Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T17:11:39.060Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Board Games in Boat Burials: Play in the Performance of Migration and Viking Age Mortuary Practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Mark A Hall
Mark A Hall*
Affiliation:
Perth Museum & Art Gallery, Perth, UK
*
[email: Marcus.antonius@virgin.net]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This contribution explores an aspect of boat burials in the second half of the first millennium AD across Northern Europe, specifically boat burials that included equipment for board games (surviving variously as boards and playing pieces, playing pieces only, or dice and playing pieces). Entangled aspects of identity, gender, cosmogony, performance, and commemoration are considered within a framework of cultural citation and connection between death and play. The crux of this article's citational thrust is the notion of quoting life in the rituals surrounding death. This was done both in the service of the deceased and in the service of those wanting to remember the deceased, the argument distills around the biographical trajectories or the different social and individual uses to which people put ostensibly simple things such as gaming pieces.

Cet article a pour but d'explorer un aspect des sépultures à bateaux de la seconde moitié du premier millénaire apr. J.-C. en Europe septentrionale, et plus particulièrement les tombes à navires qui contenaient des éléments de jeux de société (conservés sous forme de plateaux et de pièces à jouer, de pièces à jouer seules, ou de dés et de pièces à jouer). L'examen porte sur les aspects du jeu qui entremêlent des notions d'identité, de genre, de cosmogonie, de performance et de commémoration dans un cadre formé par les références culturelles et les liens entre la mort et le jeu. L'idée essentielle derrière l'usage de ces références consiste à invoquer la vie dans la mort pour servir le mort tout autant que ceux qui désirent le commémorer, et ces notions se concrétisent autour des divers usages auxquels on a pu soumettre des objets apparemment tout simples. Translation by Madeleine Hummler

Dieser Artikel versucht, einen Aspekt der Schiffsbestattungen der zweiten Hälfte des ersten Jahrtausends n. Chr. in Nordeuropa zu untersuchen, namentlich die Bootbestattungen, die Elemente von Brettspielen (verschiedentlich als Spielbretter mit Spielsteinen, nur als Spielsteine oder als Würfel und Spielsteine erhalten) enthielten.

Keywords

Migration periodViking Ageafterlifeboard gamesboat burialsship burialsperformanceplayremembrancepériode des grandes migrationsépoque vikingau-delàjeux de sociétésépultures à bateauxtombes à naviresperformancejeucommémorationVölkerwanderungszeitWikingerzeitJenseitsBrettspieleSchiffsbestattungenBootbestattungenAufführungSpielErinnerung
Type
Article
Information
European Journal of Archaeology , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , 2016 , pp. 439 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 the European Association of Archaeologists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andrén, A. 1993. Doors to Other Worlds: Scandinavian Death Rituals in Gotlandic Perspectives. Journal of European Archaeology, 1 (1): 33–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arbman, H. 1940. Der Årby-Fund. Acta Archaeologica, 11: 43–102, reprinted in C. O. Cederlund, ed. 1993. The Årby Boat. Stockholm: Swedish Historical Museum (Museum of National Antiquities/Stockholm Monograph 2) and Båtdokumentationsgruppen, pp. 15–80.Google Scholar
Arents, U. & Eisenschmidt, E. 2010. Die Gräber von Haithabu Band 1: Text, Literatur & Band 2: Katalog, Listen, Tafeln, Beilagen. Neumünster: Wachholtz.Google Scholar
Arwidsson, G. 1954. Valsgärde 8. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitets Museum för Nordiska Fornsaker.Google Scholar
Arwidsson, G. 1977. Die Gräberfunde von Valsgärde III: Valsgärde 7. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitets Museum för Nordiska Fornsaker.Google Scholar
