Viking Objects
Zoomorphic Knife Handle (L.A67.1864.2.0)
This bone knife handle was carved into the head of a dragon with the snout broken off. This handle is typical of the sorts of small knives that people carried for everyday use in the Viking Age. They would have been worn suspended from a belt or hung from a brooch. As general utility knives, they would have been used for everything from eating to trimming one’s nails.
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Viking Objects
Rune Inscribed Rib (LCNCC : 1999.103.104)
Runes were used not only for monumental inscriptions, or to mark ownership of valuable objects, but also in more informal contexts. In this case the animal bone suggests an after-dinner pastime after a good meal in the Anglo-Scandinavian trading centre of Lincoln. The runes read ——l × hitir × stin × … Only two words of the Old Norse inscription can be read with certainty, and even so they are ambiguous. One possible interpretation is ‘[someone] is heating a stone’ the other is ‘[someone] is called Stein’. The bone is fragmentary, but the inscription may never have been intended to make much sense. The object dates from around the 10th century. It is one of only three runic inscriptions from the East Midlands.
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Viking Objects
Reproduction Wooden and Bone Spoons
Most ordinary people in the Viking Age would have used spoons made of bone or wood. These are typical examples of the types of spoons that people would have had. Wealthier people would have had copper alloy or silver spoons.
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Viking Objects
Reproduction Wooden Bowls
Many everyday utensils would have been made from bone or wood. These photographs feature examples of wooden bowls.
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Viking Objects
Pin-Beater (NLM-78D3B5)
This pin-beater was made from a large mammal limb bone, trimmed to a rounded point and smoothed and glossed by wear and handling. Single-ended simple weaving tools are a class linked to the Anglo-Scandinavian use of the vertical loom.