The Language of Jewellery: Dress-Accessories and Negotiations of Identity in Scandinavia, c. AD 400-650/700

394 Pages·2021·18.275 MB·

by  Ingunn Marit Røstad

In the 5th–7th centuries AD, members of the female population in Scandinavia I THE LANGUAGE OF JEWELLERY
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frequently wore a costume adorned with conspicuous items of jewellery. Many g
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of the items, such as brooches and clasps, were dress-accessories used to fasten
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these garments. Some of them, moreover, were popular over an extended area n Dress-accessories and Negotiations of Identity

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of Europe, and have been found in Scandinavia, Anglo-Saxon England and on
in Scandinavia, c. AD 400–650/700
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the Continent alike. This book provides an analysis of more than 1,800 such r
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items of jewellery from Scandinavia. It explores the contextual and geographical t norske oldfunn xxxii

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distribution through time of four major types of dress-accessory: cruciform
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brooches, relief brooches, wrist-clasps and conical brooches.
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Forfatter i Freight Text book 11 pt – Era inusdanihit a nem fugitatint volorep udaest a Ingunn Marit Røstad
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re sumendi tasitis esequo eumquat officatum velesse eicium int utatiunt aut hiligene
insights into the multifaceted reality of the Scandinavian pre-Viking period.
persperspiet offici antis re nonse velique nes auta invendendici autation nonetum
The author argues that in a time characterized by social stress and upheaval,
quundae es pe nobit a aditiaes sum, net mincto dis prese est, custo blaut volestis aut ut
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quiatur? Secepratur, conseri nobis aborit ium ipsa earuptat quaeribus, ut occust, sus
of costume adorned with dress-accessories. These negotiations were part of a
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et enditatus sunt et alicia verem volori il expland icipsunt labo. Vid que niam eosandit
continuous, complex and ever-changing discourse of identity, in which different
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by several centuries the unification of much the same areas into single medieval
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and even pan-European levels.
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This book also offers a more nuanced view of ethnic groupings during the
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eos dolupta temporehent is doles borios est, imagnati rerum velis paribus rest, sequos J
often historically documented ‘peoples’, who are reflected in the practices of E
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female dress.
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Ingunn Marit Røstad is Associate Professor of Archaeology at the Museum
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of Cultural History, University of Oslo, Norway. R
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ISBN 978-82-02-71620-2
9 788202 716202
www.cda.no
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THE LANGUAGE OF JEWELLERY
Dress-accessories and Negotiations of Identity
in Scandinavia, c. AD 400–650/700
Norske Oldfunn XXXII
Kulturhistorisk museum, Universitetet i Oslo

THE LANGUAGE
OF JEWELLERY
Dress-accessories and Negotiations of Identity
in Scandinavia, c. AD 400–650/700
Norske Oldfunn XXXII
Ingunn Marit Røstad
Kulturhistorisk museum, Universitetet i Oslo