Arwidsson, G. 1983. Valsgärde. In: Lamm, J.P. & Nordström, H.Å., eds. Vendel Period Studies. Transactions of the Boat-Grave Symposium in Stockholm, Feb 2–3 1981. Stockholm: Museum of National Antiquities Stockholm Studies 2, pp. 71–82.Google Scholar
Ballard, C., Bradley, R., Myhre, L.N. & Wilson, M. 2003. The Ship as Symbol in the Prehistory of Sweden and Southeast Asia. World Archaeology, 35 (3): 385–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnhart, R.K. ed. 1988. The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology. Edinburgh: Chambers.Google Scholar
Becker, A. 2007. The Royal Game of Ur. In: Finkel, I.L., ed. Ancient Board Games in Perspective: Papers from the 1990 British Museum Colloquium, with Additional Contributions. London: British Museum, pp. 11–15.Google Scholar
Burström, N.M. 2014. Things in the Eye of the Beholder: A Humanistic Perspective on Archaeological Object Biographies. Norwegian Archaeological Review, 47 (1): 65–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caldwell, D.H., Hall, M.A. & Wilkinson, C. 2009. The Lewis Hoard of Gaming Pieces: A Re-examination of their Context, Meanings, Discovery and Manufacture. Medieval Archaeology, 53:155–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carver, M.O.H. 2000. Burial as Poetry: The Context of Treasure in Anglo-Saxon Graves. In: E.M. Tyler. ed. Treasure in the Medieval West. York: York Medieval Press, pp. 25–40.Google Scholar
Carver, M.O.H. 2005. Sutton Hoo: A Seventh-Century Princely Burial Ground and its Context. London: British Museum Press.Google Scholar
Cederlund, C.O. ed. 1993. The Årby Boat. Stockholm: Swedish Historical Museum.Google Scholar
Crumlin-Pedersen, O. & Thye, B.M. eds. 1995. The Ship as Symbol in Prehistoric and Medieval Scandinavia. Copenhagen: National Museum of Denmark.Google Scholar
Culin, S. 1891. East Indian Fortune-telling with Dice. Proceedings of the Numismatic and Anthropological Society of Philadelphia, 1890–91:65.Google Scholar
David, F.N. 1998. Games, Gods and Gambling. A History of Probability and Statistical Ideas. New York: Dover (originally London: Charles Griffin & Co, 1962).Google Scholar
Davidson, H.E. 1993. The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
DeMarrais, E., Gosden, C. & Renfrew, C. eds. 2004. Rethinking Materiality: The Engagement of Mind with the Material World. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
de Voogt, A., Dunn-Vaturi, A.-E. & Eerkens, J.W. 2013. Cultural Transmission in the Ancient Near East: Twenty Squares and Fifty-Eight Holes. Journal of Archaeological Science, 40:1715–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Du Chatellier, P. & Le Pontois, L. 1909. A Ship Burial in Brittany. Saga-Book of the Viking Club, 6 (1908–09):123–68.Google Scholar
Duzcko, W. 2004. Viking Rus Studies on the Presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Ekengren, F. 2006. Performing Death. The Function and Meaning of Roman Drinking Vessels in Scandinavian Mortuary Practices. In: Andrén, A., Jennbert, K. & Raudvere, C., eds. Old Norse Religion in Long-term Perspectives. Origins, Changes and Interactions: An International Conference in Lund, Sweden, June 3–7, 2004. Lund: Nordic Academic Press, pp. 109–13.Google Scholar
Farley, J. & Hunter, F. eds. 2015. Celts: Art and Identity. London: British Museum Press.Google Scholar
Faulkes, A. ed. 1998. Snorri Sturluson Edda Skáldskaparmál Volume 1: Introduction, Text and Notes. London: Viking Society for Northern Research & University College London.Google Scholar
Faulkes, A. ed. 2005. Snorri Sturluson Edda Prologue and Gylfaginning, 2nd ed. London: Viking Society for Northern Research & University College.Google Scholar
Finkel, I.L. 2007. On the Rules for the Royal Game of Ur. In: Finkel, I.L., ed. Ancient Board Games in Perspective: Papers from the 1990 British Museum Colloquium, with Additional Contributions. London: British Museum, pp. 16–32.Google Scholar
Gardeła, L. 2012. What the Vikings Did for Fun? Sports and Pastimes in Medieval Northern Europe. World Archaeology, 44 (2): 234–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerds, M. 2006. Scandinavian Burial Rites on the Southern Baltic Coast. Boat-graves in Cemeteries of Early Medieval Trading Places. In: Andrén, A., Jennbert, K. & Raudvere, C., eds. Old Norse Religion in Long-term Perspectives. Origins, Changes and Interactions: An International Conference in Lund, Sweden, June 3–7, 2004. Lund: Nordic Academic Press, pp. 153–58.Google Scholar
