Noble shape, humble metals. Bronze and silver shield-head and snake-head rings of Roman era Scandinavia
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Martin Rundkvist
Abstract
Gold snake-head rings are a famous and much studied artefact group of the Late Roman Period in Scandinavia. But before and during their heyday, women in the same areas were occasionally buried with shield-head and snake-head rings made of silver or bronze. This paper surveys the material and traces the origin of these designs from the Wielbark Culture in coastal Poland about AD 100. The early shield-head rings probably arrived across the Baltic with the women who wore them. After the AD 210s, non-gold rings are a feature of the gold snake-head rings’ core production and distribution area on the Baltic Islands and south-east mainland Sweden. The women who wore them were not tribal royalty, but enjoyed comfortable economic means and had the right to display this top-level symbol in more affordable materials.
Zusammenfassung
Goldene Schlangenkopfringe sind eine berühmte und häufig untersuchte Artefaktgruppe der spätrömischen Kaiserzeit in Skandinavien. Vor und während ihrer Blütezeit wurden Frauen in denselben Gebieten gelegentlich mit Schildkopf- und Schlangenkopfringen aus Silber oder Bronze bestattet. Dieser Beitrag untersucht das Fundmaterial und zeichnet den Ursprung dieser Formen aus der Wielbark-Kultur an der Küste Polens um 100 n. Chr. nach. Die frühen Schildkopfringe gelangten wahrscheinlich mit jenen Frauen, die sie trugen, über die Ostsee. Nach 210 n. Chr. sind aus anderen Materialien hergestellte Ringe ein Merkmal des Produktions- und Verbreitungsgebiets der Schlangenkopfringe auf den baltischen Inseln und auf dem südöstlichen schwedischen Festland. Die Frauen, die diese Armringe trugen, waren keine Stammesköniginnen, verfügten jedoch über komfortable wirtschaftliche Mittel und hatten das Recht, dieses Symbol der absolute Oberschicht in verfügbareren Materialien zu verwenden.
Article Note
This is an updated version benefiting from an anonymous peer-reviewer’s comments, 9 October 2020.
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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- Titelseiten
- Abhandlungen
- The Early Neolithic tell of Vrbjanska Čuka in Pelagonia
- The chaîne opératoire of Korenovo pottery: hybrid ceramics? Analysis of mixed Starčevo and Korenovo ceramic assemblages from Kapelica-Solarevac and Kaniška Iva (Central Croatia)
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- An Early Bronze Age Burial with a Golden Spiral Ring from Ammerbuch-Reusten, Southwestern Germany
- An elusive ritual or a weave of adverse environmental conditions? From a research on the issue of a small number of sepulchral objects in the Trzciniec culture
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