Newly Discovered Viking Burial in Central Norway

Beads found at Hestnes, in Central Norway.
(Photo: Åge Hojem, NTNU University Museum)

This week, I read an article about an archaeological dig this fall by archaeologists from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology ("NTNU").  The dig was in Central Norway at Hestnes in Heim municipality.  The article appeared in partner.sciencenorway.no, and can be read here. 

The researchers were surprised to discover a grave, because no other graves have been found anywhere nearby.  Even more interestingly, the grave was nothing like any other Viking era grave finds in Central Norway.  It was a chamber grave, of which few if any have been found previously in this region.  Such graves are characteristic of more urbanized areas than Central Norway, such as Birka and Hedeby.  It was possible to tell the burial had been a chamber grave from the imprints left were the supporting poles had been, the remains of the chamber walls, and the size of the "chamber" where the remains lay.  The way chamber graves are built, the "chamber" is dug into the earth, and a lid is placed upon the top after the deceased person and her grave goods have been deposited.  This particular grave has been dated to between 850 - 950 CE.  

The article from partner.sciencenorway.no does not mention any textile remains, but there were a number of jewelry finds, including a pair of double-shelled tortoise brooches, a tri-lobed brooch, and a large number of tiny beads.  A photograph of the tiny beads that appeared in the article is reproduced with this post.  339 of the tiny beads had been located as of when the article was written, each of which is between 1-2 mm in size.  Beads in that size range are typically called "seed beads" today, and they have been, and still are, used for embroidery on clothing.  The article observes that, according to one of the NTNU researchers, a similar find at Hedeby has been interpreted as containing the remains of beaded embroidery.  

The tortoise brooches, which at other sites have been found to contain bits of textile from the dead woman's clothing, here contained fragments of bone and teeth, which have not yet been analyzed.  A spindle whorl was also found in the grave.  

It was suggested by one of the researchers that the woman had come to Hestnes from the south (e.g. closer to Hedeby or nearby areas) and had been buried with jewelry characteristic of her home region.  

I will be looking out for analyses of this grave in the hope that some textiles, or other materials giving a clue as to her costume, are eventually located.  I will also look out for articles on other Viking women's graves containing large numbers of seed beads.  Perhaps we are looking at the first hints of finds showing another distinctive fashion among some Viking women.

A New Necklace for the Völva

The completed necklace.  I may trim the cord later.

After months of dithering, I have finally assembled what I  consider to be a reasonable necklace for my völva costume.  See the photograph with this post.  The bead colors shown are pretty close to the actual colors, though the brown fabric in the background is very grayed out for some reason.

For reasons of cost, most of this necklace consists of glass pony beads, which I was able to obtain very cheaply in a reasonable size.  (Beads of that shape and size have been found among Viking age remains, but not typically in the quantities that I'm using.)  I've also added a few beads that look like bone, but appear actually to be glass, to give a little variation to the strand (and because decorated glass beads were more than my budget can presently manage.  That was one reason why I took so long to complete this project).  The two big blue beads near the ends are actually made from polymer modeling clay, but they don't look obtrusively anachronistic, so I included them in the finished product.  

In light of the absence of large, fancily decorated beads, my völva is clearly not wealthy as völvas go.  But then, there is no indication that the völva in Eric the Red's saga was unusually wealthy except for her gem-ornamented cloak. Making my version of that cloak will be a project for another time.

It occurred to me while I was finishing the necklace that it applies for the current Historical Sew Monthly ("HSM") theme which is "Above the Belt", so I'm providing hat information below.

The Challenge:  November--Above the Belt

Material:  Glass beads (with two polymer clay beads added), leather cord.

Pattern:   None needed.  I did attempt to stick with types consistent with bead types I've seen in pictures of Viking age bead finds.

Year:  Viking age, that is, early medieval.  Roughly ninth-eleventh centuries CE.

Notions:  Same as materials, see above.

How historically accurate is it?  We don't know what Viking beads were strung on since they are usually found loose in the grave, with the stringing material disintegrated and vanished.  Glass beads of similar shapes have been found in Viking age graves, and collections of a comparable number (50-60) and similar sizes have been found.  On the other hand, polymer clay with random swirls in it didn't exist in the Viking age.  So maybe 75%.

Hours to complete:  About a half an hour for arranging and stringing (somewhat longer to decide what beads to purchase, but I didn't keep track of that).

First Worn:  Tonight, to see whether the strand is long enough to remove without untying it, and whether I can make a hood that is open enough for the beads to be visible.  (The answer seems to be "yes"; the necklace is longer than I thought it would be.)

Total Cost:  About $15.50 USD; approximately $2.50 for the leather cord at my local JoAnn Fabrics store, and $13.02 (including shipping) for all the beads but the two polymer beads.  Those I've had for years; they were purchased for a project that never worked out.

