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DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

DENMARK

IN

THE EAELY IRON AGE,

ILLUSTRATED BY RECENT DISCOVERIES

IN THE PEAT MOSSES OF SLESVIG.

By CONRAD ENGELHARDT,

LATE DIRECTOR OF THE MUSEUM OF NOKTHEKN ANTISUITIES AT FLENSBORG.

WILLIAMS AND NORGATE,

14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON, W.C.

20, SOUTH FKEDEBICK STREET, EDINBURGH.

1866.

LONDON :

VIRTUE AND CO., PRINTERS.

394, CITY ROAD.

12-1

e

S7

TO

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS

THE PRINCESS OF WALES,

THIS WORK

ON THE ANTIQUITIES OF HEE NATIVE COUNTRY

IS

BY GRACIOUS PERMISSION

MOST GRATEFULLY AND RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED,

BY

THE AUTHOR.

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2008 with funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/denmarkinearlyirOOengeuoft

PEEFACE.

The following pages are principally devoted to a description of two great deposits of
antiquities discovered in the peat-mosses of Thorsbjerg and Nydam, in South Jutland
(Slesvig). They were excavated under my superintendence during the summers of the
years 1858 to 1863, at the expense of the Danish Government, and incorporated with
the then existing museum of Danish antiquities at Flensborg, of which they formed
the chief ornament.

In one of these mosses the works were still unfinished when the two Allied
Geiman Powers, in the heart of the winter of 1864, assailed Denmark and conquered
South Jutland. Peaceful occupations were then sadly interrupted ; many of the inha-
bitants— and I amongst their number — had to leave house and home on account of
their loyalty to their lawful sovereign: the systematic investigation of Nydam moss
had to be discontinued, and the subsequent excavations at that spot, undertaken by
German Princes and by a Prussian Baron, do not seem to have been carried on with
the necessary care and intelligence.

Although, therefore, the investigation of one of these two great South Jutland
moss-deposits cannot be considered as complete, the results obtained are nevertheless
highly interesting and instructive, not only because these deposits contained so large a
number of objects, which in both cases may safely be assumed to be almost contem-
porary, but also because they can be assigned with certainty to the earliest dawn of
Danish history, when Iron first makes its appearance as being in general use in the

vni PREFACE.

North, not indeed manufactured in a rude or impeiiect manner, but treated with a
technical skill and perfection, for which credit would not be given to the " barba-
rians " of the North of these remote times (the third century after Christ), if it were not
for such unmistakeable proofs. Nor did we hitherto possess certain and indisputable
evidences from so early a period of the use of the horse in the North for riding and
driving, nor of the existence of skilfully-built boats, as the only existing boats of so
ancient a date are, so far as I know, those discovered in Nydam.

I have attempted, through a description of these discoveries and a general survey
of the principal contemporaneous remains hitherto discovered in other ancient Danish
provinces, to give a picture of the remarkable and highly-developed state of civiliza-
tion, which existed in Denmark in the Early Iron Age, such as may also have an
interest beyond the boundaries of my native country.

One of the chief peculiarities of that period consists in a certain foreign civi-
lizing influence, and I have accordingly made it an object of special attention to
distinguish, as sharply and clearly as possible, between those antiquities which are
plainly of Roman origin, such as the bronze helmet, the coins, etc., and those which
are not Eoman, but belong to a " barbarian" civilization, as, for instance, the silver
helmet; and the result arrived at is, that the vast majority of objects dating from this
period show absolutely no evidence of Roman influence. At the same time, I am per-
fectly aware of the difiiculties involved in this attempt, owing to the scantiness of our
information on the doubtless often very curious mixture of taste and style of work-
manship, not less than habits and customs, which could not but arise along the exten-
sive frontiers of the Roman Empire, from the daily intercourse — warlike or peaceful —
between Romans, Romanized barbarians, and more or less barbarous tribes ; and the
difficulty is aggravated by our still greater ignorance of the arms and implements,
technical skill and general habits of life of the so-called " barbarians," — subjects on
which Roman authors afford us remarkably little information. I trust I may be per-
mitted to hope that on the present occasion I have succeeded in rendering to Csesar
the things that are Caesar's.

Every statement occurring in this M'ork as to how the objects were placed in the
peat, their connexion, and state of preservation, are founded on my own personal
observations, unless the reverse be expressly stated. I have been present at the
extraction of almost every single object, and most of them I have taken out of the

PREFACE. IX

peat with my own hands. The Danish Government, by its liberal support and the
interest which it took in the whole matter, rendered it possible to continue the excava-
tions during six consecutive years, whenever circumstances were favourable. Thus
only could these excavations yield so much as they did, and only thus could time be
gained for hardening the wooden remains and for carrying out the often very difficult
works of restoration.

It may, perhaps, interest the reader to know a little about the way in which these
works were conducted. It is a fortunate peculiarity of the peat-mosses of the early
Iron period, — if I may be allowed to describe them thus, — and one in which they
coincide with the Swiss Lake-dwellings, that the antiquities lie together on a circum-
scribed area, instead of being scattered all over the moss or lake. When, therefore,
any antiquities have been discovered in such a place by the peat-cutters, it will
generally repay the trouble to examine the locality to see if they form part of a large
hoard of the kind here described. Spade and shovel should be used only to a depth of
one or two feet above the level where antiquities begin to appear ; from that point
they should be laid aside, as well as the heavy boots of the workmen, and only the
hands used. It is preferable at once to prepare a tolerably large area for exa-
mination, as it is very difficult to begin at one of the sides without destroying some-
thing. According to the width of the surface of peat that has been cleared, five,
six, or as many as convenient, of the most intelligent and cautious workmen that ^can
be found, are set to work scraping away the soft soil from the top with their hands,
as far as they can reach, looking sharp all the while that small objects do not escape
between their fingers. Thus they proceed, clearing away one bank after another to
the requisite depth ; say, about one foot below the lowest point in which antiquities
are found. Whoever superintends the work must be constantly present, and lend a hand
if necessary. A clumsy person may sometimes, when not watched for a moment,
damage and destroy an object which might have been saved, though no doubt, when
the workmen perceive how much their care and caution is appreciated, it occurs more
rarely that anything is lost ; and after a few days, when they have leamt to recognize
the more common objects, — as shields, swords, boWs and arrows, — they also take
particular pleasure in extracting, safe and entire, these fragile objects which are satu-
rated with water. It is only by this method of proceeding, and by packing at once
everything in soft peat, that so many and such fragile objects, which we could not

X PREFACE.

expect to find preserved except in the mosses, have been saved from both these de-
posits, and preserved exactly in the state in which they were discovered. It is diffi-
cult always to be sure of having examined the whole area in which antiquities are
found, because the soft semi-liquid peat substance obliterates the boundaries of the
different trenches. It is therefore advisable to push the examination a little beyond
these boundaries.

I have, in conclusion, to record my sincere thanks to Mr. John Evans, F.11.S.,
Mr. J. Wickham Flower, Mr. C. A. Gosch, of the Danish Legation in London, and
Professor G. Stephens, of the University of Copenhagen, to all of whom I am variously
indebted for many valuable suggestions, and for kind assistance in the translation of
my work and in seeing it through the press.

C. ENGELHAEDT.

Copenhagen, January, 1866.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL SUEVEY OF DANISH ANTIQUITIES OF THE EAELT lEON AGE (GEA7ES—
EARTH-FINDS— MOSS DEPOSITS) 8

CHAPTER II.

LOCAL PECULIAEITIES OF THE TWO DEPOSITOEIES, THOESBJEEG AND NTDAM.—
CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDING THE DISCOVERIES MADE THERE.— CAUSES "WHY
THE ANTIQUITIES WEEE DEPOSITED 23

CHAPTER III.

DESCRIPTION OP THE OBJECTS FOUND 29

1. BOATS . 29

2. WEARING APPAREL 40

3. PERSONAL ORNAMENTS AND ARTICLES OF THE TOILET 41

4. A DIE OF AMBEE 43

5. ARMS OF DEFENCE:— HELMETS.— CHAIN- AEMOUE.— SHIELDS .... 43

6. OFFENSIVE WEAPONS :—SWOEDS.— LANCES AND JAVELINS. — AWLS, BOWS,

AEEOWS, AND QUIVEES.— WHETSTONES 52

7. HAENESS . . . . .59

8. AGEICULTUEAL IMPLEMENTS . . . . 62

9. OBJECTS OF DOMESTIC USE 63

10. EING MONEY AND EOMAN COIN 66

11. OBJECTS OF UNKNOWN USE 66

12. HUMAN AND ANIMAL EEMAINS 67

APPENDIX.

ANALYSES OF A FEW OF THE OBJECTS 73

INDEX TO THE PLATES . . . 74

DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

INTRODUCTION.

The division of the prehistoric period of Denmark into three distinct ages, those of
Stone, Bronze, and Iron, so named from the materials used for weapons and cutting
implements at different stages of human civilization, vias first proposed in 1836 by the
late C. J. Thomsen, the celebrated Director of the Copenhagen Museum of Northern
Antiquities. That this division, and the corresponding classification of objects of an-
tiquity, really express the true mode of development of civilization in the Scandinavian
countries — and indeed, with some modifications, in the greater part of Europe — is
amply confirmed by the results of all subsequent archaeological investigations. But
although these three periods are in themselves quite distinct from one another, and
well characterized by the use respectively of Stone, Bronze, and Iron, for certain pur-
poses, it does not follow that all Stone objects are attributable to the Stone period,
nor all Bronze objects to the Bronze period. There are, on the contrary, in our mu-
seums, numerous stone axes which have evidently been manufactured at a time when
bronze tools were already in common use ; and we possess a great many fibulae and
brooches of bronze, of patterns unknown to the people of the Bronze age, but belong-
ing to the Iron age. At that time iron was exclusively used for weapons and cutting
implements, but bronze still occupied a place in the workshops for ornaments on scab-
bards, shields, etc., just as in the Stone age, when stone was the material exclusively
used for weapons and sharp-edged tools, bone and amber served for smaller and blunter
tools and for ornaments ; and just as wood, no doubt,' at all times was extensively
used for domestic purposes.

It is but natural to suppose that stone was the first material used by mankind for
weapons and cutting tools, and if there could be any doubt of the existence of a primi-
tive Stone acje, when the use of metals was unknown, that doubt must have been entirely
dispelled by recent discoveries. For not only do we find stone antiquities by the thou-

2 DENM-A-RK IN TIIE EARLY IRON AGE.

sand scattered all over the country, in the fields behind the plough, in the forests and
in the peat bogs ; but the contents of the most ancient grave-mounds, of the shell beds
(kjokkenmoddinffer), and, in some measure, the accumulations of rude stone implements
found on the coasts (kystfund, ' coast-finds ') raise that hypothesis to a scientific truth.
Now the usual character of our tumuli agrees in all essential points with that of similar
remains, not only in England, but also over a large part of the European continent. A
mound of earth, of round or oblong shape, has been raised over a stone-chamber with
large cap-stones, and of very different proportions of length, breadth, and height. In
such chambers are found sometimes a single skeleton, — commonly in a sitting or rather
bent posture, — but oftener the remains of many human bodies. In many instances
they were apparently family burial-places, or perhaps common cemeteries for a whole
tribe or villiige. A stone-chamber may contain as many as eighty skeletons, and several
instances have occuiTed in which the remains of the dead had been arranged in two
or three layers, separated by flat stones (" Osseous interment").* Weapons and imple-
ments of stone and bone, amber beads, and vessels of burnt clay, made by hand without
the help of the potter's wheel, and decorated in a peculiar and characteristic manner,
are commonly found with these skeletons.

Of shell-mounds no less than about one liundred and fifty are known in Denmark.
Some of these have been partially examined by a committee appointed for that pur-
pose, consisting of Professors Forchhammer, Steenstrup, and Worsaae. They consist
of large heaps of refuse from the food of the people of the Stone age. The shells of
oysters and other edible testacea, bones of fish and game, and fragments of pottery of
burnt clay, are mixed up togethei', and among these essential constituents of the shell-
beds are found a quantity of simple and rude implements of stone and of bone, which
have evidently been either dropped by those who took their meals in the vicinity of
the heaps, or thrown away as useless.

That the tumuli with stone implements and the shell-beds alike belong to the
Stone age is undoubted, but the Danish Archaeologists do not agree upon the im-
portant question whether they are contemporaneous or not.