Gilmour, G.H. 1997. The Nature and Function of Astragalus Bones from Archaeological Contexts in the Levant and Eastern Mediterranean. Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 16 (2): 167–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grimm, O. 2014. Game Grounds in Western and Ship Races in Eastern Scandinavia: An Archaeological-Interdisciplinary View. In: Teichert, M., ed. Sport und Spiel bei den Germanen – Nordeuropa von der römischen Kaiserzeit bis zum Mittelalter. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 429–56.Google Scholar
Hahn, H.P. & Weiss, H. eds. 2013. Mobility, Meaning and Transformations of Things: Shifting Contexts of Material Culture through Time and Space. Oxford & Oakville: Oxbow Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, M.A. 2007. Playtime in Pictland: The Material Culture of Gaming in Early Medieval Scotland. Rosemarkie: Groam House Museum.Google Scholar
Hall, M.A. & Forsyth, K. 2011. Roman Rules? The Introduction of Board Games to Britain and Ireland. Antiquity, 85:1325–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Hamel, A.G. 1934. The Game of the Gods. Arkiv für Nordisk filologi, 50:218–42.Google Scholar
Hedeager, L. 2011. Iron Age Myth and Materiality: An Archaeology of Scandinavia AD 400–1000. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herschend, F. 2001. Journey of Civilisation: The Late Iron Age View of the Human World. Uppsala: University of Uppsala.Google Scholar
Hilberg, V. & Kalmring, S. 2014. Viking Age Hedeby and its Relations with Iceland and the North Atlantic: Communication, Long-Distance Trade and Production. In: Zori, D. & Byock, J., eds. Viking Archaeology in Iceland: Mosfell Archaeological Project (Cursor Mundi 20). Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 221–45.Google Scholar
Hollander, L.M. trans. 2007. Snorri Sturluson Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway. Austin: The American-Scandinavian Foundation & University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Jacobsen, J.K. & Wiener, J.B. 2013. Roman Riches in Iron Age Denmark, online news post for Ancient History Encyclopaedia [accessed 1 June 2013]. Available at: http://www.ancient.eu.com/news/3251 Google Scholar
Jennbert, K. 2006. The Heroized Dead. People, Animals and Materiality in Scandinavian Death Rituals, AD 200–1000. In: Andrén, A., Jennbert, K. & Raudvere, C., eds. Old Norse Religion in Long-term Perspectives. Origins, Changes and Interactions: An International Conference in Lund, Sweden, June 3–7, 2004. Lund: Nordic Academic Press, pp. 135–40.Google Scholar
Kaland, S.H.H. 1995. The Settlement of Westness, Rousay. In: Batey, C.E., Jesch, J., & Morris, C.D., eds. The Viking Age in Caithness, Orkney and the North Atlantic. Select Papers from the Eleventh Viking Congress, Thurso and Kirkwall, 22 August–1 September 1989. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 308–17.Google Scholar
Kålund, K. 1882. Islands fortidslaevninger. Arbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 1882:57–124.Google Scholar
Klevnäs, A. 2007. Robbing the Dead at Gamla Uppsala, Sweden. Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 22 (1): 24–42.Google Scholar
Lake, M. 1998. Digging for Memes: The Role of Material Objects in Cultural Evolution. In: Renfrew, C. & Scarre, C., eds. Cognition and Material Culture: The Archaeology of Symbolic Storage. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, pp. 77–88.Google Scholar
Larrington, C. trans. 2014. The Poetic Edda. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Larsson, G. 2007. Ship and Society: Maritime Ideology in Late Iron Age Sweden. Uppsala: Uppsala University Department of Archaeology and Ancient History.Google Scholar
Müller-Wille, M. 1970. Bestattung im Boot. Studien zu einer nordeuropäischen Grabsitte. Offa, 25/26: 5–203.Google Scholar