Seed Bead Opportunity!

As my regular readers may recall, I am slowly making a völva costume. I keep going back and forth about whether to make a necklace specifically for this project or repurpose a necklace  I already have.

The packets of beads I am seeking to re-sell.

While I've been dithering, I saw a vendor on Etsy who was selling glass beads "Size 4 mm".  This is a bit on the small side for the Viking era, but I figured I could find other beads I have that are not strung to use with the mix offered, which was lovely and colorful.  In addition, the price was very low for the item and shipping/postage combined, even though the vendor is based in Australia.  

I should have guessed, from the 15 gram weight estimate for 145 beads, what I would be getting.  But hope springs eternal, especially when the price listed is low.  The beads I received are seed beads, with a diameter closer to 1 or 2 mm each than 4 mm each in size--way too small to make a Viking era necklace or any necklace with the number of beads provided.  A picture of the little packets of beads, with a 10 cm scale bar above, appears with this post.   

I don't have a use for seed beads, pretty though these are.  But there are potential costuming and craft uses for seed beads, both modern and medieval (check out the Medieval Beads site for evidence of medieval seed bead use).  So rather than try to seek satisfaction for my total purchase after several months (USD $6.85, including the postage), I figured I'd try to re-sell the beads for what I paid ($2.00 USD), plus shipping to the buyer's address, wherever in the world it is.  In the US, that will almost certainly be the cost of mailing a first-class letter, because the beads are only 15 g in weight, and a first-class letter in the US is one ounce, which is about 28 g.  I have no idea how much it might be to other countries, but the item is so light it shouldn't be much; we should be able to figure it out.

For the modest amount of this item, it's probably easiest to pay me through Paypal.  E-mail me at cathyr19355 at gmail dot com with questions.  If you are interested in buying the beads, I'll give you the information to use to reach my Paypal account.

An Interesting Bead-centric Blog

Recently, I discovered this blog by a woman named Valerie Hector, who crafts jewelry.  But she also has a blog, and though the blog now appears to be defunct it contains a number of interesting and well-illustrated posts about the history of beads that she calls "Quantum Leaps", because they are about "quantum leaps" in beading technology.  They are worthwhile for the captioned pictures of archaeological bead finds and other citations, if for nothing else.  

Viking Bead Resource

Viking age beads from Lund, Sweden,
in the Lunds universitets historiska museum
Photo by Wolfgang Sauber (Wikimedia Commons)

I recently found an excellent blog, written by an archaeologist whose primary interest is the Viking age.  The blog is written by Matthew Delvaux and it's called Text and Trowel.

Matthew is a PhD candidate, and he is concentrating his research on slavery during the Viking age. This subject requires substantial research with regard to Viking age production and trade, and as a result he has spent a non-trivial amount of time amassing information about Viking beads.  That is what piqued my interest in his research.

If you are interested in full color photographs of Viking Age beads with informative captions, I don't have to encourage you further; you will find Matthew's blog well worth your time whether you read anything beyond the captions on the featured photos.  As further enticement to the less-bead-oriented, here's an example of information I learned from Text and Trowel.

In this post, Matthew analyzed over 1,400 Viking age glass beads by color to try to ascertain patterns that might tell things about the way the Vikings thought about color, and about their color preferences.  In doing so, he used the Munsell color system. which defines each color according to three attributes:  1) hue (i.e., which basic color, such as red, yellow, green, etc., the particular color falls into); 2) value (how light or dark the color is); and 3) chroma (how drab or brilliant the color is).

It's worth reading the actual post for Matthew's observations.  His overall conclusion is that the Vikings preferred blues that were deep and pure in tone, but some of his intermediate conclusions are even more interesting:

• Beads in dark blue shades were the most numerous single category of the beads studied, and  were the most similar in hue (i.e., without great differences in hue/value/chroma);
• There are two looser grouping of colors that we'd think of as blues/greens:  a set of blues that  are brighter and lighter, and a grouping of greenish blues, including shades we'd now call  turquoise;
• There were two groupings of reddish colors.  One corresponds to the oranges/ambers/reds colors of natural amber, while the other seems to be almost a catch-all for reds and yellows that don't correspond well to colors that amber can have.  

In any event, Text and Trowel is well worth following for those interested in Viking age costume and material culture.

Useful Viking Era Resource

I rediscovered the fact that the Dark Ages Re-Creation Company site contains a color reproduction of the charts Johan Callmer prepared to show the distribution of different bead types during the Viking period.  (Click on a chart to see it full size.) They also have some extremely informative text articles about Viking era beads, here and here.  Actually, there are more bead articles, and articles about other aspects of Viking culture and material culture, on the site; you may well prefer just to turn to the DARC articles page.