One of the members of the above-named commission. Professor J. J. A. Worsaae,
has advocated a division of the Stone age into an earlier period, to which are ascribed
the remains from the heaps and coast-finds, and a later period, to which belong the
well-finished objects found in the stone chambers of the tumuli. Another member of
the commission. Professor J. Steenstrup, is, on the contrary, of opinion that all these
remains may be contemporaneous, seeing that, as he asserts, some fragments of
ground and finished stone implements have been found in some of the heaps, and that
at the same time implements of certain descriptions, supposed to be characteristic of
the shell-mounds, are doubtless also met with in graves along with the more finished

• Similar stone-chambers on the Channel Islands have been explored and described by F. C. Lukis.
See liis 'Observations on the Celtic Megaliths, etc' in the Arcliasologia, vol. xxxv. 232.

INTRODUCTION. 3

articles usually found there. The first of these facts would, of course, if satisfactorily
established, afford a decisive proof against the proposed division of the Stone age, nor
would the rarity of such highly-finished implements in the shell-beds detract from the
force of the argument ; inasmuch as we could of course not expect to find them there
unless when lost by accident. It may also be observed that the highly-finished
appearance of the beautiful specimens of axes, etc., often found in the graves, is in
a great measure owing to their being ground, whilst the rude implements of the
shell-beds are merely chipped ofi" the core or block of flint ; but the former process is
much easier than the second, and does not by any means presuppose a higher state of
civilization.

The question, however, is not yet definitely settled. The contents of the graves
have not been examined with sufficient minuteness in all cases, and much remains to
be done in this respect as in many others. But even if these relics of the oldest
known civilization in Denmark were proved to be of different dates, the next step would
be to decide Avhich of them was the earlier, for it does not necessarily follow that the
ruder period must be the older. There may have been a period of degradation in the
Stone age, as there certainly was in after times, — for instance, from the thii'd century
after Christ to the middle ages.

During the Bronze age swords, poniards, and other cutting implements were almost
exclusively made of bronze by the process of casting. The metal is a mixtui'e of nine-
tenths of copper and one-tenth of tin. Though axes of massive bronze occasionally
occur, stone axes were still in use for domestic and other purposes, they were not only
as useful in many cases as bronze axes, but the material was certainly cheaper. Gold
was extensively used for personal ornaments, for bracelets and finger-rings of the spiral
form, for twining round the hilts of swords, or ornamenting hair-pins and other articles
of the toilet. But among the many proofs of the inferior civilization of this age as
compared with the ensuing period — the Early Iron age — we may mention the ignorance
of the use of iron, the want of a written alphabet, and, for manufacturing purposes,
ignorance of the art of soldering.

Objects of art in a stricter sense — imitations of human and animal forms — were
not wholly unknown, it would seem, at that time, but they occur very seldom.
Among the many thousand antiquities of the Bronze age, found in Denmark, and pre-
served in the museums, only five or six are of this kind. Specimens are represented
in Worsaae's 'Northern Antiquities,' fig. 167 (a swan), 171 (a fish), and 166 (a man
holding a vessel in his hands).

Various modes of sepulture were practised in Denmark during this period. In
many cases, the dead were buried in large coffins hollowed out of solid trunks of oak
from seven to ten feet in length. The body wrapped in woollen clothes was laid in a
hide, and weapons were deposited along with it, as well as wooden vessels decorated
with tin pins, combs of bone, and tweezers of bronze. These oak coffins are found in

B 2

4 DENMARK IX THE EARLY IRON AGE.

tumuli, and about twenty instances of such interments are known in Denmark, besides
some in Great Britain. Mr. Williamson, in 1834, published a description of a tumulus
at Gristhorpe, near Scarborough, in which a discovery of this kind was made.*

Of rarer occurrence, perhaps, than these hollowed trunks, are cists of stone, — some-
what resembling the stone chambers of the earlier period, — of the length and breadth
of a human body, and covered either with flat stones or with boards, the remains of the
latter being sometimes still traceable in the eaa'th.

In most cases, however, the bodies of the dead were burned, and the remains col-
lected into urns of burnt clay, and it is a very remarkable fact that such urns have very
frequently been buried in the sides of barrows belonging to the preceding or Stone
age, as is proved by the contents of stone-chambers in their interior. Commonly the
urns have been placed on a flat stone, and surrounded by smaller stones, leaving just
room enough in the middle for the urn, which, however, in many cases is without this
j)rotection. Among the burnt bones contained in such vessels, some small bronze ob-
jects, such as knives, fibulie, tweezers, etc., are often found. We may, perhaps, look
upon these graves as the burial-places of the humbler classes.

Lastly, there are not a few barrows, which ha^e not only been used as burial-places
by the people of the Bronze period, but also owe to them their origin. These barrows
are commonly as large as those of the Stone age, and contain in the centre an urn,
filled with burnt bones, and surrounded by small stones, forming a little heap for its
protection.

In such burial-places, as well as in fields and peat bogs, objects are found charac-
teristic of the age of Bronze — such as garments, Aveapons, and musical instruments,
personal ornaments, implements and household utensils, articles of the toilet, and ves-
sels of gold and bronze. These objects never bear inscriptions, and are but very rarely
ornamented with representations of animals ; nor have, so far as I know, horse-trappings,
or other evidences of the use of the horse, been met with among the antiquities of the
Bronze period.

Comprised within the Iron age of Denmark three subdivisions may be clearly dis-
tinguished,!— the Early Iron age from about 2.50 to 450 a.c, the Transition period,
extending to the close of the seventh century, and the Late Iron age, terminating with
the introduction of Christianity about the year 1000.

The Early Iron age, with which we are here now particularly concerned, presents
at its very first appearance three important elements of a higher civilization : the use
of iron, of horses for riding and driving and of an alphabet of Ilunic letters, and
technical skill is evinced to a degree which must excite our wonder and admiration,

• Compare Sir R. Colt Hoare's ' Ancient Wiltshire,' vol. i. 122, etc., Wilsou's ' ArchaBology of Scot-
land,' p. 462, and ' The Eeliquary,' vol. v. 1.

t J. J. A. Worsaae's ' Nortliern Antiquities,' 185i, where this classification was first established in its
main features, and the same author's ' Antiquities of South-Jutland, or Siesvig,' 1865.

INTRODUCnON. 5

accustomed as we have been from our youth to look upon all ancient races, except the
Greeks and Romans, as " uncivilized barbarians." Weapons and cutting instruments
were invariably made of iron, the manufacture of which had reached a high state of
perfection at the time of its first appearance in Denmark, and instead of the cast bronze
sword of the previous age, we suddenly meet with damascened and welded swords of
iron. The two other metals, mentioned above as being already known during the
preceding period, were also used in this; but the bronze, or rather brass, was now
differently composed, zinc being mixed with the copper instead of tin. Gold also
occurs in massive rings, as well as in very thin plates, for the decoration of various
objects. Besides these metals, silver was extensively used in massive pieces, as well a.s
in thin plates, covering articles of bronze, and thus giving them a more costly appear-
ance. Ivory, glass, agate, and beads of variegated porcelain also make their first
appearance in this period.

Instead of the geometrical and somewhat stiff and monotonous ornaments which
are characteristic of the works of the foregoing period, we now find a livelier and more
artistic ornamentation, consisting of human figures, serpents' heads, dragons and croco-
diles, birds and other animals, stars, pearls, the fylfot (+),* and many others. The
graceful appearance usually given to objects of meaner materials by means of orna-
mental plates of silver and gold, and their pure style of decoration and shape which
evidently belong to a highly-civilized people, make this period the richest and most
interesting of our prehistoric times.

A comparison between the woven fabrics of the Bronze agef and those of the
Early Iron age (Thorsbjerg, Plates 1 and 2) will give a very good idea of the advance
of art in this respect in the latter period.

The horse was, as stated above, probably introduced into Denmark, in a state of
domestication, at the same time as iron. For although numerous bones of horses have
been found in the lake-habitations of Switzerland, of the Bronze period,^ from which
we might be inclined to infer that this noble and useful animal was not unknown to
the contemporaneous tribes of the North, yet neither in the Stone nor the Bronze age
do we find any remains of this animal, nor any horse- trappings.

The size and build of boats of oak and fir, found in Nydam Moss, show that the
men of that time were far advanced in the art of constructing sea-going vessels.

But the gi'eatest proof of the higher degree of civilization prevailing in Denmark
during the Iron age is to be found in the fact that the people of that time possessed
an alphabet. Art was not wholly unknown to the people of the preceding ages, but

* In a notice on the religious Star-, Cross- and Circle-Sj'mbola of the Ancients, by Ur. L. MuUer,
lately published in the Transactions of Videuskabernes Selskab, vol. iii. 5th series, the sign is said to
have originated in Eastern Asia, from whence it spread over a great part of Europe, symbolizing, yrith
northern nations, Odin as the fast-ruuning, the all-penetrating god.

t See Sir John Lubbock, ' Prehistoric Times,' p. 27. J Ibid. p. Ii5.

6 DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

no alphabetical characters of any kind have ever been discovered on any objects that
belonged to them. Of these Old-Northern Runic Inscriptions more will be said
hereafter, but they have not yet been satisfactorily explained. Professor G. Stephens,
of Copenhagen, is engaged on a detailed account of them, with facsimiles and alpha-
bets, and his work will doubtless throw much light on the whole subject.

Mixed up with the other remains of that time, a greater or less number of ob-
jects of Koman origin is often found, thus proving that the people who deposited the
objects, and to whom the majority of them are to be attributed, had at some time or
other, either directly or indirectly, intercourse with the Romans. They have even been
influenced by this Latinizing contact so far as to adopt Roman letters for native names
such as Eicvs, RicciM, cociLLVS, TASviT, etc, stamped in raised letters on tangs of iron
swords from Nydam and Vimose ; but this seems to have been only a passing fashion,
and there are no traces of Roman influence in the objects of art. The Romans, we
know, never conquered Denmark. Their armies, assisted by their fleets, came as far
as the Elbe, but never beyond it ; Roman antiquities, therefore, rarely occur alone in
Denmark, nor has a single Roman sepulchre been met with, as in England and other
countries which once felt the yoke of the world-conquering nation. Such antiquities
are here almost always discovered in connection with what we may call our native anti-
quities, and it is very important to direct attention to a proper separation of these two
classes of objects.

After this rapid sketch of the diff'erent stages of progress, of which our antiquities
give evidence, until about the middle of the fifth century, we have to consider the im-
portant question, whether there are connecting links between the three periods, and
whether the same people has always lived in this country, so that we, the Danes of the
nineteenth century, may call the people of the Stone age our ancestors, or whether we
are the descendants of more recent invaders "? Have the changes which we have en-
deavoured to indicate taken place gradually, or have new nations, provided with better
arms, and more highly civilized, poured into the country and subdued or driven away
the original inhabitants t As bearing on this point we may observe that unburnt bodies
and stone objects have but rarely been discovered in connection with bronze. Such
cases might indicate a transition period between the Stone and the Bronze ages, but they
may perhaps more properly be assigned to a late period of the Stone age, when tribes
of the stone-using people had become acquainted with weapons and implements of
metal, though as yet the civilization of the Bronze age had not made the inhabitants
alter their ancient mode of sepulture. For it must be home in mind that the latter age
was one of cremation, principally, though not exclusively ; while in the former period,
the bodies of the dead were invariably buried unburnt. It is difficult to imagine such
a great and important change being brought about only by pacific intercourse and
commercial relations with nations of higher ci\dlization.

Nor would such an explanation, in my opinion, satisfactorily account for the tran-

INTRODUCTION. 7

sition from the Bronze to the Iron age. The differences are too striking ; we look
in vain for points of resemblance between the antiquities of the two periods with regard
to shape and ornamentation. We have, for instance, at present in Denmark about
one hundred and seventy swords of the Early Iron period, and about three hundred and
fifty swords of the Bronze period ; but among these rich stores we do not find a single
connecting link between the sword of cast bronze, and that of welded and damascened
iron. We find, moreover, in the Iron age, new ornaments as well as new materials,
and a different composition and treatment of those formerly known. If a gradual
and organic transition had taken place between the two ages, we should naturally expect
in objects of art — such as representations of men and animals — to see the first feeble
attempts of art in its infancy. But that is not the case. The objects of this kind be-
longing to the Early Iron period (Thorsbjerg, Plate 7, Fig. 7, and Plate 11, Fig. 47,
among many others) are barbarous enough, but they are far from representing art in its
infancy. We observe, on the contrary, a decline of art from its comparatively high
development in the early period of the Iron age to a much lower standard towards its
conclusion, with regard to style and form, as well as to technical skill in metal-Avork.

