The Armour Archive

Ny Bjorn

That is probably a good approach eventhough it has been established, for instance through empirical studies of Gotlandic hoards, that most coins didn't circulate for more than ~10 years.

A fairly good summary on Dirhams is to be found HERE

/N B

Ny Bjorn

Thes are from a grave at Birka, any idea about the origin? Picture 1: coin pendant made from a Roman denarius struck for Empress Faustina Minor (AD 161 - 175) Picture 2: Left - Dirham struck in 297 or 299 (AD 909/910 or 911/912) in al-Schasch for Ahmad ibn Isma'il. Middle - Dirham struck in 290 (AD...

Ny Bjorn

Martin Rundkvist and Howard Williams have published a paper in Medieval Archaeology 52 on the boat grave they excavated 2005 in Skamby (prov. of Ã–stergÃ¶tland, Sweden). You find the paper - "A Viking Boat Grave with Amber Gaming Pieces Excavated at Skamby, Ã–stergÃ¶tland, Sweden" (34 pages as PDF) ...

Ny Bjorn

Well - for fetters/manacles of the type found in Birka there are two ways - since non of the pieces are complete one can't tell which was used (see pic). However, as you can see in the pic, both systems used padlocks. The neck irons could simply have been attached to any length of rope or chain pull...

Ny Bjorn

Iron shackles are still around but rope isn't... I worked with and surveyed a lot of shackles this spring when I wrote an article for FornvÃ¤nnen on archaeological evidence for captivity and possible slave trade. The article isn't scheduled to be printed for another 6 moths or so, but some of its fo...

Ny Bjorn

A late input here: The coins from the Hjortsberga hoard are kept by one of the NMA:s sub-divisions The Royal Coin Cabinet . Since the mid 70's they are a more or less autonomic part of the organization. The NMA will just pass you on to them (when I worked there the NMA hadn't got one single numismat...

Ny Bjorn

The frame is both cast and hammered, the suspension-loops for instance are clearly hammered to shape. The buttons are cast (they are of the standard Caftan/Svita-type).

/N B

Ny Bjorn

Here's a zoom of the plan. Each square is 29,69 mm in side. By 12) you see whats left of the dead man - his teeth...

/N B

Ny Bjorn

Hi all Here's a VERY late input - I seldom frequent the AA nowadays - but since I was the archaeologist in charge of the re-examination of, among others, Grave Bj 949 I'll try to straight some things out: 1) there is indeed a plan over the grave; why my former colleagues haven't webbed it yet is bey...

Ny Bjorn

Look here: http://mis.historiska.se/mis/sok/bild.asp?uid=114268

and here: http://mis.historiska.se/mis/sok/bild.asp?uid=114269

/N B

Ny Bjorn

...and this is why I all but stopped going to public LH-events.

A good and recommended read is my colleague Fredrik Svanberg's doctoral thesis "Decolonizing the Viking age".

/N B

Ny Bjorn

Hi there. Sorry for answering late - I've been working out on Gotland for a week. There is indeed at least one lyre bridge with more than 6 string notches - the antler bridge from the Black earth of BjÃ¶rkÃ¶ (drawing HERE - click the pic to enlarge it) has 7 notches (i.e. from a 7 or 5 stringed inst...

Ny Bjorn

The term "copper alloy" is a scientific way to state that we have no idea of the alloy's composition - besides copper. The antiquated term "bronze" is still frequently used by many archaeologists, but it is only one of many copper alloys. When we get the time and funds to sample VA "bronze" objects ...

Ny Bjorn

The current interpretation, sans experimental tests (-please, go a head...) is that it's intended for 8 strings - and no, I don't think they needed 2 extra holes to make the others since it was almost certainly cast in cire perdue. It's a bit sad that it was found by means of a metal detector in a (...

Ny Bjorn

Hi all In 1990 archaeologists from the Historical museum of Gotland surveyed a field where a silver hoard was found in the 19th century. They found plenty of other metal objects - among them a lyre bridge cast from copper alloy. For various reasons the find was never properly published and eventuall...

Ny Bjorn

When I asked Anita about it again, like in 2005 she'd abandoned that theory. She's still working on her thesis though and what do I know - she might even get it ready and published during my lifetime...

/N B

Ny Bjorn

I've sadly forgotten to report back on this issue - sorry about that! After a good deal of glueing and re-fitting the shards and pipes turned out to be... ...- Parts of a ceramic bugle and not even close to anything spirit(-ual). Ceramic bugles have been found in Scandinavian medieval deposits befor...

Ny Bjorn

Follow this LINK for a clip from a Swedish newspaper.
It shows simplified drawings of the town plan both pre- and post- the large GPR-map I linked to earlier.

- And yes, it's all in Swedish but you ought to be able to make out the graphics anyway.

