Most of the material we find in our excavations from prehistoric times are broken pieces, eroded artefacts and to put it simple, ””dead” objects. Its very seldom that we find a more “Living message” from ancient times.
But now and then, we do find something that gives us a more direct contact with our ancestors, a small door opens up, and you have direct contact. One of these “doors” to the people of the past is runic inscriptions.
At the long term excavation of the Viking Age Port of Trade at Fröjel, we have previously only found a small inscription on the bottom of an animal head brooch. Four letters spelled “Kika”, probably the name of the person who owned the brooch.
But this summer’s excavations revealed a fascinating glimpse of a person sitting in the Viking Age harbour at Fröjel on the island of Gotland, carving runes on a rib to show the people around that he was a skilled person.
On two sides of a broken rib, he wrote a message for those who could read runes. But he made it a bit difficult by putting some of the runes mirrored and some of them up side down.
On one side (below), he wrote: “Easy to understand is if you know what I am….” (Here a word is missing, might be “writing” or “carving”.
Right half and up side down; “rib here….”
The person who carved the runes, has obviously carved some ideas that are easy for a reader to understand, if they can read what he is going to write, and at the same time made it more difficult for the reader by having the runes mirrored and/or up side down, a small word puzzle in other words written in runes. The person, maybe a merchant, is obviously well educated and also aware of it.
The rib was found in the settlement layer at Fröjel and can by that be dated to the 11th, or very early 12th century.
Visby 12/1-04
Excavating an old site always brings up some objects that are very difficult to interpret. Last summer's excavation of the Viking Age harbour at Fröjel on the island of Gotland (http://frojel.hgo.se) was no exception from this role.
Among a couple of thousands of objects, there was a small piece of bone that caught our attention. It is a piece of flat bone some 4 cm long. The right side of the bone is broken, so we don't know how long it actually has been.
The bone is perforated with a line of small holes. These are so arranged that they get smaller and smaller the further to the right one goes. The holes are also wider in the bottom then in the top of the bone.
To get an idea of what it could be, I asked people to come up with suggestions. The response was far more than I had expected. It seems to be, even if there are other suggestions, a draw plate. I have put together the suggestions in a pdf file for you to read (32 pages and 1,6 Mb).
This very day (25/11-05) I just found out that there is a very similar object found in the Viking Age town of Sigtuna, situated in Lake Mälaren just west of Stockholm (see the photo to the right). There are many objects found at Fröjel with parallels at Sigtuna, and much in favour of a close contact between these two sites, as well as with Novgorod in Russia.
Visby 24/1-04
Among all the about 30.000 objects from the excavation of the Viking Age harbour at Frojel, Gotland, there is a number of unidentified objects that we have problem to understand, even if we can identify most of the objects that we find.
The object at the bottom right is a piece of spherical blue glass with inlays of small dots of white glass. The piece of glass is surrounded by a thin bronze plate. At the opposite side of the object, there is some unknown white material.
It is obvious that the object has been attached to something, like a kind of decoration. So far, we have not come to any certain conclusion to what it has been attached. In a way, this object resembles rather much a kind of glass decoration fasten to the very famous Irish bishop crozier found at Helgö in middle Sweden, and dated to the 8th C.
I am very much looking forward to any suggestions you have of what it has been a part of.
Since I put the question here about the glass piece, most of the answers point to the conclusion that the glass piece has been attached to a Christian object, like a book with leather cover, or a shrine or a ceremonial cross. I have got an interesting notice about a more or less exactly the same object found a couple of years ago in the town of Sigtuna. As can be seen from the photo, the object really looks the same. It is getting more and more clear that there are much in common between Sigtuna and Fröjel, as well as with Novgorod in Russia
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Visby 28/9-04
The excavation of the Viking Age harbour at Fröjel on the island of Gotland is now finished for this year. It has taken much longer time then we expected, mainly because of the very complex graves that, as usual, turned up towards the end of the excavation season.
The excavation was mainly dealing with the northern cemetery. We have been excavating here before, and until today some 60 graves have been investigated.
The northern grave field can be dated to the 7th -to 10th century AD. When the cemetery was not in use any more, the area become a part of the Late Viking Age town area. In other words, the cemetery is overlaid by settlement traces from 11th and 12th century.
The traces from this settlement are both rich and varied. Many postholes, as well as more or less complete house remains and thousands of artefacts give a good picture the use of the area.
Most of the material we find is easy to understand, but as usual, we do find some strange artefacts. This time I wont to put to your judgement a cylindric piece of bone, open in both ends and with a height of some 3 cm. The piece can be dated to the 11th-12th century. Asking you readers, the most convincing suggestions is that it is a Thimble
A quickTime film will give you a closer look. It is about 1,9 Mb
Dan Carlsson
dan@arkeodok.com
Visby 5/2-05
Most of the objects found at Fröjel Viking Age harbour are of iron, mainly small objects like nails or rivets. But, as shown above, we do also find a lot of objects made of bone or antler. Some of these objects, like the one above, are a bit difficult to interpret. The object I now put on display belongs to this category. As you can see from the photos, it is a thin, narrow and some 10 cm long object.
It seems not to be broken, meaning this is the original size of it. As can be seen, it has a hole in one end of it.
What is not seen so well on the pictures is that one long side of the object is sharper than the other, not like an iron knife, but still like what we in Sweden call a "letter knife", if you see what I mean. A guess might be that it has to do with weaving, but I find it rather small.
Now, what is this used for? I am looking forward to your suggestions!
Dan Carlsson
dan@arkeodok.com
Visby 3/11-05
This fascinating brooch was found a couple of weeks ago in Denmark in connection to archaeological excavations, at a place called Gødvad. The excavation is carried out close to the church at Gødvad, on a small hill north of the Guden river, an important water way up to our days. At the site, there is a Viking Age farm, with huge amount of handicraft debris, like smithing and weaving.
The brooch is as can be seen from the photos, lovely decorated, about 4 cm high and made of bronze. The decoration and the form of the brooch gives an idea of a western origin of the brooch, more then from the eastern part of the Viking world.
Neither I, nor the excavators, have come across any brooch of the same type, and it would be interesting to hear if any of our readers know anything about a brooch of this kind from another site.
Dan Carlsson
dan@arkeodok.com
Visby 10/9-06
Working on my next CD-R, being about bone and antler objects, I have come across some rather strange objects. Just as a taste of the coming CD-R, I would like to show you a strange little piece of bone, found at the Viking town of Birka, Middle Sweden.
As you can see from the photos, it is a rather small obejct, and well preserved. Forget about the thread around the middle of it, that is of course late. The over all length is 5,6 cm, and the thickness is about 1 cm. It is of a brown colour, and the surface is rather soft. There are no signs what so ever of any wearing pattern, and as said the obejct is rather soft and can not have withstand hard pressure. For a detailed image of it, please click on this link and down load a high resolution photo (jpg 1,5 Mb).
In the catalogue to the Birka objects, it is only stated as an "unknown object". So, what is it? Any idea?
Dan Carlsson
dan@arkeodok.com