For these reasons, on the last of which I am inclined to lay peculiar stress, we are,
in my opinion, justified in assuming, that the higher state of civilization was the result
of an invasion, for in no other way can the sudden appearance of damascened weapons,
of materials hitherto unknown, of horses, arts, and letters, be satisfactorily explained.

From the great number of remains,* it appears certain that each of the three
great periods must have comprised many centuries, but it is impossible to say how far
we are to go back to find the commencement of the Bronze period, much less that of
the Stone age. The question cannot be solved by the antiquities themselves, for of
coins and inscriptions there are none of those early times to assist us. We may infer
from the respective position of the burial-places, that the Bronze age followed after
the Stone age, but we do not know when the change took place.

With regai-d to the Early Iron age in Denmark, which the present work is
specially intended to illustrate, and which has a double interest to the Danes, being
the dawn of our national history, we have much better means of judging, since coins
and objects of art are trustworthy guides for fixing dates. The Roman coins from all
the deposits are of the second and the beginning of the third centurj', as are also the
objects of art of Roman origin. Thus we are enabled to conclude with certainty that
these deposits cannot be older than the third century of the Christian era. At that
time, the civilization which characterizes this period was in the highest state of de-
velopment in our country. It then gradually sank till about the fifth century, when
other or modified forms with a style of ornamentation either in part or entirely new were
introduced, probably in consequence of the great immigration of tribes from the East.

* The number of stone implemonts alone, preserved in public and private collections in Denmark, may
be estimated at no less than 40,000 ; and how many have disappeared.

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL SURVEY
OP DANISH ANTIQUITIES OF THE EARLY IRON AGE.

The Early Iron age in Denmark has been so fully and minutely illustrated by the dis-
covery of large deposits of antiquities, that little doubt is left as to what objects must
be referred to it. They have been brought to light in great numbers from burial-
places, from hoards or hiding-places in the earth, and especially from peat-bogs or
mosses. In the accompanying map of Denmark, about two hundred localities are in-
dicated, in which objects of this age have been discovered. These finds may be
divided into several classes, distinguished by different signs in the map, viz. : —

Ist. Graves with bodies unburnt.

2nd. Burial-places with remains of burnt bodies.

3rd. Finds of objects accidentally lost or intentionally deposited in the earth.

4th. Moss deposits.

5th. Finds of Roman coins.

A.

It is evident, from the contents of the burial-places, that a people at this stage of
civilization once spread over almost the whole country, and that two modes of sepul-
ture were in use among them. Instances of Cremation rarely occur. No more than
about twenty well-authenticated instances have come to our knowledge. Vessels of
burnt clay, — in one case a bronze vessel, in another a glass cup, — contained the burnt
human bones. Among the remains, bronze fibulse of the Roman bowed form, tweezers
of bronze, or some small iron object, proved the grave to belong to this age. Such
sepulchral remains have never been found in mounds raised expressly for the purpose
of protecting the grave and serving as memorials of the dead, as was the case during
the two preceding ages. They are met with in the sides of older barrows and na-
tural eminences. As an example of these burial-places, the relics from a barrow at

r showing where objecis from the

Tiave heen Cound .
186 't.

^
«;

5

v
^

hi'i'^'Aiiiit . Ancient Denniajk

C.PJUraoit iift-.ttabl^ Kiolsiiluvr..

ANTIQUITIES OF THE EARLY IRON AGE.

9

Bolderslev, near Aabenraa in Slesvig (a district rich in memorials of early times), are
particularly worthy of notice (Map, Slesvig, No. 11). Names found in the Ancient
Northern Mythology are here preserved, in the names of many localities, though often
in a mutilated shape ; legends connected with many of the barrows are still extant.
Thus Bolderslev signifies the heritage or seat of Balder, the good and righteous god.
Near this village a large barrow of about forty feet in diameter, and twelve feet high,
was opened a few years since. About four feet below the surface, two large urns of
clay were found close together, both filled with burnt human bones. The largest of
these vessels, resembling in shape the one figured in Thorsbjerg, Plate 17, No. 11, is about
eleven inches high, and ornamented with the zigzag pattern. The smaller, eight inches
high, is of the same shape as the larger one, and ornamented in the same manner.
Among the burnt bones were found a bowed bronze fibula (like Thorsbjerg, Plate 4,
No. 1), and a rusty piece of iron, probably the remains of a knife. At about two feet
under this urn, the labourers came upon a grave of the Bronze age, a hollow formed of
slabs of stone, and containing burnt bones, among which were a knife, an arrow-head,
and a hair-pin, all of bronze. Common cemeteries, with mortuary urns containing cal-
cined human bones, are by no means of rare occurrence, but it is rather difficult in most
cases to determine their age, for they are usually unaccompanied by any antiquities,
and the few objects that have been found are small and much corroded. Such urns,
standing near each other, and filled Avith burnt bones, are to be met with, scarcely
one foot beneath the surface, in waste and uncultivated fields, when the soil is broken
for the first time.

The late Mr. Mecklenburg, of Flensborg, to whom
the museum of his native city is indebted for many and
important presents, has given an account of one of the
most valuable of these cemeteries in the Proceedings of
the Antiquarian Society of Kiel, for the year 1844, p. 33.
In a sandy field at Smedeby (Slesvig, No. 21 on the map),
between Flensborg and the town of Slesvig, about one foot
beneath the surface, an astounding number of urns was
found deposited, mostly on flat stones, sometimes surrounded
on all sides by smaller stones, some covered with a flat
stone.* The ums, in their general character,
are not unlike many of those from Anglo-Saxon
graves, though their style of ornamentation is
somewhat diff"erent.t (See the accompanying
chemitypes.) Among the burnt bones in the iron Knife, from Smedeby. 4.

* For similar deposits, see C. Eoach Smith, Coll. Aut. vol. ii. 228.

t See J. M. Kemble, " On Mortuary Urns found at Stade-on-the-Elbe," Archseologia, vol. xsxvi. 270;
and ' Horse Ferales.' Compare also Akerman ' Pagan Saxondom,' p. 4.3. TJru found at Eye, Suffolk.

C

Urn, from Smedeby. J

10 DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

vases were found — fibulae of bronze and iron, of the bowed Roman form, resembling
those figured by Nos. 1, 2, and 4, in Plate 4 ; tweezers and earpicks (commonly
suspended from one ring), knives of iron, similar to those represented in Akerman's
Archaeological Index, xv. nos. 9 and 10 ; shears of iron {ibid, xviii.). The only frag-
ment indicating that weapons also had been thrown on the funeral pile, was a bronze
clasp for the middle of a wooden scabbard, in shape somewhat like that figured in No.
29, Thorsbjerg, Plate 10, of this work. The half-burnt piece adhered to a massive iron
ring, one and a half inch in diameter, and to the fragment of a human skull.

It appears from the contents of about forty graves with skeletons, that the com-
mon mode of burial was to deposit the body entire at full length, and commonly in the
direction of south to north, the head towards the south, in gravelly soil, or on natural
eminences, some four or five feet beneath the greensward. There are above-ground
no indications of a grave, nor have usually any preparations been made beneath. In
one case a grave had been dug in a clayey soil and filled with fine earth ; others were
found covered with larger stones, symmetrically arranged in this manner — oOO§ ; and
there are also a few instances of chambers built of stone, and of about the dimensions
of a human body.

It is very much to be regretted that almost all objects of this kind have been ob-
tained by chance discoveries, and that none of the burial-places have been carefully
examined. We are in consequence left in doubt on many important points connected
with the graves. The burial-places discovered in gravel-pits seem mostly to have been
family sepulchres. Five, six (and sometimes, in the words of the labourers, "many")
skeletons are found side by side. At the sides of the skeletons, or upon them, sometimes
in their arms, are found objects characteristic of this age. It is rare to hit upon a
grave mthout a vessel of some description ; usually one or two vessels are placed near
the head, and some at the feet.* Besides pottery, vessels of bronze, bottles of glass,
and wooden buckets, are found in the graves. The vessels of bronze and glass are mostly
of Roman workmanship, some even of the best period. On the handles of the former,
stamps with raised letters are often observable, though the exact letters can rarely be
ascertained. The stamps on two vessels, not taken from the graves, have been deci-
phered. One has dis^cvs r (Worsaae's Ant. no. 308); and another from Ringe, in
Fyen,NiGELLio F. On the other hand, bronze vessels of decidedly native, at least not Roman
manufacture, are by no means uncommon. (Compare the chemitype, p. 14, bronze vase
from Mollerup.) It is likewise uncommon to find a grave without a bronze-bound
bucket of wood. The English reader will be familiar with the frequent occurrence
of such objects among the contents of tumuli of a later date, theAnglo-Saxon period.f

• Specimens of similar vessels are figured in Worsaae's ' Antiquities,' Copenhagen, 1859, pp. 71 to 78.
Only one of these, No. 318, is from a grave. Tor similar vessels found in England and Scotland, see
' Archajologia,' vols. x. 133, 169 ; xi. 105 ; xv. (plates xxxi. to xxxiii. and xxxvii.) ; xviii. 340 ; xxx. 132, etc.

t See, for instance, Neville's ' Saxon Obsequies,' pi. xvii.

ANTIQUITIES OF THE EARLY IRON AGE,

11

We cannot say for what purpose the various vessels were deposited near the dead,
but it seems at that time to have been an almost invariable custom ; and, what is very
curious, several instances are known of saucepans with the accompanying strainer,
fitting exactly, having been discovered among the remains.

Although no instance has been recorded of any fragment of dress or cerecloth having
been presei-ved in the tombs, the dead were doubtless attired for the grave in one way
or other, for personal ornaments, as hair-pins of silver and bronze, finger-rings, beads,
and fibulae, are often dug up. The beads are made of clay, amber, glass, vitrified porce-
lain in variegated designs, and occasionally of s^iiral wire of gold, silver, or bronze.
Almost all the finger-rings are of gold, and mostly of the spii'al form ; a good specimen
is given in Worsaae's Ant. no. 382, found on one of the fingers of a skeleton. Fibula;
occur of bronze, silver, and gold, of the curved or circular form ; the common shapes
are shown in Worsaae's Ant. nos. 388, 389, and 390; costlier specimens in nos. 385
and 395.

Objects of the toilet are comparatively rare. Bone combs have been found by
the side of four of the skeletons.

Shears of bronze and iron are sometimes brought to light.

Draughtsmen occur in glass and bone.

Weapons are comparatively few. Though this may in some measure be owing to
the rapid decomposition of the iron in the moist soil, it does not appear to have been
usual to deposit them at the dead warriors' side. Whether this may be ascribed to
Koman influence, I cannot say. The facts are not yet sufficiently numerous and authen-
tic to give a clear view of the subject. The few weapons from the graves perfectly
resemble those which the mosses have yielded. (See the annexed figures.)

Bronze Boss, from Sosimi ; found near a
human skeleton. (Map Sealand, No. 5.)

Bronze Boss, from Vigei-sler ; found on a
skeleton. (Map Fven, No. 8.)

C 2

12

DENMARK EST TIIE EARLY IRON AGE.

Bronze Spur, from Bodum.
(Map Slesvig, No. 10.)

Horse trappings axe perhaps still more rare.

Two bronze spurs have been found like that represented in the accompanying figure.

In only three of the tombs were
Roman coins met with, a silver coin
{denarim) of Antoninus Pius, one of
Lucius Verus, and a barbarous imita-
tion of a coin of Geta.

Skeletons of horses were found
along with human bodies in a ceme-
tery near Aarhuus, in North Jutland
(compare No. 2 hereafter) ; some bones
of the tame goose, and of the pig (pro-
bably domesticated) were found near a
human skeleton at Varpelev, in Sea-
land ; the skeleton of an ox, along
with a gold hair-ring with the inscription lvPro (probably to be read in two words
i.vPK o(%vn8) ) in Runic letters, was found in a hill at Straarup, in South Jutland (map
No. 1), among stones, — the remains, it was supposed, of a disturbed grave-chamber.

We have proofs of contact with the Romans in objects of Roman workmanship
and with Roman inscriptions. One inscription is known in Greek letters on a crystal
ball (Worsaae's Ant. no. 379). Evidences of the Gothic origin of many of the objects
are, on the other hand, found in their workmanship and ornaments, no less than in
names and other inscriptions in Runic letters.

