The Limfjord cuts across northern Denmark, offering a short and well-sheltered route from the North Sea to the Baltic. As maritime traffic picked up in the late 600s, ships began to ply the Limfjord more often. Traders coming from the commercial centers of the Frisian coast were taking their enterprise north, and by 705, they established a seasonal trading camp at Ribe in western Denmark. It gave them a final base before braving the North Sea into the Baltic. They carried beads with them wherever they went, and a few of their beads ended up in the young Limfjord settlement of Bejsebakken, indicating that they were using this route for their traffic by about 750.
An elite circle of society made their home along the Limfjord as early as the 400s, rising to prominence just as Roman governance ebbed in the West. These beads were likely made in the Byzantine Empire and headed north into the Limfjord between 540 and 660 AD. (Lindholm Høje Museet, Nørresundby, DK.)
In the mid-700s, the seasonal camps of southern Scandinavia had just started to transition into a more permanent network of trading towns. Ribe might have led the way, perhaps around 750. Åhus, Ribe’s sister site in southern Sweden, made a similar transition before 790. And the Limfjord was likewise affected, with a new settlement picking up at Sebbersund at about the same time.
A “wasp” bead from Sebbersund, ca. 760–790. One of the earliest artifacts from Sebbersund, which would later develop into a major trading port for traffic taking the Limfjord between the east and west coasts of Jutland. (Aalborg Historiske Museum, Aalborg, DK.)
What these three sites show us—Ribe, Sebbersund, Åhus—is that on the very cusp of viking raids on England, Ireland, and France, a stable network of settlements had just recently been formed in Scandinavia. These settlements offered a reliable route for shipping goods out of the North Sea and into the Baltic, and the Limfjord was the linchpin that held this network together.
But the sites of the Limfjord share a common problem with many sites from the Viking Age. Although we have a large number of artifacts that can tell us about the early and late periods of these places, there’s not much to fill in our knowledge of the middle decades of their existence.
A model of the Lindholm Høje cemetery and its adjacent settlement, as they may have looked during the early Viking Age, ca. 800. Lindholm Høje sits atop a hill overlooking the Limfjord, and in windy weather it sounds just like the sea. Many of the graves have stones around them, laid out in the shapes of ships—a strong indicator of just how important sea travel was for the early Viking Age residents of the Limfjord. (Lindholm Høje Museet, Nørresundby, DK.)
The early phase ended sometime in the mid-800s, as the flow of glass beads into Sebbersund ground to a halt. A single coin minted by Louis the Pious between 822 and 840 was lost at the fledgling settlement of Aggersborg, indicating that the Limfjord was briefly but abortively linked into the coin economies of Western Europe. And the pagan cemetery at Lindholm Høje was first restructured and then subsequently abandoned after almost 500 years of continuous use. Local communities were reinventing who they were by redefining the ways they lived and died.
Tiny drawn beads are some of the last datable artifacts from the early phase of settlement at Sebbersund. These beads probably date to 800–850 and were made in the Eastern Mediterranean—probably in the early caliphate’s glass factories in Egypt or Syria. Similar beads have been found at places like Ribe and Hedeby, which also developed into important trading towns during the Viking Age. (Aalborg Historiske Museum, Aalborg, DK.)
When archaeologists regain clarity in the mid-900s, the Limfjord region looked completely different. Sand dunes had covered the pagan burials at Lindholm Høje, and the residents of Sebbersund had begun to bury their dead alongside one of Scandinaiva’s earliest churches. The town of Aggersborg was burned to the ground, and on top of its ashes, the Danish king Harald Bluetooth had built a huge Trelleborg-style fortress.
My research focuses on east-west routes during the early Viking Age, but the Limfjord was also an important north-south route. It seems that during this period, the Limfjord also had a channel leading north to Norway. Antlers taken from reindeer and caribou from northern Norway—perhaps traded from the nomadic Saami tribes—were crafted into fine combs at places like Sebbersund on the Limfjord. People proudly carried these items as badges of their good hygiene and their ability to acquire exotic goods. (Lindholm Høje Museet, Nørresundby, DK.)
Aggersborg dominated the maritime crossroads between England, Norway, and the Danish archipelago. Its walls stood 240 meters apart, enclosing 48 longhouses, each 32 meters in length. It was a remarkable sign of Danish royal power for anyone traveling through the Limfjord. Harald Bluetooth’s great-grandson Harthacnut installed a royal mint nearby at Aalborg. And one of his successors used the fort as a gathering point for his fleet—part of a failed attempt to invade England in 1085.
A ship setting from Lindholm Høje. The weather in northern Jutland often mixes fog and wind, giving the impression of the spray of the sea. Many graves at Lindholm Høje have these ship-shaped stone settings, and it’s easy to imagine the dead were thought to sail off into the afterlife, much like the mythical Baldr, son of Odin. Sand dunes covered these graves during the 900s, until they were uncovered by archaeologists a thousand years later. They make an unearthly site to visit today. (Lindholm Høje, Nørresundby, DK.)
