House Urns. A European Late Bronze Age Trans-cultural Phenomenon

362 Pages·85.822 MB·English

by  Sabatini S.

House urns
The ceramic material commonly referred to as northern European
LateBronzeAgehouseurnsisthemainfocusofthisstudy. Houseurns
areadistinctiveandnumericallylimitedclassoffuneraryvesselschar-
acterised by evident architectural features. Their unique shapes and
their possible relationship with the similar and partly contemporary
phenomenon of the so-called Villanovan hut urns from central Italy
generated large interest among European scholars. However, after two
centuriesofdebatethereisstillnoconsensusastotheirinterpretation.
This study provides a comprehensive picture of the phenomenon
and its characteristics. To that end it is organised in different sec-
tions, each addressing specific issues concerning the house urns. Ad-
ditionally,itcontainsthecatalogueofthe135itemsknowntoday,with
relevant information about each piece.
House urns were apparently used for a relatively limited number of
people of diverse sex and age, dispersed over a large part of northern
EuropemainlyduringthecentralphasesoftheNordicLateBronzeAge
(beginning of the first millenium BC).
Thestudytakesupthechallengetoinvestigatenotonlymorphology,
chronology and symbolism of the material, but also its social, cultural
and geographical background. The whole of the analysed data depict
the house urns as characterised by a complex interplay between ’lo-
cal’ specific features and ’supra-local’ correspondences which show a
relevantabstractcomponent(the’house’paradigm)andactuallymain-
tain the coherence of the phenomenon. In addition this work analyses
selected phenomena (the so-called Villanovan hut urn and European
face urns) which, to different extents, are considered interlaced with
emergenceanddevelopmentofhouseurnsandinitiateadiscussionon
their value as markers of cultural identity.
In conclusion, house urns are defined as a koine, in the sense that
the dialectic between their local and supra-local components depicts a
trans-cultural phenomenon which is at the same time a cultural space
of specifically shared values.
Keywords: house urns, Late Bronze Age, Villanovan hut urns (urne a ca-
panna), face urns, paradigm, (de)construction, cultural identity, ritual, cre-
mation, ’placing’, graves, ship-shaped stone settings, diversity, trans-cultural
phenomena, koine, northern Europe, Baltic Sea, Elbe River, communication,
synechdoche,hybrid,WorldWarII,performance,performativity,heritage.

GOTARC SERIES B. GOTHENBURG ARCHAEOLOGICAL THESES N. 47
DepartmentofArchaeologyandAncientHistory
House Urns
A European Late Bronze Age
Trans-cultural Phenomenon
Serena Sabatini
GOTARC SERIES B. GOTHENBURG ARCHAEOLOGICAL THESES N. 47
House urns
A European Late Bronze Age
Trans-cultural Phenomenon
(cid:13)c SerenaSabatini2007
Cover: S.Sabatini
Layout: S.Sabatini
Typeface: Bookman
Englishrevision: ChristopherSevara
PrintedbyIntellectaDocuSysAB,Göteborg,2007
Printedwithfundsfrom BeritWallenbergsStiftelse
and LetterstedtskaFöreningenNordiskTidskrift
ISSN0282-6860
ISBN978-91-85245-33-X
Distribution:
InstitutionenförArkeologiochAntikensKultur
Box200,40530Göteborg,Sweden
http://hum.gu.se/institutioner/arkeologi/publikationer/
e-mail: [email protected]
“There is ritual everywhere. Without it, there would be no so-
ciety, no institutions, no history. Anyone can specialize in
theanalysisofrituals;itisnotthereforeaspeciality.”
J. Derrida 1992