The following brief descriptions of the whole contents of some characteristic graves
belonging to this period, may seiTe to illustrate the matter more fully : —

1.

Near Bennebo, in the parish of Skamstrup, in Sealand (No. 22 on the map),
were discovered on and near the remains of a human body.

Two fibulae, one in brass, one in silver (compare Worsaae's Ant. 390 and 395) ;

A gold spiral finger-ring of six coils ;

Fragments of a bronze vessel, resembling in shape Worsaae's Ant. fig. 302 ;

A saucepan and strainer, of bronze, like iMd. 309 and 310 ;

A silver coin, of Antoninus Pius, a.d. 145-147.

In digging for gi-avel near Framlev, in the bailiwick of Aarhuus, Jutland (No. 23
on the map), the labourers came upon many human skeletons and many bones of
animals, especially of horses, which appeared to have been buried with the bodies. By
the feet of one of the latter stood a bronze-bound wooden bucket, at its head was a
curved bronze fibula of the Roman form, on the breast about thirty beads of amber,

ANTIQUITIES OF THE EARLY IRON AGE. 13

glass, and variegated porcelain. In the same gravel mound, some members of the
Society of Antiquaries at Aarhuus afterwards opened a grave, dug in the earth, and filled
with a soil darker than the surrounding earth; length six feet, breadth four feet,
depth five feet. In it was deposited a (female 1) skeleton, the head towards the west,
the legs bent up, and arms crossed. A necklace of small beads of amber, glass, and
porcelain ; three bronze fibulae of the Roman form (like Fig. 1 in Thorsbjerg, Plate 4
of this work), and a bronze pin were found on the skeleton, at the side of which were
placed numerous vessels of burnt clay, full of earth.

In 1820, labourers in digging gravel on a rising ground near Aarslev, by Svendborg,
in Fyen (No. 20 on the map), came upon two human skeletons — one, it was supposed,
a male, the other, a female — four feet from each other, the heads towards the south.
With them were found a wooden bucket and two bronze vessels, in one of which had
been deposited a silver spoon (Worsaae's Ant. 304). On the female skeleton were dis-
covered : —

Seven gold ornaments, set with garnets ; one of them is represented in Worsaae's
Ant. no. 393.

A costly gold fibula set with garnets and cornelians. {Ibid. no. 387.)

Another gold fibula, with ornamental grooves filled with lead. (Ibid. No. 386.)

A golden finger-ring with three garnets, closely resembling that figured in Wor-
saae's Ant. no. 381.

Another finger-ring of the spiral form.

A crystal ball, with the inscription in Greek letters ABAA6ANAABA, a magic
word, probably, like Abracadabra. The ball was doubtless a Gnostic talisman.*

A gold coin, being a barbarous imitation of a coin of Geta, or of one of the later
emperors.

The last-mentioned find probably belongs to the transitional period, between the
Early and the Later Iron age. It corresponds in many points with remains found in
Anglo-Saxon tombs, f The intertwined ornaments characteristic of the Late Iron age
do not occur upon these objects, but the frequent use of set stones is one indication,
among others, of inferior taste. The comparatively late date is moreover confirmed
by the coin. The deposit from Bennebo, on the contrary, may be assigned to the
second or third century a.c. The two discoveries accordingly determine the beginning
and the end of the period we are now considering.

* Crystal balls have been frequently met with in Eoman and Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in England, in
France (Childeric's tomb), and in "Western Germany. They are sometimes set in two rings (Akerman's
' Archaeological Index,' p. 14.3), evidently to be suspended on the person as an ornament (' Inventoriuni
Sepulchrale,' p. 43). Hitherto, I believe, no inscriptions had been found on them.

f A somewhat similar discovery, from Sarr, in Kent, is described in ' Archaeologia Cantiana,' vol. v.,
1864, by Mr. J. Brent.

14 DENMARK IN THE K\RLY IRON AGE.

B.

Earth-finds. Discoveries of similar objects in the earth, not associated with remains
of the dead, but deposited or lost, are frequent. More than one hundred instances of this
kind in our country have come to our knowledge, and very many objects have disap-
peared in the melting-pot and in other ways. The articles are mostly found in gravel
mounds, where also graves are frequent, and many of them probably near skeletons,
though, on account of the wide-spread fear amongst the labourers of mentioning the dis-
covery of human bones, even in barrows, this point cannot be satisfactorily ascertained.
On the other hand, there are instances in which the whole arrangement plainly
shows that the articles have been deposited intentionally, and many a hill evidently
served as a hiding-place for treasure. Objects of value were also sometimes hidden in
the level country under large stones, and now and then deposited in some piece of
home-made pottery. Lastly, discoveries are often made of single objects which may
have been accidentally lost.

The antiquities obtained in this manner resemble those discovered in burial-places

in all essential points. Vessels of manifold
uses, and various forms and materials, are fre-
quent. These consist of large vessels and
bowls for culinary purposes, saucepans and
strainers — of bronze, — vases, cups, a drinking-
horn of glass, brass mountings for drinking-
horns ; a great variety of earthen vessels (very
few of which, however, from the shattered
condition in which they are generally found,
have been preserved), and costly silver goblets

overlaid with gold plates, on which are em-
Bronze Vase, from MoUerup. 4. ^Qggg^ figures. The Roman origin of many

of these vessels is undoubted ; many also are of Gothic workmanship, as for instance,
a little bronze vase from Mollerup, in Jutland (No. 16 on the map, see the subjoined
figure) and the silver goblet from Himlingoie (figured in Worsaae's Ant. no. 314), Avith
barbarous representations of a human figure in a sitting posture, with a poniard in its
hand, and some animals. The same representation is repeated three times round the
upper part of the goblet. We may also mention the celebrated golden horns from
Gallehuus in Slesvig,* with barbarous representations of men and animals ; one of these
had a Runic inscription, which, according to the latest interpretation of Professor
P. G. Thorsenf is as follows: — I, Hleva, made (caused to be made) the horns for the
guests, the forestmen. (ekhlevagastim : holtingam: iiorna: tavido.) Many speci-
mens of vessels are shown in Worsaae's Ant. pp. 71 to 78.

* They were stolen at the beginning of this century and meltecl down,
t ' The Eunic Monuments of Slesvig.' Copenhagen, 186i.

ANTIQUITIES OF THE EARLY IRON AGE.

15

Of frequent occurrence also are beads made of bronze, silver, or golden wire
twisted in spirals; of glass, amber, vitrified pastes, agate and other materials (ibid.
369 and 376).

Pins and other ornaments for the hair sometimes occur in precious metals. Various
forms are figured in Worsaae's Ant. 306, 371-373. Hanging ornaments for the ear,
and other pendants, are not unfrequent (ibid. 375 and 377).

Finger-rings are found partly made in spirals, partly like those represented in Wor-
saae's Ant. nos. 382 and 383. They are
mostly in gold; one specimen is known
in bronze, set with a brass coin, bearing
the inscription, Divo traiano parth. avg.
PATRi, and on the reverse a bird without
legend. The type is unknown in brass, but occurs in gold (Cohen, no. 294).

Roman metal mirrors have been discovered only in two graves ; one is figured in
Worsaae's Ant. no. 370, the rim is pierced with holes. Combs also are rare ; they are
usually of bone, — in one case, of iron.

Fibulse and brooches appear to have been very common ornaments at that period.
They are of bow-shaped or circular forms, and made of various metals. Those of the
pattern figured in Worsaae's Ant. nos. 388 and 389, are probably Roman ; others like
nos. 390 and 395, may belong to the people of the invasion. One fibula has a Runic
insciiption, which Professor G. Stephens reads h^kis o(wns). {Ibid. no. 384.)*

A waistband of gold {ibid. no. 453) is unique among these objects. It has been
conjectured that it once ornamented an idol, and such may very likely have been its use.

In only one of these deposits do we find draughtsmen ; seven pieces in glass and
porcelain were discovered and preserved.

Weapons occur so very rarely, that but for our great depositories, the peat-mosses,
we should be left almost in the dark as regards their details. The few objects obtained
from earth-finds resemble those from the peat-bogs.

Almost equally scarce are horse-trappings and riding-gear ; some bridle-bits in
bronze and in iron {ibid. nos. 354 and 355) ; some bronze and
silver pendants like those figured in this work, Thorsbjerg, Plate
15, and some spurs, are all that have been preserved or made
known. The spurs of this period — the oldest known — are of two
varieties. Compare the figure on p. 12, with the annexed figure
(from Vimose, in Fyen) ; see also Worsaae's Ant. no. 486.

Two iron axes, some fragments of knives, and some pairs of
shears, of the form figured in Worsaae's Ant. nos. 362 and 363, j^^ „^^ ^^^^^^ vimose *
are the only implements derived from these sources.

* The central part of this piece is not complete ; judging from a similar but perfect specimen, an oval
and probably ornamental plate is wanting in the middle.

16 DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

Small bronze figures have been occasionally discovered. In a meadow in North
Slesvig, for instance, a hollow bronze bust of Jupiter was found, of the time of the later
Emperors, about five inches high. (Slesvig, No. 12 on the map.)

Occasionally these deposits are associated with Roman coins, and sometimes Roman
coins are found alone. But however found, they are invariably of the first two cen-
turies of our era, and the beginning of the third. All the Emperors between Nero
and Maximus are represented, but the Antonines appear to be of most frequent oc-
currence.

A short account of some discoveries of this class may not be unwelcome.

1.

We may mention first that of Norre Broby, near Odense, in Fyen (No. 26 on the
map). In a natural elevation of the soil some labourers, digging for gravel, came upon
a heap of about three cart-loads of small stones. On removing these, the following
objects were brought to light : —

A large bronze cup, a little more than fifteen inches in diameter ; the handle ter-
minating in animals' heads. (Worsaae's Ant. no. 301.)

A bronze saucepan, of Roman workmanship, evidently turned on a lathe ; the
inner side is lined with zinc ; when found, it had a wooden cover, and contained a piece
of woollen cloth, about nine inches square. {IMd. 309.)

Fragment of the handle of another bronze vessel, bearing a sunk stamp with
raised letters dis^cvs f. (Ibid. 308.)

The mountings of a bucket ; the bucket itself is lost ; it stood between two stones,
each about two feet long and one foot broad ; these, it was reported, were the only large
stones in the heap.

A richly decorated hair-pin, with golden hjead, and two simpler pins. {Ibid. 372.)

A pendant of gold, for an ear-ring ] {IMd. 2>11.)

Nine beads of thin golden plates, seven of greenish and brown transparent glass.
{IMd. 376.)

A bronze bridle-bit. {Ibid. 355.)

Two objects in bronze of the same shape, and evidently destined for the same use,
as that in Thorsbjerg Plate 14, Fig. 23, of this work. {Ibid. 357.)

In a gravel mound near Odense (Fyen, no. 13 on the map), an earthen vessel was
exhumed, containing a hanging ornament for an earring, resembling Worsaae's Ant.
no. 377 ; a bronze fibula, like ibid. 388 ; two little bronze buckles, of a shape common
among the objects from the peat-deposits ; and some small fragments, the use of which
has not been explained.

ANTIQUITIES OF TILE EARLY IRON AGE. 17

3.

In a hill near Ekernfdrde, in South Slesvig (No. 28 on the map), a bronze vessel
was met with, well secured with a cover, and containing a silver fibula, resembling
Worsaae's Ant. no. 388. In the same hill were found two bronze spurs. {Ibid. no. 486.)

Though the greater part of these things are Roman, or at least of Roman work-
manship, the Gothic element has many representatives. No doubt can exist as to the
objects with Runic characters, for though barbarians in their contact with a more highly
civilized people may sometimes have adopted their form of letters, we cannot presume
that the reverse was the case. The works of art also afford good evidence. The silver
goblet in Worsaae's Ant. no. 314, and the vase, no. 302, evidently belong to different
nations, though both were found in the same locality, Himlingoie, near Prsesto, in
Sealand (map No. 45).

C.

Deposits in peat-bogs are not unfrequently discovered, and we have objects similar
to those already mentioned from about thirty localities. The mosses, in which larger
hoards, dating from the earliest period of the Iron age, have been found, lie along the
east coast of Slesvig and North Jutland, from the Sli to the Saebybsek, in Fyen and in
Bomholm. There is great similarity in the character and ornamental details of the
objects obtained from them. These are commonly personal ornaments, weapons, war-
like accoutrements, and vessels for domestic purposes; the localities also are alike in
the circumstance, probably not accidental, that they have a near access to the open
sea or to watercourses flowing towards it. The places of deposit, it would almost seem,
were chosen by a seafaring people.

