Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• McGraw, Jessica Leigh
• Mjærum, Axel

Titel

Tools of Different Trades? Merging Skill Sets in Metalworking at Viking Age Kaupang

Ist Teil von

• European journal of archaeology, 2024-05, Vol.27 (2), p.210-230

Ort / Verlag

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2024

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In Old Norse poetic literature, the smiðr was a master of the arts, able to control and shape multiple materials into various kinds of objects. While the mythological smiðr has been regarded as separate from the real-world blacksmiths and metalworkers of gold, silver, and copper alloys, the archaeological evidence recovered in towns and workshops of the Viking Age, as well as medieval written sources, provide a different perspective. In 2015, a hitherto unknown, well-preserved workshop was excavated in the Viking town of Kaupang in Norway, containing evidence of complex metalworking requiring the skills of blacksmiths and workers of soft metals. In this article, the authors venture beyond the Old Norse myths, into the world of the proficient smiths as multi-crafters and their tools of the trade.