Nørre Sandegård Vest: A Cemetery from the 6th-8th Centuries on Bornholm

Description

With contributions by Ulla Mannering and Claus Malmros. Translation: John Hines. This book is the first publication of a substantial, newly excavated cemetery of the Late Germanic Iron Age from Bornholm for a hundred years. The district administrator Emil Vedel's two books, "Bornholm Oldtidsminder og Oldsager" ("The Ancient Monuments and Finds of Bornholm") of 1886 and the supplement to that, "Efterskrift til Bornhobns Oldtidsminder og Oldsager" of 1897, still stand out as pioneering works of Danish archaeology. The excavation of the cemetery of Nørre Sandegård Vest in 1986-87, however, offered a precious chance to reassess the many graves of the Late Germanic Iron Age that Vedel, together with Schoolmaster J. A. Jørgensen, had excavated on Bornholm between 1866 and 1901. This book is therefore first and foremost a publication of the rich grave finds from Nørre Sandegård Vest, which can put the older excavations in perspective. The richly furnished women's grave from Bornholm in this period have been the object of detailed new chronological studies in recent years. In this book, however, the men's graves are also thoroughly investigated for the first time in both the Scandinavian and the European context. Foreword 9 1. Introduction 11 2. Finds from earlier periods 15 3. The Late Germanic Iron-age cemetery 21 4. The weapon graves of Northern Europe 86 5. The textiles from Nørre Sandegård Vest 118 6. Wood analyses from Nørre Sandegård Vest 141 7. Dansk resume 154 8. References 167 9. Catalogue 173 Plates 191