The more important of these discoveries are the following : —

a. Slesvig.

1. Thorshjerg moss, near Sonder Brarup, in Angel (map No. 26), is the southern-
most of these ancient mosses ; in a straight line it is distant from the Sli about three
miles and a half, and the distance to the Oxbaek, which flows into the last-named firth,
is about four hundred yards.

2. Nydam moss, near Oster Sottrup, in Sundeved (map No. 14), is distant less
than a mile from the Als-Sound, with which it was formerly connected. The valley in
which it lies reaches to the Sound, from which it "is now separated by a dyke of only
some three hundred years' standing.

b. North Jutland.

3. Vingsted mill-pond (map No. 36), near the Veile brook, and about six miles
from the Firth of Veile, yielded : —

D

18 DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

Several bosses and handles of shields, in iron and in bronze ; one axe and some
javelins and arrow-heads of iron.

Many articles belonging to harness, and

Fragments of golden bracelets, probably ring-money.

These things have been exposed to fire, so that many are much injured ; originally
they were as magnificently ornamented as the best from the Thorsbj erg-moss.

4. Ballerup lake, near Horsens (map No. 32), two miles and a half from the Firth
of Horsens. Near the border of the lake a fisherman found —

Damascened iron swords and fragments of sword handles ; spear- and arrow-heads
of iron.

An iron bridle-bit. (Worsaae's Ant. no. 489.)
A sort of pitchfork of iron.

5. Hedeliskcer, near Skjodstrup (map No. 21), is situated about a mile from Kalo
Vig, in a deep valley surrounded by hills ; here were found —

A golden finger-ring.

Four umbones and some rims of shields.

Five damascened swords.

Fourteen spear-heads, and no less than thirty-two arrow-heads. {Ibid. 342, a and h.)

An iron axe-blade, and

Four iron knives.

6. Trinnemose, in the parish of Thorslev, near Sseby (map No. 6), at a distance of
about eight miles from the sea, yielded —

Brass mountings of a (wooden) scabbard ; bronze buckles ; and other fittings of
sword-belts ; and

Bronze bridles and pendants, exactly like some of those from Thorsbjerg moss.
(Plate 14, Fig. 16, and Plate 15, Fig. 33-48.)

c. Fyen.

7. Viniose (map No. 9), the moss of Wi, " temple" in Gothic, near the villages of
Broby and Alleso, in the vicinity of Odense — or, as the place is called in Knytlinga
Saga, Odinsve, that is Odin's place of sacrifice, — a mile and a half from the Stavis brook,
which flows into the Firth of Odense. It is surrounded on all sides by hills ; the locality,
accordingly, agrees with that of the Thorsbjerg moss, as will be more fully described
hereafter. During several years (since 1848) the peat-cutters continued to find an-
tiquities here, which are now preserved in the Copenhagen museum ; in 1859, systematic
diggings were superintended by Mr. Herbst, one of the officers of the museum ; and in
July and August, 1865, the whole tenitory was examined under my guidance, and more
than two thousand antiquities discovered. To give an idea of the importance of this
large hoard, I shall briefly enumerate the objects.

A bronze ornament, in the form- of an eagle's head, probably for a helmet; evi-
dently of Roman manufacture. (Worsaae's Ant. 336.)

VIMOSE IN FYEN.

19

The larger portion of two coats of mail, of thin iron rings.

Personal ornaments and articles of the toilet, as — a silver finger-ring; fibulae in
bronze and silver (see Fig. g), and fragments of two others resembling Fig. 11, Plate 4,
of this work ; beads of glass and of porcelain ; small round pendants, in silver, one of
amber; many small bronze and iron ornaments shaped like buckets (Plate V., Fig. 15,
16, and Plate 18, Fig. 3); large buttons of glass and amber (Worsaae's Ant. no. 335);
about fifty combs in bone {ibid. no. 365), on one is a Runic inscription of five letters —
H^RSF' fragments of wooden draughtboards; on the one side are lozenges car\'-ed in
the wood, on the other circles, — probably for diff"erent games ; about a hundred draughts-
men of bone and amber, between half an inch and three-quarters of an inch in diameter
six dice of bone, quadrangular, or of an elongated square form (Fig. c and e).

i- Bronze.

\. Iron.

\. Bone.

i. Iron.

Iron.

+. Bronze.

Shields. — ^A great many of the boards of which they were composed, fragments of
rims, bronze, iron, and silver, wooden handles, and coverings of bronze, iron, and bone ;
some of the latter differ considerably in shape from those obtained from the Slesvig

D 2

20 DENJL4.RK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

mosses — compare the annexed cliemitype, Fig. /, — some hundred bosses, all of iron,
with the exception of a complete bronze boss, and four bosses of thick wood. Some
forms were previously unknown among the urabones from the Slesvig depositories
. (Worsaae's Ant. 339 and 340) ; compare also the chemitype. Fig. d, of the upper part

of an iron umbo.

A great variety of bronze bands for repairs ; compare Plate 8, Fig. 29, of this work.

Swords, Belts, etc. — About thirty iron swords, and a great many fragments, espe-
cially of the pointed ends of the blades (Worsaae's Ant. nos. 321 to 324) ; only two of
the blades appear to have been damascened. One-edged swords are not unfrequent,
and judging from their resemblance to some Anglo-Saxon or Old English swords, they
are of a comparatively late date. Just beneath the tang of one of the two-edged swords
the inscription tasvit is found in raised Eoman letters. A two-edged wooden sword,
many fragments of sword-handles of ivory (ibid. 325 and 326), and about fifty in wood,
compare Plate 9, Fig. 2, of this work. A few complete scabbards of wood, and about
two hundred mountings in silver, bronze, iron, and brass, of (wooden) scabbards (Wor-
saae's Ant. 331 and 332); one has an inscription of four Runic characters (ibid. 331);
others the fylfot ornament. That the embossed central part of the mountings, shaped
like no. 332, is meant for an imitation of a bird's head, is clearly proved by the annexed
chemitype, Fig. «, of a specimen from this locality, in which the eyes are represented by
blue paste. (From a private collection.)

About a hundred and fifty chapes, or scabbard-tips, fifteen in ivory, a few in bone,
the majority of bronze (ibid. 328, 329, and 333 ; the last is drawn in an inverted posi-
tion, it is made of silver, and covered with a thin gold plate, on which a human head
is embossed ; the workmanship is evidently barbarous and late).

Two leather belts and about fifty large belt-buttons, of a shape like that figured
in Plate 11, Fig. 48 a and 48 b, of this work; four of these exhibit one and the same
representation on a thin gold plate, covering the centre of the surface, viz. the eagle
with the fulmen in his claws and a ring in his bill, on both sides trophies ; all of Roman
workmanship. A great many buckles in silver, bronze, and iron.

Spear-heads. — About fifteen hundred iron heads of lances and missiles, partly re-
15J sembling some from Nydam moss (Plates 1r% and H-) ; partly of other forms (Worsaae's

Ant. 344 to 352). None of the lances have had a spike at foot, but the end of the shaft is
rounded. (No. 345, in Worsaae, is drawn in an inverted position, the original being in
reality a fragment of a socketed spear-head.) On many, ornaments are inlaid in silver
and gold. (Ibid. no. 347.) Others are ornamented like Figs. 8 and 9 on Plate X., from
Nydam. Some forms resembling those from the old English graves, indicate a somewhat
later date for the whole deposit than that of the two Slesvig deposits.

Wooden shafts in great abundance ; the complete shafts were from nine feet four
inches to eleven feet four inches long ; many of them with bronze rivets.

Bows, Arrows, Quiver, Sharpening-stones. — Some wooden bows and many frag-

VIMOSE IN FYEN. 21

ments, about a hundred arrow-heads of bone and iron. Worsaae's Ant. no. 341 a, b, and
c, are instances of the arrow-heads. Fragment of a large wooden quiver. A great
many sharpening-stones. [Ibid. 343.)

Horse-trappings and Riding-gear. — Fragment of a bronze bridle, resembling that
figured in Plate 14, Fig. 21, iron bits, and about one hundred pendants, resembling
those figured in Plate 15. Fig. 33-48. Spurs of the different forms which were in use
during this period. (See pages 12 and 15.)

Household Vessels, Implements, Tools, etc. — Fragments of a large wooden (water)
trough, in its perfect state probably, something like the original of that represented in
Plate XIV. Fig. 25, and smaller domestic vessels of burnt clay and of wood. The
former are hand-made; the latter elaborately turned on a lathe, and some of their
handles cut into shapes of griffins, dragons, lizards, crocodiles, etc. A wooden spoon,
with a long magnificently ornamented handle.

About a hundred iron knives, some with handles of wood and bone. (Worsaae's
Ant. no. 360 and 361.) Fragments of a pair of shears, like Worsaae's Ant. no. 363.

Handles of awls of wood and bone.

About forty iron axes of the two diff"erent forms belonging to this period ; the
varieties are seen in Plate XV. Nydam, Fig. 10 and 13 ; the wooden shafts of the
latter specimens were here shorter and of another form.

Complete files, hammers, chamfering planes — one of which has inscriptions upon
it consisting of forty-four Runic characters, — gimlets, tongs, chisels, and other tools,
all in iron, with wooden shafts ; a little anvil of the same substance ; iron moulds in
which small buttons have been cast, etc. Some pierced touchstones, shafts of bones
(Worsaae's Ant. no. 358), small rough pieces of amber, cords made of bast, a bronze
key, bronze scales, very like the ordinary form of the present day, etc.

A silver coin of Faustina Junior.

A little boat, about ten .feet long, hollowed out of an oak trunk;* some small oars.
Fragments of wooden wheels, and some fragments of wooden rakes C?).

Two small chopping-blocks of oak. In their vicinity, as well as almost every-
where else in the layer of antiquities, a great many bones of animals, especially of
horses, were taken up. Many of these bones were chopped and splintered, and bore
evident marks of man's handiwork.

Characteristic of this hoard are the numerous objects of ivory, a substance which
has been found in none of the other Danish peat-bogs, the many tools, and to some
extent also the many bones of animals, found among the other objects, and evidently
deposited together with them. Many objects bear traces of fire upon them.

The peculiarities of this locality are exactly the same as those I have observed in
the two peat-bogs before described.

* Vimose is surrounded by hills, and has probably never been in direct connection with the sea, so that
■we cannot expect to find such large boats there as those from Nydam.

22

DENMARK IX THE EARLY IRON AGE.

8. Villestofte moss, near Paarup (map No. 11), lies close to the Stavis brook, in
the direct line to the Firth of Odense, about five miles distant. A chape of bone,
several mountings for wooden scabbards, and a bone comb, were here dug up by
peat-cutters. No systematic diggings have taken place.

9. KrMjehul (map No. 22), a little moss near the village of Flemlose, about four
miles from the Little Belt. The antiquities found here were : two-edged damascened
iron swords with handles of silver and bronze ; metal mountings appertaining to
wooden sheaths, chapes of bronze, etc. (some of them arranged together in Wor-
saae's Ant. no. 330) ; iron spear-heads, and very richly and finely ornamented shafts ;

several bows of wood, and arrow-heads of iron and
bone {ibid. 353 a and b) ; many iron knives [ibid.
359); two camp-kettles of bronze, bent up and
mutilated, wooden vessels ; a fragment of wood, pro-
bably forming part of some handle, with Runic
inscription (see the annexed figure), etc.

d. Bornholm.

10. In Rommere moss (map No. 1) were dug up — a bent iron sword, chape, and
several sheath-mountings ; bronze rims of shields ; two bronze vessels (camp-kettles),
similar to those found in Kragehul and to that in Neville's ' Saxon Obsequies,' plate xvi. ;
they are bent and mutilated in a curious manner.

These objects, it is reported, were in such a condition that they had obviously been
unfit for use at the time of their being deposited.

No doubt can exist as to the objects found in these diff"erent localities — graves,
mosses, etc. — belonging to one and the same period or stage of civilization ; but
further and more systematic investigations, particularly of the graves, are necessary
in order to solve all questions of detail. When these investigations have been carried
out, we shall better understand the character of the moss deposits, and we shall be
enabled to distinguish with greater confidence between the Roman, semi-Roman, and
Barbarian relics belonging to this age ; only then can we attempt to fix with accuracy
the beginning of the Iron age in the North as well as in the West of Europe.

23

CHAPTER II.

LOCAL PECULIARITIES OF THORSBJERG AND NYDAM.

