During two campaigns in 1997 and 1999, archaeologists from Esbjerg Museum excavated a spectacular Late Roman Iron Age weapon burial at Veldbæk in Esbjerg, Denmark. In addition to full weaponry, the ...deceased was buried with magnificent grave goods such as gilded fittings for a military belt, gaming pieces, a gold finger ring, a silver animal fibula, a red carnelian intaglio, and a copper-alloy-clad wooden bucket. The assemblage dates the grave to the transition between periods C1b and C2 of the Late Roman Iron Age, which is to say ca. AD 250 or shortly thereafter. The grave is a crucial new piece in the puzzle to understand how power was distributed in southern Jutland during the Late Roman Iron Age.
During two campaigns in 1997 and 1999, archaeologists from Esbjerg Museum excavated a spectacular Late Roman Iron Age weapon burial at Veldbæk in Esbjerg, Denmark. In addition to full weaponry, the ...deceased was buried with magnificent grave goods such as gilded fittings for a military belt, gaming pieces, a gold finger ring, a silver animal fibula, a red carnelian intaglio, and a copper-alloy-clad wooden bucket. The assemblage dates the grave to the transition between periods C1b and C2 of the Late Roman Iron Age, which is to say ca. AD 250 or shortly thereafter. The grave is a crucial new piece in the puzzle to understand how power was distributed in southern Jutland during the Late Roman Iron Age.
During two campaigns in 1997 and 1999, archaeologists from Esbjerg Museum excavated a spectacular Late Roman Iron Age weapon burial at Veldbæk in Esbjerg, Denmark. In addition to full weaponry, the ...deceased was buried with magnificent grave goods such as gilded fittings for a military belt, gaming pieces, a gold finger ring, a silver animal fibula, a red carnelian intaglio, and a copper-alloy-clad wooden bucket. The assemblage dates the grave to the transition between periods C1b and C2 of the Late Roman Iron Age, which is to say ca. AD 250 or shortly thereafter. The grave is a crucial new piece in the puzzle to understand how power was distributed in southern Jutland during the Late Roman Iron Age.
Hellegård
A cemetery in southern Funen containing weapons and tools from the decades around the birth of Christ
The site of Hellegård near Svendborg was excavated in 2011, and the excavations ...uncovered traces of human activities dating from the Neolithic to the Late Germanic Iron Age. One of the major features was a settlement occupied from the beginning of the Pre-Roman Iron Age until the middle of the Roman Iron Age (c. 500 BC - AD 200). A small cemetery dating from just after the birth of Christ, found associated with the settlement, is the main focus of this article (figs. 1-2).
The cemetery contained 11 cremation graves furnished with pottery and a variety of iron objects. Fragments of pots were found in ten graves, either in the form of a few potsherds from one or two vessels, or numerous remains from several vessels. None of the vessels was preserved in one piece, and it is very likely that the sherds were placed in the graves as pars pro toto offerings. The vessels were either large examples with a single handle or smaller ones, such as cups with or without handles and a footed beaker (fig. 3).
Weapons were found in three graves. A long, slender single-edged sword was found in grave A2485, together with a spearhead of Ilkjær type 22 Hunn, a shield boss of type 1 and probably a shield-grip fitting of type 1. Grave A2484 also contained a shield boss of type 1, in combination with a shield-grip fitting with circular terminals. In grave A2486, there was a combination of a shield boss and a spearhead of Ilkjær’s type 3. The weapons date the graves to around the birth of Christ and all are common types on Funen (figs. 4-7, 15).
Knives are one of the commonest types of grave goods during the Iron Age. The Hellegård knives are of four types, with the crescent-shaped type and the type with concave back being considered especially useful for leatherworking. One of the knives was ornamented (fig. 8). One of the two buckles found is of a type that is especially common to the south of Denmark (fig. 9). Graves A2485 and A2486 each contained a pair of shears (fig. 10), of a size that identifies them as being eminently suited for textile production and shearing.
While all the above-mentioned items are quite common finds on Funen, and in Denmark in general, the two pairs of tongs from A2485 are quite unusual (fig. 11). Only 12 tongs have been found in Denmark to date, and a couple of parallel finds are discussed (fig. 12). An iron rod with partly-folded terminals was also found in grave A2485. This is interpreted as a carpenter’s tool and the wedge-shaped terminal as a kind of plane. Three further wedge-shaped objects of different sizes were recovered, and perhaps they originally constituted a set of small planes. Similar, but not identical, specimens are interpreted as a form of goldsmith’s anvil (figs. 13-14).
Even though the Hellegård cemetery seems quite ordinary, the finds of tools are quite unusual. Only 21 burials and three deposits containing smith’s tools from the late Pre-Roman and Roman Iron Ages have so far been recorded in Denmark (figs. 17-18). Although the tool content of the graves varies, they have one thing in common: They all contain tools for finer metalworking.
The person in grave A2485 was, however, not only buried with tools for metalworking (fig. 16): The grave goods also included various knives for leatherworking and shears for textile production, as well as the possible carpenter’s tool. This person should therefore not be seen as a specialised smith but rather as a craftsman with multiple skills. The definition of these village craftsmen should include all types of tools and implements, reflecting their wide range of skills and expertise. It then becomes clear that these craftsmen’s graves are much more common that previously recognised.
Anne Garhøj Rosenberg Øhavsmuseet
Xenia Pauli Jensen Moesgaard Museum
One of the world’s largest collections of Roman artefacts belongs to the museums of Denmark far north of the Roman frontier. Scandinavia does not have marvellous walls or frontiers in practical, ...long-living raw material, but the small finds, the vessels of bronze, silver and glass of Roman or Provincial Roman manufacture are immense in numbers. Furthermore, the weaponry (including Roman swords, scabbard runners, chapes and baldrics) are equally numerous as these are found in large quantities in the weapon deposits. Considering the large numbers and the high quality of the objects, one would expect that this material was central to
A World of Warcraft Xenia Pauli Jensen
Romans and Barbarians Beyond the Frontiers,
03/2017
Book Chapter
In the centuries before the beginning of our era, the Iron Age societies of Southern Scandinavia seem to experience a paradigmatic shift in the need to visualise status, expressed through ...manifestations of power of both political and military nature. Slightly later, from the middle of the first century B.C., the Roman Empire consolidates itself in north-western and central Europe. How the presence of a super power in Europe at this point in time influenced the elites of the neighbouring Germanic societies has been widely discussed. Regarding Northern Europe, this concerns questions on how the Germanic response to the Roman impact
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