/N B

Ny Bjorn

Today the National Heritage Board finally let go of the info Swedish Viking specialists have been waiting for since last summer: Their geophycists have been able to map a portion of Birka's town plan by means of Ground Penetrating Radar. Plots, houses, alleys - they're all there! In doing this they ...

Ny Bjorn

You ought to try the search utility at Historiska VÃ¤rldar - use the keyword "Kaftan" in the "KlÃ¤der och textila hantverk" subforum and you'll get 2 pages of threads to read. A fair share of them are on male caftans.

/N B

Ny Bjorn

You will have a hard time finding post-10th C caftan/svita buttons in a Norse context though. There might be some in Russian/Ukaranian publications but as far as I can recall their finds are predominately 10th C as well. If you don't read Russian I'd say you're stuck with the BjÃ¶rkÃ¶-finds, like th...

Ny Bjorn

-You'd better be! - The sheet thickness ranges between 0,4 and 0,7 mm...

/N B

Ny Bjorn

Saverio: As Rizzo wrote the cross from Bj 968 is cast whereas the three other crosses are made from silver sheet. The two rounded crosses (Bj 835 & Bj 517) were probably made from hammered-out Dirhems.

/N B

Ny Bjorn

Well - you can trust the info in the wiki-site above - trust me... It is all up to the right people to do their duty and edit.

/N B
Devoted wikipedian - 'cause books are great but O-so expencive to re-edit every time the archaeological "truth" changes.

Ny Bjorn

-As usual Wikipedia is a usefull tool if one does not for some reason like to use Google: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedeby

Haithabu is indeed the modern German name - but it is also found on rune stones - of cource with the letter Ã¾orn instead of "th" - i.e. haiÃ¾abu.

/N B

Ny Bjorn

In the first part of the 11th C Sigtuna was still pretty much a Royal enclave centred on itself. It seems like it didn't change into a centre of trade and manufacture until during the latter half of the century. And its eastern connections were pretty strong - the king's (Olof Eriksson SkÃ¶tkonung's...

Ny Bjorn

Those interested in (Scandinavian) animal styles and metal technology will probably find this blog entry worth reading - it's on a newly published British model of a sword pommel dated to approx. AD 500 and made from lead.

You find the blog HERE

/N B

Ny Bjorn

Ny, Anders, any of you guys in the loop know anything about this? Anders, Vegard and the other Norwegians will know more since they're in the middle of this controversy - all I can say is that it is a sad, sad decision. Vikingskipshuset (the ship's current location) at BygdÃ¸y is one of the most ex...

Ny Bjorn

You'll find a photo and a couple of drawings of the S3-fragment in chapter 3.6 in Inga HÃ¤gg's " Die Textilfunde aus der Siedlung und aus den GrÃ¤bern von Haithabu. Beschreibung und Gliederung ". It is part 29 of the series " Berichte Ã¼ber die Ausgrabungen in Haithabu " and was published in 1991. I...

Ny Bjorn

Hm - the late hour seems to have affected my brain last night. The Skjoldehamn-hood has no side gores what so ever...

The Haithabu-hood is in HÃ¤gg's second Haithabu-textiles book - I'll post the full title next year!

Must run!

/N B

Ny Bjorn

Ny, perhaps you can help shed some light here. Well - let's see I've looked at the 'Hedeby hood pattern' on the Vikes site about 10,000 times, and for the life of me I can't make figure 21a look like figure 21b. I can see how 21b is basically an oversized 3 part coif they're calling a hood, but tho...

Ny Bjorn

The hood above was found in a grave at Ikigaat/Herjolfnes on south Greenland. It is Norse BUT medieval - 13th C or later
-An interesting side-note is that it was found by the leg bones of the buried person...

/N B

Ny Bjorn

Wyrm: the other inventories from Grave 1 at Brucebo were 1 fragmentary shield boss (i.e. a part of the flange), 1 bronze ring (d:1"), 3 fragments of tinned bronze (sans any closer resemblance to just anything), ~10 gaming pieces of antler, 3 pieces of a burnt comb (2 with circle-and-dot ornamentatio...

Ny Bjorn

Unfortunatelly for you Wyrm there is no additional info on the Brucebo strap-end. - It was found in the first of two Iron-age graves which were demolished when the summer house of William Blair Bruce (Canadian artist) - Villa Brucebo was built in the early 1900's. Since it and other surviving artefa...

Ny Bjorn

Mainly for Endre since it's solely written in one of the world's culturally superior languages :wink: : I think there's a little something on the Trondheim-shield in " Kaupangen ved Nidelva : 1000 Ã¥rs byhistorie belyst gjennom de arkeologiske undersÃ¸kelsene pÃ¥ Folkebibliotekstomten i Trondheim 19...

New paper on the Skamby boat grave (Sweden)

Photos of a "new" Gotlandic lyre bridge.

Breaking news on the town plan of Birka

Blog entry on casting and animal style