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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
A Viking Boat Grave With Gaming Pieces Excavated At Skamby, Östergötland, Sweden, Martin Rundkvist, Howard M. R. Williams
A Viking Boat Grave With Gaming Pieces Excavated At Skamby, Östergötland, Sweden, Martin Rundkvist, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
In the summer of 2005 the authors directed the excavation of a flat stone setting with a boat-shaped central depression at Skamby, Kuddby parish, Östergötland, Sweden. The stone setting covered a small and poorly preserved boat inhumation, dated by the artefacts recovered to the early Viking period (9th century ad). This is the first excavation of a boat inhumation in the province of Östergötland. The paper reports on the excavations including the discovery of an exceptional collection of 23 amber gaming pieces, which provide a new perspective on Viking-period gaming. The data from this boat grave are considered in relation …
The Emotive Force Of Early Medieval Mortuary Practices, Howard M. R. Williams
The Emotive Force Of Early Medieval Mortuary Practices, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
No abstract provided.
Depicting The Dead: Commemoration Through Cists, Cairns And Symbols In Early Medieval Britain, Howard M. R. Williams
Depicting The Dead: Commemoration Through Cists, Cairns And Symbols In Early Medieval Britain, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
This article develops recent interpretations of mortuary practices as contexts for producing social memory and personhood to argue that early medieval cairns and mounds served to commemorate concepts of gender and genealogy. Commemorative strategies are identified in the composite character, shape and location of cairns and in their relationship with other commemorative monuments, namely Class I symbol-stones. The argument is developed through a consideration of the excavations of early medieval cists and cairns at Lundin Links in Fife.
Keeping The Dead At Arm's Length, Howard M. R. Williams
Keeping The Dead At Arm's Length, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
Archaeologists have identified two kinds of furnished graves dating to the late fifth and sixth centuries AD from southern and eastern England: inhumation and cremation. While the ‘weapon burial rite’ is a frequent occurrence for inhumation graves, weapons are rarely found in cinerary urns. This article argues that this divergence may relate to the contrasting roles of cremation and inhumation as mortuary technologies of remembrance linked to alternative strategies for managing the powerful mnemonic agency of weapons.
Review Article: Rethinking Early Medieval Mortuary Archaeology, Howard M. R. Williams
Review Article: Rethinking Early Medieval Mortuary Archaeology, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
No abstract provided.
Death Warmed Up: The Agency Of Bodies And Bones In Early Anglo-Saxon Cremation Rites, Howard M. R. Williams
Death Warmed Up: The Agency Of Bodies And Bones In Early Anglo-Saxon Cremation Rites, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
It is argued that recent archaeological theories of death and burial have tended to overlook the social and mnemonic agency of the dead body. Drawing upon anthropological, ethnographic and forensic analogies for the effects of fire on the human body, together with Gell’s theory of the agency of inanimate objects, the article explores the cremation rites of early Anglo-Saxon England. As a case study in the archaeological study of the mnemonic agency of bodies and bones it is suggested that cremation and postcremation rites in the 5th and 6th centuries AD in eastern England operated as technologies of remembrance. Cremation …
Material Culture As Memory: Combs And Cremation In Early Medieval Britain, Howard M. R. Williams
Material Culture As Memory: Combs And Cremation In Early Medieval Britain, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
This paper argues that mortuary practices can be understood as ‘technologies of remembrance’. The frequent discovery of combs in early medieval cremation burials can be explained by their mnemonic significance in the post-cremation rite. Combs (and other objects used to maintain the body’s surface in life) served to articulate the reconstruction of the deceased’s personhood in death through strategies of remembering and forgetting. This interpretation suggests new perspectives on the elationships between death, material culture and social memory in early medieval Europe.
Placing The Dead: Investigating The Location Of Wealthy Barrow Burials In Seventh Century England, Howard M. R. Williams
Placing The Dead: Investigating The Location Of Wealthy Barrow Burials In Seventh Century England, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
No abstract provided.
Monuments And The Past In Early Anglo-Saxon England,, Howard M. R. Williams
Monuments And The Past In Early Anglo-Saxon England,, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
Recent research on both old and new excavation data from Anglo-Saxon burial sites reveals a widespread and frequent practice of reusing monuments of earlier periods. Both Roman and prehistoric structures provided the focus of cemeteries, burial groups and single graves between the late fifth and early eighth centuries AD. It is argued that this practice was central to the symbolism of Anglo-Saxon mortuary practices, and was important for the construction and negotiation of origin myths, identities and social structures.