The name of Thorsbjerg, which signifies the Hill of Thor, appears inappropriate for a
peat-moss, nor is it in truth originally the name of the moss, but of an enclosure on
the adjacent hills. It lies north of the

village of Sender Brarup, in Angel, and '*^^^^»:=::i^Mil ^^■:<&2^^:^''^i.

is surrounded on all sides by sand-hills.
Within a distance of about four hun-
dred yards, there is a brook, named the
Oxbsek, which rises in the vicinity, and
flowing southward, falls into the Sli
(D on the accompanying map). This
brook may possibly have been navigable
in ancient times ; and though the moss
is now surrounded on all sides by hills,
and has no outlet for its waters, the
sand-hills may possibly be of compara-
tively recent origin; and even if the
brook were not navigable at the time
when the objects were deposited, there
was a ready access from the moss to
the sea ; the Firth of Sli being only
about three miles distant, in a direct
line southwards. I make this remark
in order to draw attention to the re-
semblance between this and other
Danish mosses, which have yielded dis-
coveries of this kind, all of which lie in the vicinity of rivers or streams aflPording easy

24 DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

communication with the sea. (See the map of Denmark, facing page 8, and the pre-
ceding chapter.)

This little moss has a very inviting appearance to the eye of the antiquary. On
the adjacent hill to the south, there are no less than sixteen barrows of various sizes.
Some of these were opened in the hope that antiquities of the same age as those in the
moss might be discovered in them ; but they were found to belong to the Bronze period.*

The bottom of the valley, the lower part of which has been filled up by the peat,
is veiy irregular. The hills and sloping grounds of the immediate vicinity are here
found upon the whole on a smaller scale, yet forming among other irregularities two
larger dips, marked A and B on the annexed map. In the easternmost of these dips
the antiquities in question were found scattered over the space of about eight thousand
square feet, comprised within the lines round the letter O. The majority of them
were in the centre of this space, their number decreasing towards the circumference.

The section observed in the moss is shown in the annexed woodcut, where a and b

represent a layer of peat about
eleven feet in thickness. The
deeper we go down, the closer
and more compressed does
the peat appear. In the
lowest part of this layer, some ten feet under the present surface, were found some
lighter objects, garments, boards of shields, articles of leather and basket-work. We
may safely suppose that these floated on the water at the time when the objects were
sunk into what was then a lake boi'dered with trees. The appeai^ance of the upper
sides of the wooden objects which were met with at this depth, confirms this opinion ;
they bear traces of long exposure to the air, and have a dark colour. The under side,
on the contrary, is quite smooth, and light in colour, as are the wooden objects found
in the next layer (e), which look as if they had been finished yesterday.

This next layer, c on the woodcut, contained, with the exception of the few articles
mentioned above, all the objects found. It is about five feet thick, and consists of the
soft and dark, almost black substance, from which peat is cut for fuel. The line I
marks the depth at which trunks of beech-trees, once growing at the sides of the lake,
are found close up to the hillsides ; the line n shows where the fir trunks commence.
There is much reason to suppose, from the relative position of these tmnks, that a fir
wood bordered the lake at the time when these articles were submerged.

Beneath this there is a layer about twelve feet thick, consisting chiefly of leaves of
forest-trees and water-plants, a substance unfit for fuel. The conditions necessary for
the growth of peat may not have existed at the time when these leaves and plants were
exposed to the air, and afterwards they were closely shut out from atmospheric action
by the layers gradually formed over them.

♦ Notice of two barrows of the Bronze age in 'Slesvigske Provindsial-Efterretninger' (October, 18G3).

DEPOSIT INTENTIOXAL; STATE OF PRESERVATION. 25

The bottom of the peat-bog consists of white sand, with many small white shells
on the surface.

Though peat has been cut to a considerable depth over almost the whole moss, no
antiquities have appeared outside the space marked o. It is therefore more than pro-
bable that the systematic diggings which, with the liberal and ever-ready assistance of
the Danish Government, were carried on during certain periods of the summers of
1858 to 1861, have brought to light the entire deposit. There is, moreover, no doubt
that what has now been dug up was all deposited at about the same time, as a thick
layer of vegetable matter had in course of time accumulated, covering the stratum
Avhich contained the antiquities, and thus affording a security against any extraneous
object finding its way into the original deposit.

If we now turn our attention to the circumstances under which the objects were
oiiginally deposited, and their condition when discovered, we cannot but notice the
remarkable fact that a certain order in the mode of deposit is plainly observable.
Not only were wooden articles often lying in large heaps, — as, for instance, several
layers of shields one above the other, occasionally also with javelins stuck through them
to keep them together, — but certain classes of objects were almost all found together in
one place. This was, for instance, the case with nearly all objects of gold, and one
particular spot the workmen called " chain-mail close," knowing that we should proba-
bly find some of these articles there. The vessels of burnt clay, having been sunk by
placing large stones in them, lay at the greatest depth ; and sometimes spear-heads and
smaller arms were wrapped up in coats of mail. These are a few examples out of
many, but they go far, I think, to prove that the whole was purposely sunk in the
water, and that this and similar accumulations of antiquities cannot be considered
accidental, or explained by supposing that a great number of warriors have fallen
through the ice during a battle in winter, or on any similar hypothesis. Moreover,
human remains have never been found during the systematic exploration of the two
Slesvig mosses.

Another noteworthy circumstance is that most of the objects found are in such a
condition that they must have been unfit for use when they Avere deposited. All the
umbones, with scarcely one exception, are bent and crumpled, or pierced by javelins and
arrow-heads in a manner which cannot be explained as the result of even a desperate
struggle. This has evidently been done on purpose. One sheath was cut in two,
and many wooden sheaths were deprived of their mountings and fittings of metal.
Bridles consisting of solid metal rings, are cut and iujured in many places, and costly
metal plates have been torn off, apparently in a hurried manner, from the objects which
they decorated.

One circumstance serves to a certain degree to explain the incomplete condition
of many of the articles brought to light on this occasion. Iron is almost entirely con-
sumed by the water of this peat-bog. In many places, vestiges of corroded iron were

26

DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

seen in the black peat, indicating that iron articles had been thrown in along with
the others, but only very small fragments of iron objects had been preserved, and these
were almost exclusively found in the upper layer, about a foot above the other remains.
It is fortunate that the tannic acid of the Nydam moss has not this corrosive quality in
the same degree as that of the Thorsbjerg moss. Numbers of iron weapons and im-
plements of about the same period have been preserved in Nydam, and this deposit, in
connection with that of Thorsbjerg, presents a vivid picture of the civilization of the
Early Iron period, in so far as it may be inferred from remains of dress, weapons,
household utensils, horse furniture, and ship building.

It is further to be remarked that some of these relics had been exposed to fire,
traces of which were discovered on objects of wood and metal, as well as on some of the
coins. Pieces of charcoal were of frequent occurrence, they were even now and then
found in small heaps. The traces of old repairs and patchings are frequent on bows and
arrows, shields and bosses. Many no doubt are repairs of injuries received in combat.
Nydam moss lies a little towards the north-west of the school of Oster Sottrup, in

Sundeved, scarcely fourteen hundred
yards from the Als Sound. The narrow
valley, of which it fills the bottom, is
about t\Vo miles long, and stretches, as
will be seen from the annexed map,* in
the direction of north-west to south-
east to the Sound. The dams, which
noAv separate the inner part, where the
antiquities have been discovered, from
Damhale and the mill-pond, and this
again from the Sound, date back to the
year 1579. Nydamf was accordingly in
olden time part of an arm of the sea,
and it was navigable at the time when
the objects of which we treat were de-
posited,— a fact which may also be in-
ferred from the boats found there.

The antiquities were deposited on
the sandy and clayey bottom, at a depth
of between four and seven feet.
h— -H*r-n-T:f-^" s~3—~jjji/ji!^''\\\\\ The diggings made during the

summers of 1859, 1862, and 1868, led
to about the same results with regard to the manner in which the objects had been
deposited, and the state they were in, as the exploration of Thorsbj erg-moss.

• 1000 Danish ells are equal to about 2060 English feet. t The word siguifies " The New Pond."

NYDAM ; CONDITION OF THE OBJECTS ; REASON OF THEIR DEPOSITION. 27

The antiquities were found scattered over a space of ten thousand square feet, in
many cases collected into heaps, and tied together or wrapped up in linen. Such par-
cels were, for instance, found in the different compartments of the boat between the ribs,
and bundles of twenty or thirty arrows were not unfrequent. Some of the spears and
swords had been planted perpendicularly, their points reaching as much as three or
four feet deeper than the ordinary stratum of antiquities. As in the Thorsbj erg-moss,
only very few of the articles had been in a perfect and serviceable state at the time of
their deposit ; almost all had been much injured, as may be seen, for instance, from
some of the handles on Plate VI., and many chapes on Plate IX. ; swords and spear-
heads had been cut and bent in a curious manner, barbs were wrenched out of their
original position (Plate XI.) ; staves had in many instances been cut in two and split,
etc. etc.

It seems hardly possible to explain all these traces of violence as the effects of a con-
flict. One sword-blade (Plate VII.) shows no less than twenty-three marks on one edge
and eleven on the other, which appear to have been purposely caused,
and almost everything exhibits traces of such violent handling. Not
even the skeletons of horses have been spared. One of the heads
had thirteen marks of blows (see the annexed figure) inflicted with a
sharp instrument, probably a sword.

I believe all the objects foimd in this locality to have lain origin-
ally in the boats, of which so many remains were discovered. Where
the antiquities lay thickest, and among them, were discovered planks
of a very elegant oak-built boat, cut asunder and completely destroyed.
This boat it would appear, from its relative position to the other boats,
had first come into the creek, — its remains were found in the innermost
recess of it ; the cargo had been taken out and deposited in the water
in precisely the same manner as was observed in Thorsbj erg. The
two other boats were discovered nearer the outlet to the sea. They
had been sunk by means of holes roughly cut through planks beneath the water-mark.
Their freight, though, as I suppose, intended for deposition in the same manner, had
not all been taken out, and a part of it therefore still remained in its original place
when the boats were discovered. It is even possible that the objects found outside
these boats, but near them, may have been accidentally floated out by the water, before
the formation of the peat which afterwards covered them. It should finally be ob-
served that traces of fire were noticed here less frequently than was the case in
Thorsbj erg, or even in Vingsted mill-pond.

The common origin of all the deposits of this kind discovered in our peat-bogs is
obvious, and it is further evident, that for the most part they have been made under
similar circumstances and for the same reasons. When attempting to answer the
question why so many objects, which even in their mutilated state must have been of

£ 2

28 DEXMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

great value to their former owners, were sunk in what were then lakes, we must not
lose sight of the following facts, namely, — that many were placed in a certain order ;
that most of them were in a condition unfit for immediate use ; that they bear marks of
having been almost all intentionally spoiled or injured ; and that there is in many in-
stances evidence of their having been in some cases exposed to fire. The suggestion of
a German savant that these relics may indicate the sites of ancient lake-dwellings is
inadmissible, as the piles characteristic of such spots are entirely absent. More pro-
bable is the hypothesis of M. Beauvois, a French author, who has spent some time in
Denmark, and has published an interesting account of Danish antiquities in the ' Revue
Contemporaine,' 1863 and 1864. He suggests that these bogs may have been a kind
of lacustrine cemeteries in which the dead were buried with arms and other accessories,
as is still the case with some modern savages.* In support of his theory he adduces
several arguments from Northern Mythology, as well as the fact that objects found in
the graves are often similarly mutilated, but there is this strong objection, that hardly
any human remains have been found in these mosses, and many of the objects are such
as could hardly have been deposited with the dead. Mr. J. J. A. Worsaaef has lately
suggested that these peat-mosses may have been in ancient times sacred lakes, in which
these objects were deposited as offerings, such a custom having prevailed among the Gauls
and other nations during the first centuries of our era.:j: According to Mr. Worsaae,
this hypothesis would account for the traces of sharp weapons, as many of the objects
may have been picked up on fields of battle ; it would perhaps account for the traces
of fire, for the chopping-blocks and the bones of horses and other animals dispersed
among the antiquities of Vimose, supposing them to be the remains from sacrificial
meals. But it df)es not explain satisfactorily the intentionally mutilated state of many,
nay, most of the objects.

