Forging a New Elite for Viking-Age Funen

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.

Beads from nine graves at Kildehuse. Like other Viking-Age cemeteries found on Funen, Kildehuse produced only a small selection of beads. These mostly date to the 900s, giving the impression that Funen was a relatively quiet place for much of the 800s. (Odense Bys Museer, Odense, DK.)

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.

The bronze brooches buried in Grave ACQ at Køstrup, DK. Archaeologists classify these as JP 51a, referring to an illustration in an early catalog of Viking-Age artifacts. Similar brooches are often found in contexts that date from 850-950, tending toward the early part of that range. (Illustration from Lindblom 1993: 153.)

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.

The Viking-Age dress from Køstrup, as the woman buried in Grave ACQ may have worn it. Note that archaeologists aren’t sure whether she wore the beads at the top or the bottom of her brooches. Also, the patterns at the top of the dress were likely woven with colored thread, although these colors do not survive today. (Illustration from Rimstad 1998: cover.)

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.

Necklace beads from Køstrup Grave ACQ. By studying where and when similar beads appeared, we can learn more about ACQ, her community, and the networks they were involved in. (Odense Bys Museer, Odense, DK.)

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.

Beads were just part of ACQ’s grave, which is considered the richest burial in the Køstrup cemetery. Her brooches lay off-center, suggesting that she was buried on her side. At her hip lay a knife and a key, which presumably hung on a long cord from her brooches. At her head was a small casket made of maple. She was placed in a coffin, but this must have stayed open as all these things were arranged. A discoloration at the foot of her grave suggests that a pole or wooden stake marked the spot where she was buried, which became a focal point for the cemetery around her. (Illustration from Lindblom 1993: 153.)

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.

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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).

Treasures of the Lille Karleby Hoard

This Christmas season—and especially New Years—in Denmark were like nothing I’ve ever seen, so this post is a bit of a throwback to the week before Christmas, when I was looking at beads from a hoard from Lille Karleby, about an hour west of Copenhagen. This spectacular mix of silver, bronze, glass, and stone registered only a faint beep when Søren Bagge first ran his metal detector across it in September 2015. Bagge had found a few Arabic coins in the area, but when he nicked his finger on a silver pin lodged in a silver cup, he knew he’d found something big. He contacted the nearby museum in Roskilde, and professional archaeologists were soon on the way. They built a plaster cast around the hoard so they could pull it out complete and then excavated the artifacts in a laboratory where everything could be carefully recorded and preserved. Bagge earned a finder’s fee for reporting the hoard, but for scholars and museum-goers alike, this hoard represents an invaluable treasure of the Viking Age.

A small selection of artifacts from the recently discovered Lille Karleby hoard, currently on display at the National Museum of Denmark. Items include brooches, pendants (bottom right), silver beads (bottom left), and beads of glass and amethyst (top right). The amethyst bead might be the oldest item in this hoard, and it was probably imported to Scandinavia about 200 years before finally being buried sometime around the late 800s. Some close ups are available here. (National Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark.)

The hoard must have been a treasure for the people who buried it as well. Altogether, excavators recovered almost 400 artifacts, of which 305 were beads. Eighteen coins were included, most of which had holes in them so they could be worn as jewelry. An additional 53 artifacts are described as pendants of bronze or silver. Such an accumulation of wealth fits into the bigger picture of increasing economic prosperity and social stratification in the early middle ages. But the fact that so many of these objects were made to be worn by women testifies that male traders and raiders weren’t the only agents of change in the Viking Age.

The beads from Lille Karleby contrast strongly with other beads I’ve recently examined. These come mostly from the religious sites and central places of Uppåkra in Sweden and Sorte Muld on Bornholm. Both sites represent the old wealth of the Iron Age, with a large number of beads that can be dated to a Baltic economic boom between 400 and 600 AD. Judging from the beads and from other finds, prosperity continued at both sites until well into the 700s, with a handful of artifacts that can reliably be dated to the heart of the Viking Age. The youngest beads from these central places include some minor overlaps with the craftworking settlement at Åhus, which saw its brief peak of activity around 800 to 850.

