Alexandra G. Pesch

The amazing goblet known as the ‘Tassilo Liutpirc Chalice’ is one of the most significant archaeological objects from the eighth century AD. Surprisingly, the animal figures that adorn it have close parallels with the creatures of the Germanic Animal styles from the fifth century onwards. This paper explores the deeply-rooted traditions behind this, and the social, cultural and political mechanisms that sustained its continuity, transcending the boundaries of epochs and religions. It is argued that a supra-regional network of workshops was the driving force in the development of this sophisticated imagery.

Eine winzige sitzende Gestalt auf ihrem verzierten Stuhl, welche im Rahmen archäologischer Untersuchungen 2009 im alten Königsort Lejre auf Seeland gefunden worden war (Abb. 1), hat bisher in den Medien und in wissenschaftlichen Publikationen ungewöhnlich große Aufmerksamkeit erfahren. Bekannt ist sie als "Odin aus Lejre". Doch viele halten das Amulett aufgrund der erkennbaren Kleidungsdetails heute für die Darstellung einer Frau und bezeichnen den Fund als "Lejre Lady". Ob Mann oder Frau, zahlreiche unterschiedliche Deutungen sind im Umlauf. In diesem Beitrag werden die Grundzüge der Argumentationen mit den Fragen zum Hintergrund bzw. Kontext der Figur, sei er heidnisch oder christlich, weltlich oder sakral, vorgestellt, und die Parallelen und ikonographischen Vergleichsstücke aufgezählt. Dabei werden verschiedene Ansätze zur Deutung der Figur diskutiert.

Historical research is based predominantly on written sources. Without them, we lack a main access to an understanding of the past Germanic cultures; something is true about the saying: Who writes remains! And whoever hasn’t written – and that is also valid for whole peoples – can be easily forgotten – or defamed. In the contribution, several approaches to the reconstruction of forgotten Nordic kingdoms are evaluated.

Germanic snakes, drakes, saurians and worms in the first millennium AD.

In: Tiere und Tierdarstellungen in der Archäologie. Beiträge zum Kolloquium in Gedenken an Torsten Capelle, 30.–31. Oktober 2015 in Herne, Hg.: Vera Brieske, Aurelia Dickers, Michael Rind

Zusammenfassung
In den letzten Jahren sind in Münzsammlungen und Auktionshäusern vermehrt angeblich völkerwanderungszeitliche Goldbrakteaten aufgetaucht und zu relativ hohen Geldsummen verkauft worden.
Mehrere Verdachtsmomente lassen allerdings an der Echtheit vieler dieser Stücke zweifeln. Dieser Text stellt einige der fraglichen Objekte und ihre Geschichte vor. Es geht darum, die Aufmerksamkeit
auf das Problem moderner Fälschungen ur- und frühgeschichtlicher Artefakte zu lenken, damit sich Museen und Forscher besser vor Täuschungen schützen.

Summary
Over the last years, several Gold Bracteates, allegedly dating to the Migration Period, appeared for public sale in coin collections and auction houses, fetching relatively high prices. However, several
aspects throw a shadow of doubt regarding their genuineness. This contribution presents some of the relevant pieces and their history, in order to highlight the problem of modern imitations or falsifications
of prehistoric artefacts. It is vital that museums and researchers are better prepared to deal with similar deceptions.

Frühmittelalterliche Pferdesättel sind relativ selten. Ihr organisches Gerüst blieb bei einer Lagerung im Boden normalerweise nicht erhalten. Zu den Ausnahmen gehören die aufsehenerregenden Funde des Gräberfeldes Allejka-3 auf der Sambischen/Kaliningrader Halbinsel, in dessen vom Ende des 11. bis zum Anfang des 12. Jahrhunderts stammenden Bestattungen teilweise bemalte, aus Holz und Leder gefertigte Pferdesättel entdeckt wurden. Im Aufsatz ist von den figürlich verzierten Pressblechen aus Mitino (ehem. Stantau, Lkr. Konigsberg i.Pr.) die Rede.

