Viking Objects
Lead-Alloy Terslev Brooch (NLM-72D1C7)
This Borre-style brooch has been identified by Jane Kershaw as a Terslev Type V variant. Terslev style, where Scandinavian ring-chain patterns are the main decorative component, is a subcategory of the Borre style and takes its name from the silver hoard discovered in Terslev, Denmark. The decoration comprises a series of ring-knots related to the Borre ring-chain. The Terslev style occurs mainly on brooches and pendants, including both high-quality gold and silver jewellery as well as lower-end base metal items. The cast-base metal jewellery, such as those made of copper alloy, were intended to imitate the higher-end gold and silver jewellery, and often employed techniques such as gilding to achieve this. The Terslev designs that occur in England extend the repertoire by introducing new Scandinavian motifs hereto unrecorded in Scandinavia. For more information on Scandinavian jewellery in England check out our blog: Brooches, Pendants and Pins: Scandinavian Dress Accessories in England.
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Viking Objects
Whetstone (NLM-7FA566)
Whetstone fragment, possibly made of slate that looks like ‘phyllite’, where the the broken end of the hone has been sheathed in lead, which has held its parts together. This is an unusual example of the repair of a personal hone so it could be continued to be carried and used after its breakage. The hone would originally have been of a tapered bar-shaped form and was sawn to shape. Hones of this size were personal items to be carried and worn at the belt alongside the knife they sharpened. True ‘phyllite’ hones came from Telemark in Norway, and were among the first imported whetstones of the Viking Age. A range of other banded and coloured stones, many found in graves at Birka, were adapted for similar use, and their fine appearance was as important as their usefulness as sharpening stones.
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Viking Objects
Lozenge Brooch (NLM194)
This openwork Borre-style square brooch with animal heads on each corner was found in Elsham, Lincolnshire, in 1997. This type of brooch was an accessory for women wearing Scandinavian dress. For more information on Scandinavian jewellery in England check out our blog: Brooches, Pendants and Pins: Scandinavian Dress Accessories in England.
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Viking Objects
Bone Spindle Whorl (LIN-9D24C2)
Fibres were spun into thread using a drop-spindle of which the whorls were made of bone, ceramic, lead, or stone and acted as flywheels during spinning. Other bone and ceramic spindle whorls with decorative circumference grooves are known from Anglo-Saxon sites elsewhere in areas such as West Stow, Suffolk.
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Viking Objects
Reproduction Drop Spindle
A reproduction of a lead alloy spindle whorl with a runic inscription, modelled on a find from Saltfleetby St Clement, Lincolnshire. Fibres were spun into thread using a drop-spindle of which the whorls were made of bone, ceramic, lead, or stone and acted as flywheels during spinning.
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Viking Names
Cumberworth
Cumberworth, in the Calceworth Wapentake of Lincolnshire, probably comes from the Old English male personal name Cumbra and the Old English element worth ‘enclosure’. It has also been suggested that the first element is an Old English ethnonym Cumbre ‘the Cymry, the Welsh, the Cumbrian Britons’. However, the exact implications of such a name are not yet fully understood and are the subject of ongoing work by Dr Jayne Carroll of the Institute for Name-Studies, University of Nottingham.
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Viking Names
Saltfleetby
Saltfleetby, in the Louth Eske Wapentake of Lincolnshire, comes from the stream-name Saltfleet (Old English salt and flēot) and the Old Norse element by ‘farm, settlement’, referring to the latter’s location. There are actually three Saltfleetbys, now identified by the dedications of their parish churches, Saltfleetby All Saints, Saltfleetby St Clement, and Saltfleetby St Peter.
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Viking Names
Revesby
Revesby, in the Bolingbroke Wapentake of Lincolnshire, comes from the Old Norse male personal name Refr (which is also the word for ‘fox’) and the Old Norse element by ‘farm, settlement’.
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Viking Objects
Danish Silver Sceat (LIN-6C0EBC)
This silver sceat is classified as part of the Danish Woden/Monster Series X which date to around 710 – 800. The obverse depicts the head of Woden with crosses to either side of rounded beard and pellet above. The reverse depicts a monster facing left. These coins are considered to be associated with the early trading center at Ribe. It is very likely that they made their way to England by means of Vikings.
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Viking Names
Grainsby
The first element of Grainsby, in the Haverstoe Wapentake of Lincolnshire, is of uncertain origin. It is likely the Old Norse male byname Grein, Old East Scandinavian Gren, from Old Norse grein, Old Danish gren ‘a branch’. Alternatively the element could be the Old Norse appellative grein ‘a branch (of a tree); a fork (of a river)’. This word survives in dialect as ‘a small valley forking off from another’, but there is nothing in the topography of Grainsby that supports this sense. The second element is Old Norse by ‘a farmstead, a village’.
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Viking Objects
Stirrup-Strap Mount (LIN-CFA7D4)
This example of an Anglo-Scandinavian cast copper-alloy stirrup-strap mount is classed as Williams Class A, Type 1A. It is decorated with a symmetrical pair of moulded beasts shown in profile in the Ringerike/Urnes style.