We regret that we are unable at present satisfactorily to solve these enigmas. We
may, however, add, that systematic explorations have as yet been undertaken in only
four of these interesting hiding-places — the two Slesvig mosses and the two mosses in
Fyen. Undoubtedly, the receptacles of many large hoards are yet unexplored, and
further researches can scarcely fail to throw much new light on the subject.

* Lubbock's Prehistoric Times, p. 455. Compare also Mr. Kanes's remarkable account in the ' Cana-
dian Journal,' Jan. 1857, p. 22, of the customs of the Chinook Indians at the mouth of the Columbia river,
who deposit their dead in canoes, together with arms, paddles, and other implements, food and Ornaments,
and even coin. The canoes are fixed in trees or placed near the ground, in certain islands serving as ceme-
teries, and every article left with the body is rendered entirely useless, their belief being that the Great
Spirit will mend it on the deceased arriving at the hunting-ground of their Elysium. The greatest crime
an Indian could commit would be that of desecrating one of these canoes, and it very seldom happens that
the smallest thing is removed.

t ' Om Slesvigs eller Sonderjyllands Oldtidsminder,' Copenhagen, 1865, pp. 55-59.

X Mr. Worsaae refers to Caesar, De Bello Griillico, vi. IG, 17; Strabo, Geogr. iv. 1813; Gregorius
Turonensis, De Gloria Confess, ch. ii. (Maxima Bibl. PMrum, xi. 872) ; Diodorus Sieulus, v. 27. Compare
also Sir J. Lubbock, Prehist. Times, 160, where several other references will be found.

29

CHAPTEE III.

DESCRIPTION OF THE OBJECTS FOUND.

1. BOATS.
(Nydam, Plates I.-IV.)

The three rowing-boats discovered in Nydara-moss are unique of their kind, and will,
perhaps, remain so for a long time to come. They throw an entirely new light on the
naval architecture of ancient times, and are indeed among the most important results
of the antiquarian investigations of our peat-mosses. As early as the summer of 1859,
part of an oar was found, being the first naval relic of the Early Iron age ever dis-
covered, and the remaining part of the same oar was found in 1862. On the 7th of
August, 1863, the remains of the first boat (Plate IV. Fig. 27) were found on the spot
marked A in the map (p. 26); and on the 18th of the same month, the large and mag-
nificent oak-built boat, represented from difi"erent points of view on Plate I. Fig. 1, 2,
was discovered lying in the direction of south-east to north-west, the main direction of
the valley, leaning over on the north-eastem side, and, as was clearly shown by holes
cut in the planks under water-mark, intentionally sunk. Later in the same autumn, the
third boat, which was built of fir, was found at the side of the oak boat, and parallel
with it ; and on the 27th of October, 1863, it was laid bare in the presence of King
Frederick VII., and afterwards taken up.

The first of these boats had, at the time when these deposits were formed, been so
completely destroyed, that only fragments were found, and the state of these fragments
throws much light over the whole matter, because .the destruction was so evidently
intentional. The fragments, viz. planks with projecting ornamented clamps, and row-
locks but little different in shape from those belonging to the other boats, sufficiently
prove that the construction of all the boats was essentially the same.

It is to the second boat that we must principally direct our attention, because it
was not only the best presei-ved of the three, so as to allow of reconstruction, but fortu-

30 DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

nately for the interests of science, Mr. Stephensen, of Copenhagen, restorer of antiquities,
to whom the work was entnisted, succeeded in almost completing its restoration before
the commencement of the war in 1864. These investigations were then interrupted,
and the objects discovered scattered, the greater part being in all probability now lost.*

When first discovered, the boat was of course no longer in its original state. In
course of time the washers of the bolts by which the planks were fastened together
had corroded, the ropes joining the outer parts of the boat to the inner framework
had been destroyed, the planks in consequence had separated and reassumed their
original shape, the rowlocks had fallen from the gunwale, the ribs had sunk out of
their proper places, and lay in different directions, whilst the stem and stern-posts had
detached themselves from the bottom plank. By degrees, as the boat fell to pieces,
these sank to the bottom to about the same depth, whilst the peat, at the same time,
grew up around them, covering and protecting them from destruction. The shape of
the boat could not therefore be directly ascertained from the pieces found, and the
sketches of it given on Plate I. Fig. 1 and 2, were not made until, after the lapse of so
many centuries, it had been restored to its original form in the Museum of Northern
Antiquities at Flensborg. No drawing, however, can fully convey the striking im-
pression produced by the large, sharp, and well-built boat itself.

The boat is seventy-seven feet long, measured from stem to stern, and proportionally
rather broad in the middle, viz. ten feet ten inches, flat at the bottom, but higher and
sharper at each end ; it consists of eleven oak-planks, viz. five on either side, besides
the bottom plank, of which the keel forms part, the latter being only a little more than
one inch deep and fully eight inches broad at the middle of the boat, gradually dimin-
ishing and at last vanishing entirely towards the stem-posts (Plate II. Fig. 4 and 5).

On all the planks there are perforated clamps of one and the same piece with the
planks themselves, having been left projecting when the planks were cut out of the solid
timber, — a most surprising fact, considering the high development to which the smith's
art had been carried by the people of the Early Iron period ; a fact too, which proves

* The original intention was to form all the remains of boats and what belonged to them found at
Nydam into a separate naval division of the Museum of Northern Antiquities at Plensborg. The building
where the museum was, contained several lofts under its high roof, and in one of these the remains of the
oaic boat were brought and put together, filling the middle of the room, whilst oars, etc., would have been
arranged along the walls. But the war put an end to all this, as not only the supply of money ceased
with the authority of the Danish Government, by whose liberality the museum had been founded, and the
systematic investigations carried on ; but, moreover, the confusion consequent on the foreign occupation
rendered such work impossible, and I, myself, was soon compelled to leave the town. The chief part of
the collection had fortunately been removed previous to the invasion ; but the boat is, of course, still in
its place, and a friend who obtained a view of it when at Flensborg last autumn, states that it appeared
not much the worse, which, perhaps, may be ascribed to the circumstance, that many pieces of the old tim-
ber, particularly of the ribs, were found too weak to bear the strain of the new bolts, and therefore had to
be replaced by exact copies of fresh timber, made under my own superintendence. Of course, all the de-
scriptions and measures given above, are taken from the originals.

NYDAM BOATS. 31

that they must have possessed a great abundance of timber, as they would not other-
wise have wasted it to that degree, only in order to save a few nails, or to secure the
clamps so much better.

The boat is clinker-built ; the planks held together by large iron nails, at inter-
vals of five inches and a half, with large rounded heads outside, and square burrs or
washers inside (Plate III. Fig. 13). The spaces between the planks where they lap over
one another were filled up — caulked — with woollen stuff" and a pitchy sticky substance.
The planks are cut from very fine pieces of timber ; the bottom plank being forty-six
feet eight inches long, and all of one piece. On both stems, which are fixed to the
bottom plank by means of wooden pegs (Plate II. Fig. 8), there are ornamental grooves,
and each of them shows two large holes, which, to judge from the marks of wear, most
likely have served to pass the ropes through, when the boat was to be hauled on shore.
The ribs, which give the boat its shape, are mostly in their natural crooked and irre-
gularly bent shape, and rest on the clamps projecting from the planks, which form
regular rows across the boat, those on one plank exactly corresponding to those on the
next. The ribs have perforations corresponding to the clamps, through which bast
ropes were passed, tying planks and ribs together (Plate II. Fig. 2-5). This is again
a fact highly surprising in a nation familiar with the use of iron, and able to work it
so well, as their damascened swords prove that they could. At the same time, it is possi-
ble that a loose connection between the framework and the planking of the boat served
to give more elasticity to the sides, and that boats built in this manner went through
the surf and great waves easier than those more strongly built.

The shape of the gunwale will be understood from Fig. 5 a in Plate II. ; on it
were fixed the rowlocks, which, although made on the same general model, yet all
diff"ered from one another in size or in the details of the work. Fig. 15-18 on Plate
III. represent some of the best preserved. They were tied to the gunwale by means
of bast ropes, and in this case too it might seem surprising that for the fixing of sucli
important pieces as the rowlocks, recourse should have been had to such weak fasten-
ings, which must so often have required to be renewed. But this method had at the
same time the advantage of rendering it possible to turn them, when necessary, and row
the boat in the opposite direction, particularly as both ends of the boat are so exactly
alike, that it is difficult to say which is the prow and which is the stern. It is true that
the width of the boat at the fourth rib is a few inches greater than at the fifteenth rib,
which corresponds to it at the other end ; but this diff"erence is so small, that it was pro-
bably not intentional, and the boat has no doubt been designed to shoot through the
waves with equal speed, whichever way it was rowed. Its shape therefore, in some
respects, reminds us of Tacitus's description of the ships of the Suiones.* For their
ships diff'ered from those of the Romans, particularly in this, that the stems were exactly
alike, so that whichever way they were rowed, they had a prow fit for resisting a col-

• Germania, c. 44.

32 DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

lisiou or for landing ; and besides, the ships of the Suiones had no sails. Tacitus further
says of these boats, that their oars were not fixed in a row along the sides, but were
loose, as in certain craft used on rivers, and could be put into the water on either side,
as might be required ; but this part of the description would not apply to the boats
found at Nydam, for on them the oars were passed through loops of rope tied to the
rowlocks, on which the marks of wear by the oars are still quite visible ; they could
not be turned the other way without loss of time and labour, nor would it be possible
to back the oars for any length of time, or with sufficient precision, when they are
thus tied to the rowlocks.

It is a remarkable and very significant fact, which has only recently come to my
knowledge, that this curious kind of rowlock, so diff'erent from those now generally
adopted by seafaring nations, and which evidently in ancient times was used in this the
southernmost part of the Scandinavian countries, is still in use in their northernmost
provinces, viz. along the coast of Norway, from Egersund or Lister round the North
Cape to the frontiers of Eussia, a distance of twelve hundred geographical miles. The
boats used on this coast, called " Nordlandsbaade," Northland boats, remind us, in
many respects, of those discovered in Nydam. They are described as long, narrow and
low, light and elegant, fit both for rowing and sailing. I have had no opportunity of
seeing these boats myself, but, to judge from drawings of them, their outward appear-
ance is surprisingly like the Nydam boats. Only it seems as if these latter were pro-
portionally still longer and narrower, and consequently sharper, than the Northland
boats, as may be seen from the following comparative table of measures : —

A Northland boat may be . 42 feet long, 10 feet broad, with 16 oars.
The large boat from Nydam is 11 „ \Q\ „ with 28 oars.

A still closer approach to the dimensions of the Nydam boat is aftbrded by the
river-boats of the Norwegian Finns, which are longer, narrower, and flatter than the
Northland boats.

One of the Norwegian authors, from whose papers in " Folkevennen " of 1863 and
1865 these details are borrowed, — Mr. Diriks and Mr. E. Sundt, — states that " the North-
land boat, such as it is now and probably has been for centuries, aff'ords a model of those
clippers, which of late years have traversed the great oceans with such astonishing
speed, and probably are among the most excellent products of modern naval architec
ture." 1 have no doubt but that the boats from Nydam present us with at least one
of the models for the Northland boats, which on the occasion of the great herring and
cod fisheries on the coasts of Norway assemble to the number of ten thousand on the
Norwegian coast. For not only do they agree in the general form, but also in this, —
that the planks of the Northland boats are held together by clincher nails, in the same
way as the Nydam boats (whilst in more southern countries the boat-planks are now-
adays joined by wooden pegs), and more surprisingly still, in the peculiar construction

NYDAM BOATS.

33

of the rowlocks. It is therefore probable that this form of boat dates from a veiy
remote period when the "iron people" invaded Norway from the South and East
(Denmark and Sweden) and brought it with them from their former home. Mr. Diriks
says, " During the last century no change has taken place with regard to these boats
in Norway, for in some places in the Northlands, boats are met with, more than a hun-
dred years old, which are not different from those built nowadays. A kind of Northland
boat is also still in use in the Shetland Islands — one of the ancient appurtenances
of the Norwegian Crown. As for the
rowlocks of the Northland boats, their
shape may be understood from the an-
nexed figure, representing one of them
taken from a new boat built at Ranen-
fjord in the " Nordlands Amt," about lat.
66° N. They are called " Keiper," and the
same term (Keipr) is found in old Ice-
landic Sagas (Fornmanna Sogur), and in
Snorro's Edda, and is translated " scal-
mus navigii." The " Keiper" consist of a
piece of wood fastened to the gunwale
by wooden pegs, bearing an oblique pro-
longation at one end, and furnished with

a loop of wicker-work, rope, or leather, through Avhich the oar is passed, and which
prevents its slipping out of the Keip while rowing. These rowlocks, which evidently
are of the same kind as those on the Nydam boats, are in Norway considered superior
to the ordinary tholes, being not so liable to break as the latter.