The Limfjord had evolved from a wayside for Frisian traders into the locus of Danish royal power and imperial ambitions. But sometime shortly before 1200, the shifting sands of the Jutland coast closed its access to the North Sea. This was no minor crisis. The Limfjord, once a proud commercial highway and the mustering place for armies, had turned suddenly into a brackish backwater. The suddenness of this change offers a grim reminder that even small environmental changes can rend a political and economic fabric that had been centuries in the making.
Lindholm Høje has 549 identified graves, spanning from the fifth to tenth centuries. It’s one of the most important archaeological sites in Scandinavia. Many of the dead were cremated together with their grave goods, so it’s difficult to identify a large number of the artifacts. Nevertheless, the number of blue beads in this group, and the complex mosaic patterns still visible on the big lumps of melted glass, allow us to assign this particular grave to the early 700s. (Lindholm Høje Museet, Nørresundby, DK.)
This week I finish the second stage of my research, so I’d like to take a few moments to sum up what I’ve seen. In previous posts, I’ve documented highlights from my visits to Copenhagen, Lund (SE), Bornholm, and Schleswig (DE). Since then, I’ve been on whirlwind trips to Ribe, Aalborg, Odense, and Langeland. At this point, I’ve completed a survey of over 6,000 beads from the Viking-Age, a large number of which have yet to be published.
Has it all been worth it? I’ll let you decide. In the next few paragraphs, I’ll sketch a quick chronology of early Viking Age bead consumption as it now appears to me. I’ve seen pre-Viking Age beads from ca. 700 at central places like Uppåkra and Sorte Muld, as well as from the trading camps of Ribe and Åhus. And I’ve seen beads from the full flush of the Viking Age from the burgeoning emporia of Hedeby and Sebbersund, as well as from the small cemeteries of the Danish archipelago. These early and late beads look dramatically different, and not only do they come from different places, they also come from different kinds of places. Between 700 and 900, a whole new set of consumers gained access to necklace beads, and they were using them in a whole new set of ways.
Phase 1 (660-700). Scandinavian society revolved around central places during the early middle ages, otherwise referred to as the Germanic Iron Age. Elites who built their power at these sites distinguished themselves by showcasing exotic objects made from materials like glass and gold, which could not be obtained locally. They left glass and gold as votive deposits at places like Sorte Muld and Uppåkra, and they buried them with them when they died. Their societies stabilized with the rest of Europe as northern climates recovered from the ‘Late Antique Little Ice Age’, while the enduring strength of Eastern Mediterranean economies meant that access to exotic goods remained consistent throughout this period. This consistency contributed to a conservative sense of fashion, with styles of clothing and jewelry changing only slowly. Beads tended to be simple but made from high-quality glass. Favorite colors like blue, green, and white would have complemented the prominent blues of women’s dresses.
Beads attributed to Bækkegård Grave 109, ca. 630–660. Similar necklaces featuring white, blue, and green glass beads were common from 630–800. This necklace also included decorated beads, but these were all mixed up during shipment and can no longer be assigned to particular graves. (National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, DK.)
Phase 2 (700-760). Western Europeans built on the improving climate with agricultural reforms and commercial enterprise. North Sea merchants carried this prosperity into Scandinavia by partnering with Danish elites to establish a trading camp at Ribe, a sheltered spot where coastal traders could exchange wares with the deep-sea merchants who traveled around Jutland into the Baltic. Soon the camp at Ribe had a companion market at Åhus in Sweden. The old elites must have watched these sites carefully, but craftspeople increasingly worked on their own terms, outside the patronage networks of central places like Uppåkra and Sorte Muld. They engaged in traditional work with local materials like amber and antler, and for the first time Scandinavian craftspeople also gained proficiency with glass. The new markets secured steady access to this exotic good, while aspiring elites were eager to consume the new fashions being made. These beads—typically a translucent blue glass decorated with red, white, and yellow rings—moved out from the fledgling markets and into the most prestigious circles of Scandinavian society.
Blue beads with decorated with complex lines of red and white, probably made in Ribe or Åhus and buried among elite families on Bornholm, 700–760. (National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, DK.)
Phase 3 (760-790). This seems to have been a period of retrenchment. The glass in Ribe and Åhus came from major production centers in the Near East, which prospered as the Islamic conquests put an end to the perennial conflicts between Byzantium and Persia. But the caliphate overextended, and in the 750s, it began to break apart. Distant provinces revolted and a major coup rocked the center. This interrupted the supply of new glass to Scandinavia, where glassworking faltered. The ubiquitous blue beads disappeared and were replaced by thin ‘wasp’ beads—a style that maximized length and minimized material. Many of these beads were black with yellow rings, but they appeared in other colors as well. Access to glass was the determining factor, and bead makers weren’t terribly concerned with color. From this perspective, the late 700s were bleak. Ribe’s trade restructured and Åhus may have been abandoned. Craftspeople and merchants dispersed to a looser but more robust network of smaller trading sites. Some of these would later flourish, but in the uncertain years of the late 700s, most remained ramshackle affairs that have left few archaeological traces.