On the left are a selection of beads found in the settlement of Åhus from the early 800s. Very few similar beads turn up at old power centers like Uppåkra and Sorte Muld, suggesting that these places were already in decline. Only one similar bead was found in the Lille Karleby hoard (right), suggesting that its owners were only starting to accumulate their wealth at the exact same time. (L: Åhus beads from the Lund University Historical Museum, Lund, Sweden. R: Lille Karleby bead from the National Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark.)

The Lille Karleby hoard shares some of the same overlaps with the settlement at Åhus that can also be seen at Uppåkra and Sorte Muld, particularly the blue segmented beads that were so popular among Baltic craftsworkers. And while the Lille Karleby hoard has some heirloom artifacts—such as a single large amethyst bead that was a popular kind of import way back in the 600s—it lacks many of the more common pre-Viking Age beads that were scattered across Uppåkra and Sorte Muld. So although the people who buried the Lille Karleby hoard showed some interest in gaudy antiques, their beads give the strong impression of being mostly made of new wealth. When the first generations of vikings started heading west, they represented a new class of elites, and these were the things they sought to acquire.

The beads themselves give us tantalizing clues about where this new wealth came from. In particular, I counted a remarkable sixteen beads of rock crystal (clear quartz) among the 192 beads that I examined. This is a much higher percentage of rock crystal than I’ve seen at earlier sites. And the quality of rock crystal is different, too. Earlier examples are large, roughly cut, and have a yellowish hue. The Lille Karleby beads are purer, finer in size, and more carefully rounded. I’m still sorting out the research on Viking Age rock crystal, but most medieval rock crystal came from quartz mines in Iran or India. The dramatically different appearance of the old and new quartz beads is certainly one indicator that their sources were changing—trade routes with the Islamic caliphate were changing in tandem with increased viking activity. The implication, then, of the Lille Karleby hoard is that viking activity helped create a new class of Scandinavian elites capable of changing global trade networks.

On the left is an early rock crystal bead that had been buried in a grave on Bornholm. Its yellowish hue comes from imperfections in the quartz, and it’s roughly cut with flat ends and a broad perforation. The bead on the right is from the Lille Karleby hoard. It’s a bit smaller, but it’s so smooth and so clear that you can see the dirt still inside the interior perforation. These differences in the quartz suggest different sources, and thus different trade routes. (L: Bead from Nørre Sandegård at Bornholms Museum, Rønne, Denmark. R: Bead from Lille Karleby at the National Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark.)

What could the owners of the Lille Karleby hoard have been trading for these beads of rock crystal and over 200 beads of Near Eastern glass? Presumably not silver, since they were importing Arabic coins as well. But the coins in the hoard represent connections both east and west, suggesting that the people who buried this hoard had connections not just to the Near East and Central Asia but also out into the North Sea.

I’m still waiting to see the analysis of when these coins were minted, but from what I’ve seen so far, the hoard was probably buried sometime around the late 800s. This was a period when viking activity began to spike and Scandinavians began to set up permanent settlements across Western Europe. If this uptick in raiding and colonialism can be connected to the Lille Karleby hoard—and I think it should be—then we need to think carefully about what viking raiders might have been trafficking east so that their partners in the Baltic could acquire glass and semi-precious stones from Asia and the distant Abbasid caliphate.

Two beads from the Lille Karleby hoard. The one on the left is common enough—a mosaic bead made from four tiles of glass (two with flowers, two with concentric circles) and capped with a red stripe on each end. The bead on the right is a bit of a mystery. The beadmaker started with a simple blue bead and then traced patterns all around it, mimicking the design of the bead on the left. Was this a rough draft, meant to advertise a beadmaker’s abilities without wasting precious mosaic glass? Or was it a commissioned fake, as the beadmaker tried to match a preexisting mosaic bead despite lacking the necessary raw materials? (National Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark.)