Müller-Wille, M. 1978. Das Schiffsgrab von der Ile de Groix (Bretagne): Ein Exkurs zum Bootkamnergrab von Haithabu. Ausgrabungen in Haithabu (1963–1980): Das archäologische Fundmaterial der Ausgrabung Haithabu 3 (Berichte über die Ausgrabungen in Haithabu 12). Neumünster: Wachholtz, pp. 48–84.Google Scholar
Murray, H.J.R. 1913. A History of Chess. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Natuniewicz-Sekula, M. & Seehusen, C.R. 2010. Baltic Connections. Some Remarks about Studies of Boat-graves from the Roman Iron Age. Finds from Slusegård and Weklice Cemeteries. In: Lund-Hansen, U. & Bitner-Wróblewska, A., eds. 2010. Worlds Apart? Contacts across the Baltic Sea in the Iron Age. København & Warsaw: Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskriftselskab & Państwowe Muzeum Archeologiczne, pp. 287–313.Google Scholar
Nicolaysen, N. 1882. The Viking-Ship Discovered at Gokstad in Norway/Langskibet Fra Gokstad Ved Sandefjord. Oslo: Alb. Cammermeyer.Google Scholar
Nordahl, E. 2001. Båtgravar i Gamla Uppsala: Spår av en vikingatida högreståndsmiljö. Uppsala: University of Uppsala.Google Scholar
Nordal, S. 1973. Three Essays on Völuspá. Saga-Book, 18 (1970–73):79–135.Google Scholar
Olsen, O., Skamby Madsen, J. & Rieck, F. 1995. Shipshape: Essays for Ole Crumlin-Pedersen. Roskilde: The Viking Ship Museum.Google Scholar
Owen, O. & Dalland, M. 1999. Scar: A Viking Boat Burial on Sanday, Orkney. East Linton: Tuckwell.Google Scholar
Peets, J., Allmäe, R. & Maldre, L. 2010. Archaeological Investigations of Pre-Viking Age Burial Boat in Salme Village at Saaremaa. Archaeological Fieldwork in Estonia, 2010:29–48.Google Scholar
Peets, J., Allmäe, R., Maldre, L., Saage, R., Tomek, T. & Lõuges, L. 2012. Research Results of the Salme Ship Burials in 2011–2012. Archaeological Fieldwork in Estonia, 2012: 43–60.Google Scholar
Pennick, N. 1984. Pagan Prophecy and Play. Cambridge: Runestaff Publications.Google Scholar
Pentz, P. 2014. Ships and the Vikings. In: Williams, G., Pentz, P. & Wemhoff, M., eds. Vikings: Life and Legend. London: British Museum Press, pp. 202–27.Google Scholar
Pettersson, M. & Wikell, R. 2013a. Tyresta. En stor hög från vikingatid Arkeologisk forskningsgrävning. Stockholm: Arkeologhuset Rapport 1.Google Scholar
Pettersson, M. & Wikell, R. 2013b. En hög på höjden – en nyligen undersökt stor hög i Tyresta. In: Owe, J., ed. Yngre järnålder i Stockholms län – aktuell forskning. Stockholm: Stockholms läns hembygdsförbund och Stockholms läns museum, pp. 77–88.Google Scholar
Pétursson, P. 2006. Völuspá and the Tree of Life. A Product of a Culture in a Liminal Stage. In: Andrén, A., Jennbert, K. & Raudvere, C., eds. Old Norse Religion in Long-term Perspectives. Origins, Changes and Interactions: An International Conference in Lund, Sweden, June 3–7, 2004. Lund: Nordic Academic Press, pp. 313–19.Google Scholar
Price, N.S. 1989. The Vikings in Brittany. London: Viking Society for Northern Research (Saga-Book 22/ 6 printed with double-pagination).Google Scholar
Price, N.S. 2010. Passing into Poetry: Viking-age Mortuary Drama and the Origins of Norse Mythology. Medieval Archaeology, 54:123–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, N.S. 2014. Nine Paces from Hel: Time and Motion in Old Norse Ritual Performance. World Archaeology, 46 (2): 178–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, N.S. & Mortimer, P. 2014. An Eye for Odin? Divine Role-playing in the Age of Sutton Hoo. European Journal of Archaeology, 17:517–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rundkvist, M. & Williams, H. 2008. A Viking Boat Grave with Amber Gaming Pieces Excavated at Skamby, Östergötland, Sweden. Medieval Archaeology, 52:69–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schön, M.D. 1999. Feddersen Wierde, Fallward, Flögeln. Bad Bederkesa: Archäologie im Museum Burg, Landkreis Cruxhaven.Google Scholar
Schönbäck, B. 1981. The Custom of Burial in Boats. In: Lamm, J.P. & Nordström, H-Å., eds. Vendel Period Studies. Transactions of the Boat-grave Symposium in Stockholm, Feb 2–3 1981 (Stockholm Studies 2). Stockholm: Museum of National Antiquities, pp. 123–32.Google Scholar