Wasp bead from Sebbersund, ca. 760–790. One of the earliest artifacts from Sebbersund, which would later develop into a major trading port for traffic taking the Limfjord between the east and west coasts of Jutland. (Aalborg Historiske Museum, Aalborg, DK.)
Phase 4 (790-820). Glass imports renewed during this period, and the loose network of small sites began to consolidate around a few urban nodes. These sites show intensifying relationships with the Near East, no longer mediated through Francia and the Western Mediterranean. Islamic coins were circulating in Scandinavian markets by the 780s, and in the 790s, bead imports spiked. These beads came in a few standard styles made from drawn glass, which couldn’t be replicated in the north. Scandinavian glassworkers could make exquisite beads by heating glass and wrapping it around a mandrel, but they lacked the technology or expertise to blow glass, draw it into tubes, and form it into a desired shape. Bead imports proliferated at Ribe and the revived settlement of Åhus, but they’re curiously rare at elite sites and cemeteries. In part, this is because a large number of the beads lacked perforations, which raises questions about what exactly they were being used for. Overall, it seems that although craftspeople were still occupying traditional places, Scandinavian connections and consumption patterns were beginning to change.
Drawn beads found in a craftsworking site at Åhus, ca. 790–820. (Lund University Historical Museum, Lund, SE.)
Phase 5 (820-860). During this period, a new set of settlements left the old ones behind. Elite women stopped losing their beads at the central places of the Germanic Iron Age, which gives them a sense of abandonment. Ribe and Åhus also disappear from the archaeological record—if these communities persevered, they moved to new sites yet to be identified. Meanwhile, a different set of settlements began to take off. Places like Sebbersund and Hedeby had been among the trading posts that popped up in the late 700s, but only in the mid-800s did they became complex and densely populated sites. Their expanding trade included a new style of drawn bead—tiny rings of blue, yellow, white, and black. These beads rarely made it into elite graves, although hundreds were found in the so-called Hedeby harbor purse. This set of beads was found packaged with a handful of coins, suggesting that they might have served a monetary function as well. If so, they add a new dimension to our understanding of this period. Islamic coins were still rare, and most coins from this period came from Western Europe. But the Hedeby harbor purse suggests that Scandinavians were also forging connections east, well before the silver fever began in the 850s.
A selection of the 600 small drawn beads found in the Hedeby Harbor purse with seven silver coins, ca. 820–860. (Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig, DE.)
Phase 6 (860-900). This was another period of extreme disruption in the Islamic world, as short-lived caliphs struggled to control the Turkish slave-soldiers whom they had empowered. Silver imports slowed, as did glass. Meanwhile, Christianity was taking root in Scandinavian towns, and the new Christians quit burying their dead with grave goods. This led to a declining demand for beads in some places, even as a new demand sprang up in the Danish archipelago. A form of Norse paganism was taking shape there, building its mythology around the old cultic site of Gudme. People in the area started burying their dead with grave goods like necklaces, even as their Christian counterparts were giving it up. These cemeteries tend to be modest, suggesting limited material wealth, but several graves contain an extra body—presumably a slave sacrifice. These island burials contrast to the trading towns, which evidence economic distancing from the Islamic world and cultural convergence with the West. The appearance of glass beads in the Danish archipelago conversely suggests that not only did some Scandinavians maintain contact with the Islamic world, but that these Scandinavians also had access to extra human bodies—at the same time that vikings were reaping captives from the west and Islamic elites were seeking a new source of slaves for their harems and armies. This gives much food for thought about the role these island communities played and the potential extent of human trafficking in the Viking Age.
Stengade Grave BØ, ca. 950-1000. A woman aged 40–50 was buried on the island of Langeland with this set of beads, typical for the late Viking Age. There are some ‘retro’ styles, like the blue and white beads, but the quality of glass is different and they have corroded much more quickly than glass from the early Viking Age. There is also a pair of amber pendants, which are often found in cemeteries, like Stengade, where Thor’s hammers are also found. (Langelands Museum, Rudkøbing, DK.)
I must note that this chronology is only tentative—a working framework as I continue to analyze data and conduct new research. In particular, I am uncertain about the changes of the late 700s and whether this should be seen as a period of retrenchment, at least with regard to long-distance trade. Nevertheless, the glass evidence points to strong connections with the Islamic world beginning around 790 and intensifying in the early 800s. This indicates that these connections existed well before Scandinavians began to import Islamic silver in large quantities. Moreover, the ways in which the glass was being used gives us clues to what Scandinavians were doing to acquire it.
text and trowel 