marvels · 11 months
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Vendel bird shaped brooch
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Birds are the most favored (recognizable) animals in all of pagan Europe. Coming in many shapes and sizes, this type of brooch is a subcategory of the “bird shaped brooch with a curved neck”.
This type of brooch is typical for the Vendel era, named after a parish in Uppland, Sweden and famed for its boat burials. Vendel is sometimes called “pre Viking”, or known as “Merovingian Iron Age” in Scandinavia. Interestingly, Sutton Hoo has similar artifacts to the Vendel finds, but is the only non Scandinavian site to have such artifacts.
Bird brooches are often misinterpreted as Odin’s ravens. There is however no proof towards this statement, and are to my personal research more likely to represent bridges between worlds. They are protectors, bringers of both bad and good omens, they predict the future and carry the souls of deceased people to the other worlds, which is similar to how the Eddic texts describe corvids in general, but eagles as well.
The British Museum, England
Museum nr: 1921,1101.251
Found in Gotland, Sweden
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lasagras · 1 year
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compliments of my procrastination, enjoy this venn diagram that did not make it to my uni presentation
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borom1r · 5 days
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yo if a man fucked me in an emptied-out tomb and then left a rune carving talking abt how hot I was next to a carving of a drooling dog I would marry him on the spot. they knew what the fuck was up
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archaeologicalnews · 2 years
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Viking boat burial discovered in Norway may hold the remains of royal figures
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Archaeologists have uncovered a Viking boat that likely holds the remains of royalty or another elite figure dating to between 500 and 1,000 years ago near the town of Kvinesdal in southwest Norway.
The deceased's boat burial dates to a time period when the Vikings were thriving – conducting raids, expanding their territories and exploring new areas.
The archaeologists discovered the unique burial while conducting a ground radar survey ahead of nearby road construction. This type of radar equipment sends radio waves deep beneath the ground, where they bounce off of objects (such as a boat burial) to help researchers create a map of those structures. Read more.
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ingloriousweasel · 4 months
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blueiskewl · 1 year
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Archeologists Discover Two Viking Swords From a Burial Mound in Sweden
As well as marking the rare discovery of a sword, the vertical placement reflects a deliberate symbolism that has the archeologists ruminating over what it means, and suggestions include honoring the god Odin, or even keeping the dead person from rising as a “draugr,” an undead warrior.
Ahead of a highway construction is Västmanland in Sweden, the archeologists discovered a Viking Age cemetery of about 100 cremated graves stretching over one acre of ground. Most of the burials date from 600 – 1000 CE, encompassing the entirety of the Viking Age, in a period known technically as the Late Iron Age, (most historians have now disowned the term “Dark Age”).
“The placement of the swords reflects an action with a lot of symbolism,” Anton Seiler, Fredrik Larsson, and Katarina Appelgren, archeologists at Arkeologerna, an archeology firm in Sweden, told Live Science in an email. “When you find swords in graves—which you don’t do very often—they often lie beside the buried individual, as a faithful companion on the voyage to the next world.”
The graves were about 19 feet wide, and the whole of the cemetery was built atop an older burial mound, a very uncommon occurrence. Both swords were about 35 inches long, and have been broken in several places due to the weight of the earth and the ravages of time.
It’s possible that traces of a leather scabbard, or decorations around the hilt and pommel of the sword could be revealed through the conservation process that will take place, and could inform more about the overall wealth of the individual.
A variety of other grave goods were found, including the ashes from animal sacrifices, a set of bear claws, glass beads, game board pieces made from whale bone, as well as some iron nails, silverwork, and pottery pieces.
But why were the swords pointing down? It’s possible that it was to consecrate the path of the dead warrior to Odin’s hall of Valhalla, where half of all warriors who died in battle went to enjoy a rip-roaring afterlife.
It’s also possible that it was to prevent the rising of the dead man into the service of evil, and that the sword had impaled the ashes of its former owner.
“We do not think that applies to these graves, as the swords were such precious objects,” the team added in their email. “Instead, knives or arrowheads could have been used, which would have been significantly cheaper.”
Lastly, there’s the possibility that the pommel of the sword would have rested just above the level of the earth, allowing visitors to the grave to reach out and touch some part of the one interred below.
The team has not radiocarbon dated the graves. It’s likely the grave, the sword, and the human remains date to around the same period, and more details such as whether the warrior was a male or female, and what they might have looked like, can also be made available.
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ignify-caligo · 1 year
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dubov0 · 8 months
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Ancient burial
In the old Karelian/Finland graveyards, remnants of burial structures, known as 'domoviny' or tombs, can be found – low resemblances of residential houses with roofs. Relatives strived to arrange the afterlife of the deceased as best as possible, even providing them with their own little house
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ancientorigins · 7 months
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A metal detector enthusiast has unearthed over 100 grams of ancient gold items on an evening walk. The find is claimed by experts to be ‘Norway’s gold find of the century’.
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