Iron Age Myth and Materiality [[electronic resource] ] : An Archaeology of Scandinavia AD 400-1000

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910461290803321
• Autore: Hedeager Lotte
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Hoboken, : Taylor and Francis, 2011
• ISBN: 0-203-82971-9
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (321 p.)
• Disciplina: 936.3
• Soggetti: Annales school; Cosmology - Scandinavia - History - To 1500; Cosmology --Scandinavia --History --To 1500; Iron Age - Scandinavia; Iron Age --Scandinavia; Material culture - Scandinavia - History - To 1500; Material culture --Scandinavia --History --To 1500; Mythology, Norse; Old Norse literature - History and criticism; Old Norse literature --History and criticism; Oral tradition - Scandinavia - History - To 1500; Oral tradition --Scandinavia --History --To 1500; Scandinavia - Antiquities; Scandinavia - Historiography; Scandinavia - History - To 1397; Scandinavia --Antiquities; Scandinavia --Historiography; Scandinavia --History --To 1397 --Sources; Iron age - History - To 1500 - Scandinavia; Material culture - History - To 1500 - Scandinavia; Oral tradition - History - To 1500 - Scandinavia; Mythology, Norse - History and criticism - Scandinavia; Cosmology; Old Norse literature; Anthropology; Regions & Countries - Europe; Social Sciences; History & Archaeology; Prehistoric Anthropology; Northern Europe & Scandinavia; Electronic books.
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di contenuto: IRON AGE MYTH AND MATERIALITY An Archaeology of Scandinavia AD 400-1000; Copyright; Contents; List of figures; Acknowledgements; Preface; Introduction; PART I A mythic narrative; 1 The mythic cycle of Odin; The myth; The constitution of primacy; Personification/Agency of objects; The underlying nature of reality; PART II Words of identity; 2 Written sources on the pre-Christian past; Early Scandinavian literacy; The Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda; Other Nordic texts; European sources; 3 Origin myths and political/ethnical affiliations; Migration Period Europe: a historical survey; European national historyOrigin myths from the Early Middle Ages; Historical 'meaning' of the Scandinavian origin myth; Formation of a political mentalité; Material manifestations: Germanic styles in a historical perspective; PART III The constitution of 'otherness'; 4 Embodied in animals; Scandinavian animal style AD 400-1200; Animals in the styles; The figurative art; Animals in names; Humans as animals - animals as humans: hugr, hamingja, fylgjur; The snake; The eagle and the raven; The wild boar; The wolf; The bear; Embodied and transformative existences; 5 Other ways of 'being in the world'Analytical categories and perceptual realities; Phallus, fertility and death; The power of penetration; Women in men's image; Gender images/identities; Betwixt and between: gold-foil figures on display; PART IV Materiality matters; 6 Commemorative places; Objects as agents; The smith in Old Norse sources; Gold in the Old Norse sources; Places for acquisition and transformation; Central places as 'centre of the universe'; Asgard: home of the gods; A 'central place' par excellence: Gudme on Funen; The coastal site of Lundeborg; The cemetery of MøllegårdsmarkenGudme's sacred features; Gudme: the paradigmatic model of Asgard?; Cosmological emulation; 7 The cosmic order of landscapes; Hoards as ritual and economic agents; 'Tournaments of value'; Sacred topography; PART V The making of Norse mythology; 8 Knowledge production reconsidered; Epic poetry and historical reality; The enigma of Widsith; The topography of Widsith and the archaeology of Gudme; Widsith: a political narrative of the Migration Period; 9 Hypothesis I: the Huns in Scandinavia; Historical framework: the impact/blueprint of the Huns; Archaeological framework: transferable cosmologiesArchaeological framework: Hunnic material culture; The Huns in Scandinavia: diagnostic features; Evidence of a new cosmology; Summarising the evidence; 10 Hypothesis II: Attila and the recasting of Scandinavian mythology; Ornamentation - innovation - migration: a hypothesis; The migration story and myths of descent among the Scandinavians; Embedded knowledge - Greco-Roman tradition; Attila's cosmological blueprint; 11 Stranger kings: intruders from the outside world; Notes; Primary sources, including translations; Bibliography; Index
• Sommario/riassunto: Iron Age Myth and Materiality: an Archaeology of Scandinavia AD 400-1000 considers the relationship between myth and materiality in Scandinavia from the beginning of the post-Roman era and the ; European Migrations up until the coming of Christianity. It pursues an interdisciplinary interpretation of text and material culture and examines how the documentation of an oral past relates to its material embodiment. While the material evidence is from the Iron Age, most Old Norse texts were written down in the thirteenth century or even later. With a time lag of 300 to 900 years fr