BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland

Subject: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 06:37 PM

My newspaper had a one-sentence article about this:

boat burial

The sight of the corroded and useless weapons is thought-provoking on the day that Gadhafi is dead. Nothing violent lasts, does it? Not here on earth, anyway.

Several sources mention that pottery was found at the burial. I would like to see it, even though pottery is not glamourous. The sword, the shield and the axe are ruined, but the pottery would show us something of this people's art.

Perhaps it needs to be restored and will be displayed someday.

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 07:42 PM

It is the most complete Viking burial found in Scotland. Even the Coppergate dig in York didn't throw up anything as complete as this and I don't think Orkney has anything to compare despite being under Viking control until around 1200 or so. There is much Viking pottery as there is Anglo-Saxon from the same period but of course much further south in England. There are many Viking and Anglo-Saxon weapons. The Sutton Hoo treasure is probably the most complete and prized Saxon burial ever found. sutton-hoo.   http://www.archaeology.co.uk/the-timeline-of-britain/sutton-hoo.htm   

      

Probably one of the best examples of an Anglian sword was found bya child called Gary Fridd. (The Gilling sword)

http://www.yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/Page/ViewCollection.aspx?CollectionId=9   

There are many examples of Viking art (and Anglo-Saxon) if you care to look for it.

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 09:47 PM

I'm waiting for more information, because I get all excited about this sort of thing. The art work on the weapons, yes, but the pottery, fabrics, leatherwork, and anything else that survived the centuries means just as much. There is still so much we DON'T know about even the early part of the last century....

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 11:38 PM

The Anglo-Saxons, by now ruled by the hapless Aethelred the Unready, were once again put to the sword, and huge amounts of money and goods were extorted from the native population in the form of Danegeld – a tax raised by the Vikings.

I think they've been reading some of the old history books. Upon more recent examination, I think Ethelred has stood up a little better under close examination. History is, after all, written by the winners. Or the politically savvy.

Great links, Eric! I love this kind of story!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: open mike
Date: 21 Oct 11 - 11:39 PM

great good news..hope to hear more..

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: Arnie
Date: 22 Oct 11 - 06:45 AM

Going back even further in time, I saw a documentary on tv yesterday about a woolen child's hood that had been found in a peat bog on a Scottish island in the mid 19th century. Recent analysis has shown it to be around 2,000 years old, thus neolithic. It's so well preserved that it looks almost new. A weaving expert has made a replica and discovered that the original, which was made by a skilled weaver, comprised four different thicknesses of yarn, and the hood came from a different garment than the shoulders and tassles, so was probably an early example of recycling!

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: Acorn4
Date: 22 Oct 11 - 09:37 AM

In fact the history of the time was mainly written by monks, which could mean whether a king got a good press or not depended on how much he supported the church.

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Oct 11 - 09:47 AM

> History is, after all, written by the winners.

In that case, the Anglo-Saxon records shouldn't call Aethlered "Unraed" (essentially, "The Fool").

If one considers the English as the long-term winners, he should be a hero. If you consider them as short-term losers, the records should have been destroyed.

History writing is far more complicated than that familiar, glib proverb would have us believe.

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 22 Oct 11 - 11:52 AM

Somebody, somewhere, knows what that old pottery looked like.

http://www.justartpottery.com/collectors_pottery/norse_pottery_history.htm

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: Greg F.
Date: 22 Oct 11 - 02:32 PM

History writing is far more complicated than that familiar, glib proverb would have us believe.

Amen to that. And its worse than "more complicated" - the "glib proverb" is complete nonsense.

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Oct 11 - 02:44 PM

Well, not "complete" nonsense. It's true sometimes. We don't get to hear the barbarians' version of Roman conquests, for example, because the Romans could write and the barbarians couldn't.

But that was a while back. And modern archaeology and critical historiography have done their best to balance the picture.

(Another good counterexample to the proverb is that the Christian version of the Crusades really was written by the losers. And I've even heard that are there English accounts of the American Revolution.)

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 22 Oct 11 - 03:52 PM

Nothing violent lasts?

In today's paper : The Ballinderry Sword

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 23 Oct 11 - 01:47 AM

thanks for the link, Peter

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: Paul Burke
Date: 23 Oct 11 - 03:15 AM

Lighter: an entertainingly illiterate attempt to present a British account of the American Revolution/ Rebellion here, replete with grocers apostrophe's, dangling participles, spelling howlers and malapropisms. I really like "pyretic victory".

As for the Crusades, I suppose western historians haven't yet learned enough Arabic to read the winners' accounts yet.

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 23 Oct 11 - 03:47 AM

"and I don't think Orkney has anything to compare despite being under Viking control until around 1200 or so." The Hebrides themselves were under Norse control until the middle of the 13thC (ie became part of Scottish Kingdom after Battle of Largs) and of course this artifact was found on the seaboard of the mainland which I presume was itself under contest. Orkney and Shetland were still owned by the Norwegian crown until the 15thC when they were basically sold to Scotland.

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: GUEST,eric the viking
Date: 23 Oct 11 - 08:15 AM

Orkney and Shetland were still owned by the Norwegian crown until the 15thC when they were basically sold to Scotland. No, it was given to settle a debt.

       http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/history6.htm

A dirty rotten fiddle if you ask me !!

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: Acorn4
Date: 23 Oct 11 - 08:35 AM

In fact Ethelred was an oxymoron - "Ethelred" means "noble counsel", and "Unready" means "badly counselled" - the nickname sounds as if it started inn a conversation in a pub somewhere.

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Oct 11 - 09:25 AM

Paul, thanks for the link.

"Despite all that has been written about the American Revolution, it seems that very little of what 'actually' happened or even the correct order that events occurred is known today by the vast majority of Americans."

Or Britons.

I'm also wondering about whose account of the Vietnam War is more trustworthy: the winner's or the loser's?

The proverb is popular because it allows one to sound super-cynical *and* incredibly knowledgable in a single breath. It reduces history to propaganda, which is unfortunately easy to do if you've never studied history.

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Oct 11 - 10:12 AM

Not that there's always just one winner's or loser's interpretation anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: Mr Happy
Date: 25 Oct 11 - 10:17 AM

Inventory of above texts:

1 @ colonist

1@ winner

1@ loser

Subject: RE: BS: viking burial - Ardnamurchan Scotland
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 25 Oct 11 - 10:23 AM

"l @ colonist"

What does that mean?