Gleichsam „aus dem Nichts“ tauchen in der Germania hochrangige bildtragende Objekte auf, die sich aus dem übrigen Fundspektrum ihrer Zeit und ihrer Region abheben. Scheinbar ohne Vergleichsstücke beschäftigen sie oft ganze Generationen von Forschern, und zwar sowohl durch Probleme ihrer Datierung, ihrer Provenienz wie auch durch die Frage nach der Bedeutung ihrer rätselhaften Bildchiffren. Die wohl bekanntesten drei dieser Stücke sind die beiden Goldhörner von Gallehus und, auch nach seiner Neudatierung, der Kessel von Gundestrup. Ein Fund des Jahres 1995 lässt sich nun in seiner Einzigartigkeit diesen Objekten an die Seite stellen: Es handelt sich um den Prunkgürtel von Hagenow. Ihn möchte ich hier zum Anlass nehmen, einige Fragen über die Entstehung und die gesellschaftlichen Hintergründe der germanischen Bildersprache zu stellen und daraus abgeleitete Überlegungen bezüglich der Organisation und Kommunikation der kaiserzeitlichen bzw. frühmittelalterlichen Eliten vorzulegen.

At first sight, the imagery on the gold pendant jewellery of northern Europe could be taken as depictions of falconry hunting: some gold bracteates from the Migration Period (5th–6th centuries AD) show a central motif with a large anthropomorphic head on top of a quadruped and, in addition, a small bird. Yet in comparison to other bracteate motifs and to all related images of their time, such an interpretation should be rejected – whether it is understood as a real or mythical scene. On other kinds of objects, clear portrayals of the use of birds of prey as hunting assistants are also lacking. Consequently, there is no evidence of the existence or even the knowledge of falconry in the Germanic North during the 5th and 6th centuries.

Excerpt and engl. Summary from the book:
Alexandra Pesch, Die Kraft der Tiere. Völkerwanderungszeitliche Goldhalskragen und die Grundsätze germanischer Kunst. Unter Mitarbeit von Jan Peder Lamm, Maiken Fecht und Barbara Armbruster (Kataloge des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums 47, zugleich Schriften des archäologischen Landesmuseums, Monographien 12). Mainz/Schleswig 2015.

Within the higher order of the basic-type conceptions of the A-, B-, C- and D-bracteates, groups of bracteates
exist that show great similarities between their single picure images (Formulare). These so called “Formularfamilies”
are characterised by the fact that their members vary special iconographic or stylistic details which
cannot be caused by the basic type of image concept nor by the picture testimony, the manufacturing process or
the general conventions of the animal style. So we may be sure that the pieces are dependent on a mutual
presentation or the same original pattern. Therefore the Formular-families must been created through copy
processes using stil lexisting bracteates, dies (matrices) or other joint patterns. This copy method imply contact
and an intense exchange between different bracteate-areas. As a result of this fact, Formular-families are important
witnesses to the connections and communications which must have taken place between their sites of find in the
migration period. Picture-conceptions from east and west meet in Uppåkra. The bracteate producers of that
central place were ideologically and technically in the position to vary the common germanic picture code, to
change and further develop it, without completely deserting the joint framework. So the independence of
Uppåkras elite is mirrored in the souvereign production of gold bracteates.