Contents
List of Figures vi
Acknowledgements xiii
Foreword xvi
I Why and What... 1
1 Introduction 2
1.1 House urns to start with . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Arguments and purposes of the research . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 House urns, archaeology and society . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4 Practicalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2 History of an European study case 7
2.1 Why a study case? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2 Preliminary remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.3 The history of house urn studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.4 Questions and challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3 House urn landscapes 21
3.1 Surveying house urn distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.2 The Baltic zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.2.1 The ’Sub-Baltic’ zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.3 The Harz/Elbe zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.4 The ’cultural-scape’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.4.1 Iconography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.4.2 The building tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.5 Final remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
II ...How... 40
4 Theoretical and methodological approaches 41
4.1 Preliminary considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.2 Approaching variety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.3 About contextualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.4 Social concerns: questions and concepts . . . . . . . . . . . 47
iii
4.4.1 Symbols and biography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.4.2 Cultural identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.4.3 Gender and burial practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
III ...Thus... 56
5 ’Cross-cutting’ the house urns 57
5.1 Attempting (de)construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
5.2 House-shaped house urns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5.2.1 Exceptions (or specific building?) . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.2.2 (De)constructing by roofs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5.2.3 Incomplete house-shaped urns . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.2.4 Bases and related elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.3 Door urns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
5.3.1 Door urns with roof features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
5.3.2 Door urns without roof features . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5.3.3 Incomplete door urns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
5.4 Face/door urns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
5.5 Decorated house urns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.6 Brief remarks about sizes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5.7 Doors and the ’house’ performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5.8 What is left after (de)construction? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
6 House urns in time and space 98
6.1 Considering the chronology of house urns . . . . . . . . . . 98
6.2 House urn contexts: preliminary remarks . . . . . . . . . . 100
6.2.1 Ceramics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
6.2.2 Razors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
6.2.3 Tweezers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
6.2.4 Awls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
6.2.5 ’Buttons’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
6.2.6 Pins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
6.2.7 Daggers, knives and blades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
6.2.8 Rings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
6.2.9 Bracelets (and necklaces) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
6.2.10Beads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
6.2.11Objects in bone and horn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
6.2.12Other grave goods... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
6.3 Diachronic development and distribution . . . . . . . . . . 116
6.3.1 About absolute chronology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
6.4 Chronology and distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
6.5 Chronology of house and hut urns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
7 Places, symbols, rituals and people 124
7.1 Inside the urns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
7.1.1 Cremation and crematory rituals . . . . . . . . . . . 125
7.1.2 Contexts, people and grave goods . . . . . . . . . . . 126
7.1.3 Multiple depositions and ’family’ contexts . . . . . . 131
7.1.4 Buried with animal bones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
iv
7.2 About house urn shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
7.2.1 Uniform and mixed performances . . . . . . . . . . 136
7.3 Outside the urns: some considerations . . . . . . . . . . . 138
7.3.1 ’Placing’ the dead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
7.3.2 Graves and monuments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
7.3.3 Clay houses and Stone ships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
7.4 Socio-cultural concerns and house urns . . . . . . . . . . . 145
IV ...Therefore... 148
8 House, face and hut urns 149
8.1 Preliminary remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
8.2 Brief survey of the Italian hut urns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
8.3 A hypothesis of interrelation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
8.4 House urns and European Bronze Age communications . 159
8.5 Brief survey of the face urns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
8.6 House and face urns: a question of identity? . . . . . . . . 164
9 From the Baltic to the Harz: back to the initial point 167
9.1 Considering biography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
9.2 House urns: a koine? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
9.3 Questions of identity and trans-cultural ’consensus’ . . . . 170
9.4 Addendum: house urns today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
V ...And 173
Summary 174
Catalogue 179
Bibliography 253
Appendix 1 282
Appendix 2 289
Plates 294
v
List of Figures
1 The first discovered house urns: a) Burgkemnitz, from
Saxony-Anhalt, in 1826; b) Robbedale, from the island of
Bornholm,in1833;c)Kiekindermark,fromMecklenburg-
Vorpommern, in 1837. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2 The house urn from Königsaue, in Saxony-Anhalt. . . . . . 9
3 ThreehouseurnsfromJutland: a)Bramminge; b)Gullev;
c) Tollestrup, illustrating the typical elongated shape of
the local specimens. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4 Distribution map of house urns.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5 Distribution map of house urns with local rivers and the
Baltic Sea in evidence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
6 Distributionmapofhouseandfaceurns. Thethreecolumns
represent the proportions of house and face urns. House
urns predominate the area in the middle . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7 Distribution map of house urns with the Baltic and the
Harz/Elbe zones in evidence.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
8 Distribution map of house urns in the Baltic zone. . . . . . 26
9 TheBalticzonewiththeKattegat(a)andtheareabetween
the Elbe and the Baltic Sea (b) in evidence. . . . . . . . . . 27
10 The Baltic zone with South-eastern Scania (a), Gotland
(b), Pomerania (c) and Graifswald Gulf (d) areas in evidence. 28
11 Two ’normal’ urns from Simris cemetery in south-eastern
Scania (from Stjernquist 1961: pl. XIV.11 and XVII.4). . . . 29
12 Distribution map of the house urns on the island of Got-
land. The ovals mark the items found in ship-shaped
stone settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
13 Siteswithhouseurns’bridging’southernScandinaviaand
northern Germany. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
14 Section and plan of the barrow from Dragsholm, the local
house urn is in grave II (from Jørgensen 1980: fig. 2). . . . 33
15 Detail from a rock carving at Fiskeby in Östergötland,
Sweden (from Fredell 2003: pl. II). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
16 Examples of north European Bronze Age ’long houses’
(from Thrane 1996: fig. 1). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
17 The Winningen 2 (a) and Wódka B (b) urns. . . . . . . . . . 37
18 TheritualhousefromSandagergård(fromKaul1985:fig.1). 38
19 The ritual house from Klinga (from Stålbom 1994: fig. 60). 38
vi