For my parents
Inger-Marie and Pål Olav Røstad
© 2021 Ingunn Marit Røstad.
This work is protected under the provisions of the Norwegian Copyright Act (Act No. 2 of May 12,
1961, relating to Copyright in Literary, Scientific and Artistic Works) and published Open Access under
the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). This license allows third parties to copy and
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Most of the images reproduced in this book are excluded from the terms of the book’s Creative
Commons license and may not be reused in any way without express permission from their respective
copyrightholders. See each image’s caption for more specific information.
Series (ISSN: 0333-127X): Norske Oldfunn XXXII
ISBN print edition: 978-82-02-71620-2
ISBN PDF: 978-82-02-69687-0
DOI: https://doi.org/10.23865/noasp.132
The contents of this book have been peer reviewed.
Translation from Norwegian to English: John Hines
Cover photo: Relief brooch from Fonnås in Hedmark, Norway. © Museum of Cultural History. All rights reserved.
Cover design: Have a Book
Typesetting: Have a Book
Printing: Livonia Print
Kulturhistorisk museum
Arkeologisk seksjon
Postboks 6762
St. Olavs plass
0130 Oslo
Norway
Tlf.: ([phone]
[email protected]
Send any inquiries regarding this book to:
Cappelen Damm Akademisk/NOASP
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N-0055 Oslo
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[email protected]
CONTENT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................................9
FOREWORD ..................................................................................................................................................... 11
CHAPTER 1
COSTUME AND THE DISPLAY OF IDENTITY IN THE MIGRATION AND
EARLY MEROVINGIAN PERIODS ........................................................................................................15
1.1 Introduction: the background to the research ..........................................................................................15
1.2 Costume and peoples in the European Early Middle Ages ..................................................................15
1.3 Jewellery and group identity in the context of Scandinavia ...................................................................19
1.4 Jewellery, costume and the manifestation of cultural and ethnic identity in Scandinavia:
the key questions ...............................................................................................................................................23
1.5 The structure of the book .............................................................................................................................24
CHAPTER 2
JEWELLERY, VISUAL COMMUNICATION AND THE MANIFESTATION
OF IDENTITY – THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ........................................................................27
2.1 A practice theory of ethnicity .....................................................................................................................27
2.2 Jewellery, costume, and negotiations of identity: an ethnic explanatory model ..................................29
2.3 Methodological implications ......................................................................................................................36
CHAPTER 3
CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK AND DATING .......................................................................41
3.1 The Migration Period ...................................................................................................................................41
3.2 The Merovingian Period ..............................................................................................................................46
3.3 Production, periods of use, and date of deposition ..................................................................................74
CHAPTER 4
A STUDY OF THE DISTRIBUTION AND CONTEXTS OF THE JEWELLERY ...................77
4.1.1 Introduction................................................................................................................................................77
4.2 The Migration Period ...................................................................................................................................80
4.2.1 Cruciform brooches ..................................................................................................................................80
4.2.2 Relief brooches .........................................................................................................................................117
4.2.3 Clasps ........................................................................................................................................................175
4.2.4 Other jewellery of the Migration Period .............................................................................................214
4.3 The Merovingian Period ............................................................................................................................215
4.3.1 Conical brooches .....................................................................................................................................215
4.3.2 Other types of dress-accessory of phase 1 of the Merovingian Period ...........................................230
4.4 Summary of the study of the evidence ....................................................................................................233
8 c ontent
CHAPTER 5
THE GEOGRAPHICAL, CHRONOLOGICAL AND CONTEXTUAL
DISTRIBUTION OF THE TYPES OF DRESS-ACCESSORY : A BRIEF SUMMARY ......... 235
5.1 The geographical, chronological and contextual distribution of the types .........................................235
CHAPTER 6
DISTRIBUTION PATTERNS AND THE EXPRESSION OF COSTUME ............................... 249
6.1 Expressions through costume and the (re)production of identities ....................................................249
6.2 The standardization of dress-accessories and systematic communication: the creation and
dissemination of a language of symbols .......................................................................................................249
6.3 Sets of dress-accessories, multidimensional identities, and ‘boundary-breaking’ finds of
jewellery ............................................................................................................................................................252
6.4 The consolidation of regional group identities .......................................................................................262
6.5 The Merovingian Period – the reconfigurations of a new period? ......................................................264
6.6 The transition to the Merovingian Period: a breach or continuity in dress-tradition? .....................268
6.7 Gender and articulations of ethnic identity in the Migration and Merovingian Periods ...............268
CHAPTER 7
JEWELLERY AND NEGOTIATIONS OF IDENTITY IN SCANDINAVIA,
C. AD 400–650/700 .......................................................................................................................................... 279
7.1 Distribution patterns and society .............................................................................................................279
7.1.1 Jewellery and centralization: power, politics and cultural identity ...................................................279
7.1.2 Cultural Encounters in the north and in the interior: Norse and Saami .......................................290
7.1.3 Cultural connections to the south and west: Scandinavia, England and the Continent ..............297
7.2 Summary: changing dialogues of identity ..............................................................................................302
CHAPTER 8
PEOPLES, KINGS, WARRIORS AND WOMEN : CULTURAL AND ETHNIC
DISCOURSES IN THE MIGRATION PERIOD AND EARLY MEROVINGIAN
PERIOD ............................................................................................................................................................ 307
8.1 Costume and peoples in the European Early Middle Ages: from jewellery-types to
confederate groups ..........................................................................................................................................307
8.2 From retinues to peoples? ..........................................................................................................................308
8.3 Warriors, ethnogenesis and women: a new perspective on historical peoples ...................................310
8.4 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................................315
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................................ 317
Abbreviations used in the Catalogue ............................................................................................................... 338
Catalogue ............................................................................................................................................................. 339