During the late 800s, a new elite established themselves on the island of Funen in the Danish archipelago. Perhaps they rose from the ranks of local farmers, or perhaps they migrated there from wealthier parts of Scandinavia. But whatever their origins, they saw a need to set themselves apart from previous generations. They did so in part by burying their dead in a new set of places.

Grave ACQ at Køstrup inaugurated one of these cemeteries. The attention that ACQ received indicates that she was either a powerful matriarch or that her survivors had hoped she would become one. They buried her in the height of fashion. She wore a simple linen underdress, and on top of it, another garment dyed blue with woad. Pleats ran down the center. Not only was this a conspicuous waste of fabric in a period when textile production was labor intensive. The vertical lines also drew the eye upward from the blue garment toward the cluster of jewelry at ACQ’s breast.

Two bronze brooches provided support, pinned to the shoulder straps. These were in a garish style that archaeologists call JP 51a. They stood out like tortoise shells with intricate designs that could catch light from any direction. When ACQ was alive, these brooches would have sparkled as she moved. Now she was dead, but her brooches still caught fresh light each time the mourners moved around her, drawing their eyes back to the dazzling objects at the center of her grave.

Between the brooches lay a string of eight beads. This is the largest Viking-Age necklace currently preserved in the museums of Funen. ACQ’s survivors must have known that women elsewhere could boast much more impressive displays. Perhaps to make up for this lack, ACQ’s dress had a thin strip of fabric running from brooch to brooch, woven with designs to help make her modest necklace seem like part of a larger, more colorful display.

Each bead has its own story to tell. The darkest bead glows purple when held to the light. Similar beads have been found in towns like Ribe and Åhus, showing that ACQ had access to developing markets. Just as importantly, these other sites reveal how quickly this style went out of fashion after about 850, indicating that ACQ was not buried much later than 860. This was a period when viking activity was drastically increasing in the west, and it would be surprising if ACQ and the new elite were not somehow connected to the plunder and wealth of this so-called Great Heathen Army. This bead, then, offers tantalizing clues about ACQ’s place in the trading and raiding that defined the Viking Age.

The other colored beads would be more difficult to date if we didn’t have the short-lived purple bead as a point of reference. Several of these styles were especially popular during Funen’s glory days two centuries before, when the shrine of Gudme attracted pilgrims and may have inspired the earliest cycles of Norse mythology. Not only do these beads suggest deliberate connections to the past; so too does the burial site. Køstrup had already been used as a cemetery once before, and even though the people buried there must have been long forgotten, they left a distinctive burial mound in their place. The people who dug a grave for ACQ and started a new cemetery right next to this ancient mound were making strong claims about their abilities to dominate both the island landscape and its mythical past.
The clear beads also tell a story. These are made of rock crystal, a common variant of quartz. I’ve found this particular style—finely rounded, a bit larger than a centimeter, and almost perfectly clear—in a few specific spots: the boat burials of central Sweden, the merchant’s colony at Hedeby, and the aristocratic hoard of Lille Karleby, a site located suggestively close to homelands of the Danish monarchy. These diverse finds show that ACQ was linked into the major changes of the Viking Age: a thriving culture which treated warships as prestigious symbols, a network of trading towns promoting urban crafts and long-distance exchange, and growing kingdoms that would soon ally themselves with the Christian church, ushering in the end of the Viking Age and the dawn of the Middle Ages.
For reconstructions of ACQ’s dress, see:
- Hilde Thunem, The Aprondress from Køstrup (Grave ACQ) (Online: 2016).
- Náttmál, Køstrup smokkr (Online: 2016).
For further information about Køstrup and Grave ACQ, see:
- Charlotte Lindblom, “Køstrup – en nordvestfynsk vikingetidsgravplads,” Fynske Minder (1993): 143–168.
- Charlotte Rimstad, “Vikinger i uld og guld,” Speciale (Copenhagen: Copenhagen University Forhistorisk Arkæologi, 1998).
For the reference catalog for Viking Age jewelry, see:
- Jan Petersen, Vikingetidens smykker (Stavanger: Stavanger Museum, 1928).