Processing Death: Oval Brooches and Viking Graves in Britain, Ireland, and Iceland

Description

Burials with oval brooches from the Viking Age settlements in Britain, Ireland, and Iceland have frequently been interpreted as the graves of a specific and uniform group of people: (pagan) Scandinavian women of relatively high status. This interpretation is partly a result of the way in which the material has been treated, as static entities with more or less fixed meanings. How similar were these graves, however, and can they be interpreted as belonging to a specific group of people? By studying oval brooches and the graves in which these appear, this thesis examines how grave-goods were used in life and in death, and how the funerary rites themselves were performed. It provides an approach to grave-goods and graves that allows for the identification of variation in the material. Seeing the material as processes rather than objects is accentuated in order to identify variation. Through a theoretical framework emphasising ritualization, the focus is placed on ritual practice as meaningful in and of itself, rather than as reflective of uniform ideas and concepts. The meaning of funerary rites is also acknowledged as relational rather than essential; they must be understood in relation to each other and to other ways of acting. The thesis comprises two in-depth case studies. The first case study (chapter 2) demonstrates that there are considerable differences in how oval brooches were used in both life and death and argues that these variations in use affected the brooches’ abilities to evoke remembrances in funerary rites. Instead of regarding their meaning as static, the chapter emphasises how their meaning was relational and dependent on people’s previous experience with oval brooches, both as a category and as individual objects. The second case study (chapter 3) examines how the funerary rites themselves were performed. It demonstrates that there were norms governing the funerary practices, but also that these practices in several cases varied or deviated from the norms. These variations and deviations highlight funerary practices as responses to an actual and contemporary situation: the death of a specific member of the community. List of Figures xiii List of Tables xv Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Problem statement 2 1.2 Burials in the western settlements: Previous research 4 1.2.1 Britain and Ireland 4 1.2.2 Iceland 6 1.2.3 Identifying Viking graves 7 1.2.4 Studying Viking graves 9 1.2.5 Viking identities 11 1.2.6 Oval brooches as symbols 14 1.2.7 From objects to processes 15 1.3 Interpretative framework 16 1.3.1 Ritualization 16 1.3.2 Memory 20 1.3.3 Scale and methods 23 1.4 Structure of the thesis 24 Chapter 2 Remembering things 27 2.1 Interpretative framework 28 2.1.1 Citation 28 2.1.2 Object biographies 29 2.1.3 Methods 31 2.2 Previous research on oval brooches 32 2.2.1 Typologies and chronologies 32 2.2.2 Production 35 2.2.3 Dress 37 2.2.4 Style 38 2.2.5 Previous studies of oval brooches in the west 39 2.3 Oval brooches in the west 41 2.3.1 Oval brooches from Scotland 41 2.3.2 Oval brooches from Ireland 43 2.3.3 Oval brooches from Iceland 44 2.3.4 Oval brooches from England 45 2.3.5 Overview 46 2.4 How were oval brooches used in the western settlements? 47 2.4.1 Repair and use-wear 48 2.4.2 Pairs of brooches 64 2.4.3 Oval brooches and strap-dresses 68 2.4.4 How old were they? 69 2.5 Oval brooch biographies 71 2.5.1 Personal belongings 72 2.5.2 Gift-exchange 74 2.5.3 Heirlooms 77 2.5.4 Summary 80 2.6 Use in burials 80 2.6.1 Non-normative use of oval brooches 81 2.6.2 Use of other brooches 83 2.6.3 Use of three brooches 85 2.6.4 Use of single brooches 87 2.6.5 Placed at the waist 90 2.6.6 Fragmented brooches 92 2.6.7 Placed back-to-back 93 2.6.8 Summary 95 2.7 Things remembered 96 Chapter 3 Remembering people 103 3.1 Interpretative framework 103 3.1.1 Methods and structure of the chapter 106 3.2 Burials with oval brooches in the west 108 3.2.1 Burials from Scotland 109 3.2.2 Burials from Iceland 112 3.2.3 Burials from England 115 3.2.4 Burials from Ireland 118 3.2.5 General trends 121 3.3 Ritual practices 123 3.3.1 Treatment of the body 123 3.3.2 Internal structures 130 3.3.3 Grave-goods 132 3.3.4 External structures 148 3.3.5 Placement in the landscape 151 3.3.6 How were the dead treated? 159 3.4 Thanatographies 160 3.4.1 Cnip, Scotland 160 3.4.2 Dalvík, Iceland 169 3.4.3 Cumwhitton, England 177 3.4.4 Finglas, Ireland 183 3.4.5 Summary and discussion 186 3.5 People remembered 188 Chapter 4 Death processed 193 4.1 Interpreting norms, variations, and deviations 194 4.2 Interpreting graves 196 4.2.1 Oval brooches and Scandinavian women 196 4.2.2 Viking graves 201 4.3 Death and dying in the western Viking settlements 204 4.4 Conclusions 207 4.5 Further research 208 Sammanfattning 211 Appendix 1 Catalogue of graves with oval brooches 213 1.1 England 213 1.2 Ireland 223 1.3 Scotland 238 1.4 Iceland 280 Appendix 2 Oval brooches from non-funerary contexts 309 2.1 England 309 2.2 Scotland 310 2.3 Iceland 310 Appendix 3 Oval brooches from Göteborgs Stadsmuseum 313 Literature 319