First Steps

A copy of Henri Chapu’s “Jeanne d’Arc à Domrémy” (1836–38), commissioned for the Ørstedsparken by Carl Jacobsen, founder of the Carlsberg Brewery. (Ørstedsparken, Copenhagen, Denmark.)

It’s been a busy first week in Copenhagen! Much of my time has been dedicated to sorting out my guest researcher residence permit, which will allow me to stay in the EU longer than the 90-day limit usually imposed on US citizens. Fortunately, the Copenhagen Citizen Service Center is separated from the nearest Metro station by Ørstedsparken, so every day that I’ve had to deal with the government has begun pleasantly with a walk through the park.

I’ve nevertheless set aside some time to begin research, which began with an afternoon at the Nationalmuseet. The Viking collection is always in high demand, with some items on loan to different museums and other items pulled from display for researchers to examine. I was happy to find my favorite item still there—a necklace that had been buried around the year 900 with a hoard near the royal estate of Lejre, some 25 miles (40 km) from the modern center of Copenhagen. The beads and glass of this necklace traveled to Denmark along trade routes reaching through Russia to their sources in distant Iran, India, and Syria. Among other objects, the necklace was buried with a silver bowl from an Irish monastery and a large weight inscribed in an imitation (!) of Arabic script.

Necklace and select items found in a 10th-century silver hoard at Lejre in Denmark. The largest beads are rock crystal (quartz) imported from Iran or India; the silver bowl at center came from an Irish monastery; and the weight at top is inscribed with imitation Arabic script, suggesting manufacture in Russia or the Baltic. (Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen, Denmark.)

This necklace represents the florescence of trade routes established generations earlier at the dawn of the Viking Age. By tracing how these kinds of beads first started to appear in Scandinavia, I hope not only to better understand how these trade routes developed but also how they were connected to the spread of viking violence, which seems to have flourished at the very same time.

But aside from these old favorites, I was happy to see that the rotating displays included some exciting new hoard finds. These temporary displays give museum curators an opportunity to show off some of their much larger collections held in storage, as well as some items that have been freshly discovered. In particular, selections from a hoard from Lille Karleby caught my eye. This hoard was buried about seven miles north of the Lejre hoard, but presumably somewhat earlier. It was uncovered less than a year ago in August 2015.

Silver beads and pendants from a newly discovered hoard at Lille Karleby, Denmark. (Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen, Denmark.)

Beads of amethyst and glass from a newly discovered hoard at Lille Karleby, Denmark. (Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen, Denmark.)

The purple bead of amethyst is perhaps most striking to me. It is, like rock crystal, a variant of quartz, and like the rock crystal beads of the Lejre hoard, it too would have been imported ultimately from Iran or India. But whereas the clear beads of rock crystal enjoyed recurring popularity throughout the Viking Age (ca. 800-1050), amethyst beads had their brief heyday back during the late 600s. These eastern beads would actually have been imported via Western Europe, based on the observation that they showed up in Sweden later than elsewhere in the north. So this bead would have been an old heirloom when it was buried alongside the work of contemporary beadmakers, such as the mosaic bead to its left.

The earliest Scandinavian beadmakers around 700 learned how to cobble these beads together from little squares of glass—often using a mixture of green checkerboards and blue tiles, like those found in this bead. This is an example of master craftsmanship depending on raw materials imported directly from the east, and it contrasts strongly with the earlier dependence on finished goods imported via the west, exemplified by the heirloom amethyst bead. So not only does this hoard capture in a snapshot one of the most important transformations of Viking-Age Scandinavia, but it also acts as a reminder that Viking-Age Scandinavians were complex individuals who could have similarly complex relationships with the beads that they carried and buried.