A Network of Central Places. Gold Bracteates as Evidence for Contacts, Cooperation and Rivalries of Early Medieval Central Places. Gold bracteates with their particular images and runic inscriptions are evidence for contacts among the elites in migration-period northern Europe. At the same time these highly standardized images of gods attest the ideological or rather cultural-political commonalities of the elites. Such a high level of uniformity can only be explained through very good, all but permanent exchanges between peoples. To provide such exchanges, central places were vital, because it was here that members of the elites from different places came together and met with the designers and makers of bracteates. That is why an examination of central places is a precondition for the understanding of bracteate manufacture and distribution. Identification and investigation of early central places or rather centres of power or so-called ‘productive sites’ have led in recent decades to far-reaching new insights into the economic and administrative structures of early medieval orthern Europe. Among a range of different indicators finds of Gold bracteates are among the most important clues for the localization of These sites. As examples, five well-known south-Scandinavian and north-German central places will be discussed together with their bracteate finds: Gudme/Lundeborg, Uppåkra, Sorte Muld, Ravlunda and Sievern (p. 244, Abb. 4). In a short overview several other relevant central places will be referred to. These places were multi-functional. They played already a similar role in their regions as the later towns as supra-regional trading places, centres for craft production, military garrisons, cult sites and residences for the elites. Another part of this contribution deals with the animal style, the art style that was used on numerous objects of daily use in migration-period Germanic Europe. At that time all artistic expressions were perceived as meaningful. Not only the images on bracteates, but also those on brooches or sword mounts, transmitted beyond the specific statement of each of their motifs some greater ideological or rather religious world-views and common political ideals. The Germanic animal style I integrated as a Kind of Germanic ‘corporate design’ large parts of northern Germanic Europe including its peripheral areas of influence into a shared cultural unity. The fast and faithful reproduction and distribution of these images over large parts of Europe can be explained by repeated local copying. With the help of gold bracteates it is possible to demonstrate how these processes in which images were conceptualized, distributed and copied may have functioned. Bracteates with their standardized designs and motifs attest to intense exchanges of images and with it to constant communication between the people who were responsible for design and distribution of the images. A close-knit network of central places provided the precondition for this form of communication through images among the elites. Contact, exchange and close cooperation between several centres advanced the artistic expressions right from the beginning as a common enterprise. The central places coexisted and interacted within the network. They can be perceived as places that existed and acted independently, but were geared towards shared ideas. They had lively cultural and economic exchanges following common guiding principles. They influenced each other and formed together a political-cultural network, that later became the foundation for the first Scandinavian kingdoms.

The bracteates of the Migration Period are golden pendants that belong in the female sphere of high-status material
culture. Outside Scandinavia, they were mainly found in female burials. The complicated images on these bracteates
are an authentic expression of Germanic ideology at a time when writing was almost unknown. Clusters of motifrelated
bracteates, produced by a copying process, allow us to reconstruct regions of dynamic exchange that make up
a common area of culture, religious beliefs and communication. Regardless of how their regulated iconography may
be interpreted today, the bracteates are perhaps the most important evidence of membership in and communication
between the elites of the Migration Period in northern Europe. One series of bracteates with closely related images is
known today as „female bracteates«. Their motif can be interpreted as a woman with objects of high social status,
thus visualising female elites of the migration period.

Goldbrakteaten und Frauengräber. Die materielle Kultur als Mittel der Elitenkommunikation
in der Völkerwanderungszeit
Die völkerwanderungszeitlichen Goldbrakteaten gehören als goldener Anhängeschmuck, der außerhalb von Skandinavien
hauptsächlich in Frauengräbern gefunden wird, in die weibliche Sphäre der gehobenen Sachkultur. Einige ihrer
bildlichen Darstellungen lassen genauso wie die Fundumstände Rückschlüsse auf die Lebenswirklichkeit ihrer Besitzerinnen
zu. Gleichzeitig sind die goldenen Bildträger dafür geeignet, Verbindungen der Menschen und Elitenkommunikation
über weite Regionen Nordeuropas hinaus zu rekonstruieren. Von besonderem Interesse ist eine kleine Gruppe
motivisch verwandter Stücke, die als Darstellungen von Frauen interpretiert wird. Diese sog. Frauenbrakteaten sind mit
Bildchiffren hohen sozialen Status ausgestattet. Somit visualisiert das Motiv weibliche Eliten der Völkerwanderungszeit.

Based on a theoretical model, presented as a fairy tale, parameters pertaining to the way of
life and work of Migration Period goldsmiths are examined. Their training, the transfer of knowledge,
the location and equipment of their workshops, their social status as well as the skills and activities of
the master goldsmiths are discussed.

Keywords: Gudme, archaeology, cult sites, bracteates, gubber
Abstract: Archaeology, of course, plays a decisive role in our understanding of the places called Gudme/
Gudhem. The dating of such places, as well as the interpretation of their former activities and significance,
is based on the finds and features that come to light during excavations and fieldwalking. However,
only a few of the known places called Gudme have been the object of archaeological investigation
– and, even then, have only been partially investigated. The remains of hall buildings and smaller cult
buildings are as important for the evaluation of the sites as is abundant find material, especially artefacts
made of precious metal such as gold bracteates, gold-foil figures and jewellery, as well as weapons
and their accessories. Much can be said here for a close connection between religion and politics, but far
from all the places called Gudme have yet attracted special attention with an unusual density of finds.
Consequently – in the present research situation – no generalisations are possible.