Shetelig, H. 1905. Gravene på Myklebostad på Nordfjordeid (Bergens Museums Årbok 7). Bergen: Grieg.Google Scholar
Shetelig, H. 1912. Vestlandske graver i jernalderen. Bergen: Bergens Museum.Google Scholar
Shetelig, H. 1917. Graven. In: Brøgger, A.W., Falk, H.J. & Shetelig, H. Osebergfundet Bind 1. Kristiania: Universitetets Oldsaksamling, pp. 209–78.Google Scholar
Shimizu, Y. 2014. The Development and Regional Variations of Liubo. Board Game Studies Journal Online, 8:81–106 [accessed 25 August 2014]. Available at: http://bgsj.ludus-opuscula.org/PDF_Files/06online.pdf Google Scholar
Simek, R. 2007. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer.Google Scholar
Sjösvärd, L., Vretemark, M. & Gustavson, H. 1983. A Vendel Warrior from Vallentuna. In: Lamm, J.P. & Nordström, H.-Å., eds. Vendel Period Studies. Transactions of the Boat-grave Symposium in Stockholm, Feb 2–3 1981 (Stockholm Studies 2). Stockholm: Museum of National Antiquities, pp. 133–50.Google Scholar
Solberg, B. 2007. Pastimes or Serious Business? Norwegian Graves with Gaming Objects c. 200–1000 AD. In: Hardh, B., Jennbert, K. & Olausson, D., eds. On the Road: Studies in Honour of Lars Larsson (Acta Archaeologia Lundensia, 26), pp. 265–69.Google Scholar
Sørensen, A.C. 2001. Ladby — A Danish Ship Grave from the Viking Age. Roskilde: Viking Ship Museum.Google Scholar
Sørheim, H. 1997. En høvdings gård, en høvdings grav: en vikingtids båtbrav på Egge i Steinkjer, Nord-Trøndelag. Trondheim: Universitet i Trondheim, Vienskapsmuseet.Google Scholar
Svanberg, F. 2003. Death Rituals in South-East Scandinavia. Lund: University of Lund.Google Scholar
Taggart, D. 2013. Fate and Cosmogony in Völuspá: Shaping History in a Moment. Northern Studies, 44:21–35.Google Scholar
Teichert, M. 2014. Game-boards and Gaming-pieces in Old Norse-Icelandic Fiction. In: Caldwell, D.H. & Hall, M.A., eds. The Lewis Gaming Hoard in Context — New Analyses of their Art, Purpose and Place in History. Edinburgh: NMS Publishing, pp. 307–20.Google Scholar
Tolkien, J.R.R. 1983. On Translating Beowulf. In: Tolkien, J.R.R., ed. The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. London: Allen & Unwin, pp. 49–71.Google Scholar
Tolkien, J.R.R. 2014. Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary. London: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Whittaker, H. 2006. Game Boards and Gaming Pieces in the Northern European Iron Age. Nordlit. Tidskrift for kultur og litteratur, 24:103–12 [accessed 5 August 2008]. Available at: http://www.uit.no/getfile.php?PageId=977&Field=877 Google Scholar
Williams, H. 2001. Death, Memory and Time: A Consideration of Mortuary Practice at Sutton Hoo. In: Humphrey, C. & Ormrod, W., eds. Time in the Middle Ages. Woodbridge: Boydell &Brewer, pp. 35–71.Google Scholar
Williams, H. 2006. Death and Memory in Early Medieval Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, H. 2010. At the Funeral. In: Carver, M., Sanmark, A. & Semple, S., eds. Signals of Belief in Early England Anglo-Saxon Paganism Revisited. Oxford: Oxbow Books, pp. 67–82.Google Scholar
Williams, H. 2013. Death, Memory and Material Culture: Catalytic Commemoration and the Cremated Dead. In: Tarlow, S. & Nilsson Stutz, L., eds. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 195–208.Google Scholar
Williams, H. 2014. Memory through Monuments: Movement and Temporality in Skamby's Boat Graves. In: Alexandersson, H., Andreeff, A. & Bünz, A., eds. Med hjärta och hjärna: Eb vänbok till professor Elisabeth Arwill-Nordblach. Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg (Gothenburg Archaeological Studies 5), pp. 397–413.Google Scholar
Williams, H., Rundkvist, M. & Danielsson, A. 2010. The Landscape of a Swedish Boat-Grave Cemetery. Landscapes, 11 (1): 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolley, C.L. 1934. Ur Excavations Volume 2. The Royal Cemetery: A Report on the Predynastic and Sargonid Graves Excavated between 1926 and 1931. London: British Museum.Google Scholar
Youngs, S. 1983. The Gaming Pieces. In: Bruce Mitford, R.L. S. & Care-Evans, A., eds. The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial Volume III.ii. London: British Museum, pp. 853–74.Google Scholar