Category: Viking
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Rude Viking Nicknames
Understanding Nicknames I’ve had a brief look at offensive and shocking nicknames before, especially among the Anglo-Saxons, but here we’re going to look in a little more depth, with some more examples. Again, I’m drawing primarily from Peterson’s excellent 2015 thesis (which you can access here). Peterson often acknowledges a broad range of potential translations…
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The Vikings – ‘culture-sponges’
Beyond studying a single aspect in great detail, there are 2 primary ways to conceptualise the ‘Vikings’ within a macro-historical narrative, and their impact on the world. One is their role in establishing connecting-lines across Europe (and further afield), raiding and trading. The flow of people, ideas and objects helped open up the world, and…
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Viking Lead Trade Weights
Explaining Viking Trade Weights ‘Viking-Age’ trade weights are a widely attested phenomena in Scandinavia, but equally so in England. Manufactured in a broad range of materials and alloys (Maleszka 2003, 286), they are understood to form part of the system of Gewichtsgeldwirtschaft (bullion economy): a process of exchange of precious metal based on weight, common…
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The ‘Viking’ Settlement of Northumbria: Large and Archaeologically Distinctive, or Invisible?
Contrasting views of the Scandinavian settlement of the Northumbrian ‘Danelaw’ have emerged in the historiography of the period. Archaeologically speaking, can we easily identify the presence of these ‘Vikings’, through culturally distinctive material culture? Or, alternatively, is the narrative of invasion and settlement put forward in contemporary sources far less clear in the archaeological record?…
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Crossing Boundaries – Insular metalwork in Viking-Age Scandinavia
There are relatively large quantities of ‘Insular’ (ie. from the various political kingdoms of the British Isles) decorative metalwork found in ‘Viking Age’ Scandinavia, especially (although not exclusively) in funerary contexts. This has been broadly noted for some time, starting with the simple cataloging of ‘Insular’ items by Petersen (1940), Bakka (1965), and indeed in…