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- Zachrisson, Inger
(författare)
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De samiska metalldepåerna år 1000-1350 : i ljuset av fyndet från Mörtträsket, Lappland
- 1984
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis arises out of a new find from Mörtträsket, Lapland, which can be compared with the eleven so called "Finds from Lapp Places of Sacrifice" from North Scandinavia, dated to c. 1000-1350. The Mörtträsket find is characterized by newly made objects and is interpreted as a tradesman's stock. The large find from Gråträsk in Norrbotten has been given a new interpretation as a thiefs hiding-place, consisting of metal objects from plundered Saami sacrificial sites. It has been possible to distinguish these two sites from ten others which must be interpreted as places of sacrifice (although some of them may be sacrificial cum habitation sites or even habitation sites only).The 259 metal artefacts from Mörtträsket can be dated to c. 1100-1350, partly throughdendrochronologically dated finds from Novgorod. The locally made pewter artefacts, especially pendants of three types, have been given a totally new dating, viz. the first half of the 14th Century. This has consequences for corresponding artefacts from Gråträsk, which up till now have been dated to the 11 th-12th Centuries. This local group of objects in the Saami metal deposits is most certainly of Saami manufacture, because of the casting method, their metallic composition and their ornamentation. New data have been derived from a number of metal analyses, concentrating on the pewter artefacts from Mörtträsket. It appears that the local artefacts have a low lead content, while the pewter artefacts from North West Europe (Germany?) have a high one. The former are here thought to be cast of English tin, imported via Norway. The good state of preservation of the pewter artefacts from Gråträsk and Mörtträsket is here considered to be due to their having been under water most of the time.A new attribution has been made: an artefact from Gråträsk is shown to be a West Finnish brooch from c. 750-800. Hence it is the oldest known eastern artefact in the Saami metal deposits. - A Gothic 14th Century silver clasp of the type that later became characteristic of Saami dress, belongs to the Mörtträsket find. This is one example of a change of function of foreign artefacts in the Saami metal deposits. The most striking examples of this phenomenon are the ring-shaped brooches in the deposits, many of which can be seen not to have been used as intended. The fact that the Saamis seem to have ceased to deposit metal artefacts on their sacrificial sites c. 1350 is here interpreted as being due to the changes resulting from the Black Death and the agrarian crisis in Norway.Som twenty other metal deposits from the period 1000-1350 in Northern Fenno-Scandia are here interpreted as Saami. These are silver hoards. Their distribution is not the same as that of the Saami metal deposits treated above. Some of the silver ones, at least, could be expressions of the custom behind the so called Odin's Law.Some characteristics of the Scandinavian and Saami Viking Age culture are still typical of the traditional Saami culture. This "culture fixation" is here interpreted as a sign that the Viking Age was a period of expansion and flourishing trade for the Saamis.
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