At the side of the oak boat, about ten feet distant from the stem, the rudder was
discovered (Plate II. Fig. 9). Its length is nine feet seven inches, and near the middle
it has a hole, through which a rope may have been passed for the purpose of tying it
to the side of the boat ; just below this hole there is a little cushion of wood fixed
with three wooden pegs, intended to protect the rudder from injury by knocking or
grating against the side of the boat, and at the top end there is a loose piece with two
handles.

This is the most ancient form of rudder known. Rudders quite similffr to this
in shape and construction may be seen on many representations of the ships of classic
times, and always on the right-hand, " starboard," of .the steersman. Lateral rudders
were retained down to a rather late period, and are represented, for instance, on the
Bayeux tapestry (the middle of the eleventh century), in the bas-reliefs over the door
of the Leaning Tower at Pisa, built in the twelfth century, and on the seal of the town
of Sandwich on a document of 1238. This kind of rudder must have been in use even
after the middle of the thirteenth century, for in contracts concerning ships to be built

F

34 DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

for Louis XI., the builders promise to furnish them with two rudders. It was only at
the close of the thirteenth century that the side rudder was supplanted by the hinged
rudder now in use.*

In Fig. 6, Plate II., and 29, Plate IV., I have tried to represent hoAv the thwarts
were constructed, strengthened by two angular boards underneath, and supported by
three perpendicular pieces of wood. Only in one place, by the middle thwart, these
boards were tolerably well preserved ; but even there the ends were so soft as not
to admit of any very complete examination, and it remains uncertain in what way
they were fixed to the sides of the boat. A wicker-work mat covered the bottom of
the boat.

Oars were found in several places outside the boat. Their size and shape will be
seen from Fig. 19 and 20 on Plate III. I am unable to say what the use was of the
small tenon projecting from the end of the blade of one of these oars.

Nor can I give any further information concerning the large iron anchor, of the
same shape and construction as those now in use, which is reported to have been found
in the excavations instituted on the 8th of August, 1864, by Prince Ahrenberg, in the
Austrian service, and which may have belonged to one of the boats.

For further details concerning the structure of the boat and Avhat belonged to it,
externally and internally, I beg to refer to the four first plates, and the explanation of
them at the end of this work.

As I have stated before, the oak boat had been intentionally sunk by means of
large holes cut in one of its sides imder water-mark ; at the same time it had been
caused to lean over on that side which was nearest the shore, that is, on the north-
eastern side. Besides this, the stem-posts had in course of time detached themselves
from the bottom plank, leaving a large opening at each end. All these circumstances
had necessarily caused a great part of the contents of the boat to float or drift out of
it. But a part remained, and showed, in several respects, an intentional arrangement,
objects of the same kind being accumulated into heaps at particular places.

Besides some stones of moderate size heaped together in one of the partitions
about the middle of the boat, and probably serving as ballast, the following objects
were found in the oak boat :

A great number of round sticks, a little more than three feet long and one inch
diameter, with a peculiar kind of perforation at the ends (Plate III. Fig. 23). They
were found in heaps in the partitions between the thwarts, in one place near the
middle, as many as thirty or forty together in a bundle ; others quite similar were also
found in the fir boat. Their use is unknown.

Large pieces of wood of another kind, forty-one to sixty-two inches long, the ends
dilated, rounded and perforated (Plate IV. Fig. 26), were frequently found both inside
and outside both boats, but their use is equally unknown.

* A. Jal, ' Archeologie IS&Y&Xe' pastim ; Smith's ' Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul.'

NYDAM BOATS. 35

A pair of massive roughly-cut poles, found in the oak boat, may have seiTcd for
sho\dng the boat along. A precisely similar pair was found in the fir boat. Their
length is in one case thirteen feet ten inches, and in the other twenty feet seven inches.
(Plate III. Fig. 21 and 22.)

Two brooms, of thin branches tied together by means of string, and just like the
modern brooms, were also found in the oak boat, but the broomsticks were not dis-
covered.

In one partition of the boat, the principal contents were boards of shields, in an-
other, arrows and wooden vessels ; near one of the stems there were several swords,
and small axes, and all the bronze fibulae.

There were besides, discovered scattered in different parts of the boat, some glass
beads, a comb of bone, an earpick and forceps on a ring, several vessels and basins of
wood and clay, one clay vase containing a comb of bone ; several axes, partly like
the modern ones, partly like the so-called celts;* many knives; two shield bosses,
one of which was of iron, covered with silver, which again was overlaid with gold ; a
single iron spear ; several wooden bows ; a wooden figure of a bird with one flat side
(vide the transverse section, Plate IV. Fig. 33), which looks as if it might have served
as an ornament on a boat, etc.

The objects found in the boat entirely correspond with the other objects found at
Nydam.

The Jir boat was tolerably complete when first discovered, and its different parts
were brought on shore during the next following days after it had been laid bare and
the contents taken out, in the presence of King Frederick VII., on the 27th of October,
1863. In order to protect the timber of this boat until the restoration of the oak
boat was finished, it was covered over with peat, but before anything could be done
to save it, the country was occupied by hostile armies in the spring of 18Q4. The
foreign occupants did nothing to protect it, — a forcible proof of their want of true in-
terest in that country of the history of which it forms so valuable an illustration !
Since the Germans took possession of the Duchy, the fir boat has remained on the
field, exposed alike to the destructive influence of the weather and the Vandalism of
strangers. Parts of it have been carried away, and the last remnant Avill probably soon
be destroyed and disappear.

. I can only offer my readers sketches of the most remarkable parts of this boat ;
a representation of it in its perfect condition could only have been obtained if it had
been reconstructed, or if, such as it was, it had received at the hands of the foreigners
that attention and care to which, in a scientific point of view, it was so justly entitled.
The bottom plank (vide the chemitype overleaf) was about fifty-one feet four inches
long, and ended in two points, which probably have carried long and pointed iron

* It should be observed that Danish archaeologists restrict this appellation to axes aud chisels with
hollow sockets for the reception of the shafts.

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NYDAM BOAIS.

37

spurs ; if so, these spurs must have been under water. I cannot with certainty deter-
mine the elevation of the stems, hut refer to the annexed Figure, f.

Of the side planks an idea may be formed from Fig. g ; they have had clamps
ornamented with mouldings, and cut out of the same piece of timber as the planks,
just as in the two oak-boats. The shape of the rowlocks is somewhat different, and
they have formed a continuous row along the gunwale, as indicated by Fig. 24 and 24 a.
Plate IV. which also show the way in which each of them was joined to its neighbour.

Fig. g represents a fragment of one of the side planks of the fir boat, with projecting clamps,
and marks in the wood of the burrs of the rivets. The thickness of the planks is one inch, and the
breadth between nine and ten inches. The intervals between the rivets seven inches. Fig. h repre-
sents a clamp viewed from the side. The clamps were fifteen inches and a half long, one inch and
three-quarters high, and one inch and a quarter broad.

In this boat, as in the oak boat, the planking was tied to the ribs by ropes passing
through the holes in the clamps, and the principle of the construction was the same ;
the great peculiarity of the fir boat being the terminal prolongations of the bottom
plank, which probably have carried iron points, — a dangerous weapon of attack, equally
fit for sinking an enemy's vessel, or holding it firm while being boarded. The boats
provided with these spurs have been a kind of rams, and remind us of the account of
the ships of the Meopari in Aithiko's ' Cosmography.'

As in the oak boat, the bottom was covered by a mat of wicker-work.

In several places the timber had cracked and been repaired by patches of wood.
Two such, one nearly thirty-two inches long, the other five inches and a half long, have
been figured on Plate IV. Fig. 31 and 82. On their inner surface, there are vestiges
of the caulking material, consisting of woollen woven stuff", and a pitchy kind of sub-
stance similar to that used for fixing the feathers on the arrows.

In and near this boat were found a pair of poles like those found in the oak boat,
and a number of the pieces figured on Plate III. Fig. 23, and on Plate IV. Fig. 26, such
as were also found in the oak boat ; as well as a wooden water-conduit (of which it was
impossible to determine the length, as only a part could be exhumed) ; on one side of
which the outline of an animal was roughly carved (Plate IV. Fig. 28) ; and finally, two

•■O ^ iX-^h

38 DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

wooden scoops (Plate IV. Fig. 35 and 36), one of which was in fragments sufficient only
to show its size, the handle alone being entire. The boat contained several vessels
of wood, amongst which a large tray, seventeen inches and a half long by four inches
deep inside, the thickness of the wood being half an inch (Plate XIV. Fig. 25) ; further,
many fragments of damascened swords, many metal fittings for sheaths, the sheath for
a knife (Plate XV. Fig. 1); a wooden quiver (Plate XIII. Fig. 63); a wooden club
(Plate XV. Fig. 15) ; a basket of bast, containing a net (Plate XIV. Fig. 14); a crow-
bar, and several other objects. In the fore-end some shafts of lances were found, and
outside the boat, close under one of its sides, lay a thick board eight to ten feet long
and one foot and a half broad, but it is not clear for what it was used. The objects of
iron found in the boat had suffered much from rust.

The boats here described I consider to have been merely rowing-boats, not destined
to carry sails, and in forming this opinion, I rely principally on the fact that neither
masts nor any signs of rigging have been discovered, nor any arrangements in the boats
for fixing the necessary ropes. It is true that in the middle of the bottom plank of
the oak boat, as well as of the fir boat, there is a hole of about one inch and a half
diameter, but these holes are too small to have carried masts, and may have served for
letting out water when the boats were hauled on shore, as was probably the case at the
beginning of the winter.

The discovery of these boats at Nydam affords the first recorded instance of the
remains of ancient ships being so well preserved as to render the reconstruction of a
complete ship possible. It is true that such remains are known to have been found in
tumuli, both in Scandinavia (at Ultuna,* and at Lackalanga,f in Sweden, at Borre,}
near Horten, in Norway), and in England, viz. at Snape, in Suffolk,^ Avhere a boat was
dug out forty feet eight inches long, nine feet six inches wide, and three feet ten inches
deep, clincher-built (seven nails occupying a space of three feet, that is, about the same
as in the Nydam boats), and containing some human hair, a gold ring with a Roman
engraved gem, and fragments of a glass vessel with projections at the sides, of a shape
similar to that found in the boat discovered at Borre, and known from several graves
in England, France, and Germany, belonging to the later part of the Iron age. (See
C. Roach Smith's Coll. Ant. vol. ii. pi. li. ; Cochet, Normandie Souterraine, pi. x., etc.)
From the accounts of these discoveries of ships in tumuli, it appears that they
were clincher built, but the form and other details were not observed, nor indeed could
it be expected that much should remain of boats buried in tumuli. So much, however,

• B. E. Hildebrand's account in the report of the seventh meeting of Scandinavian Naturalists, Kris-
tiauia, 1856, Appendix, p. 644.

t Described by N. G. Bruzelius in the ' Annaler for Nordisk Oldkyndighed,' 1858, p. 179.

X Described by Nicolaysen in the Eeport for 1852 of the Society for the Preservation of Norwegian
Antiquities.

§ Davidson, in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, 2nd series, vols, ii.-iv. p. 177.

NYDAM BOATS.

39

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may be considered certain, that all these instances of ships buried in tumuli belong to
the last division of the Iron period.

Nor is it possible to derive any certain knowledge from the so-called
" skibsssetninger," rows of stones set so as to form the outline of a boat,
as in the annexed chemitype, and which probably were the burial-places
of Vikings ; nor from the representations of boats on Runic sculptured
stones, which, like the " skibsssetninger " and the tumuli just mentioned,
belong to the latter part of the Iron age. They are too rude to give an
insight into details of structure ; and the same is the case with the so-
called " hallristningar," engraved on the sides of rocks and on large stones
in Scandinavia, and I suppose also in England. These last figures pre-
sent the additional difficulty, that their age is not to be determined with
any degree of certainty.

Similar and equally rude representations of boats have been found
even on bronze implements, presumably older than the boats of Nydam,
— for instance, on the knife found in Ditmarsh, and copied below from
Kemble's ' Horae Ferales,' p. 228.

Hollowed trunks have been used at all times, and are still used on
many rivers and lakes, and, no doubt, afforded the earliest means of
crossing such waters, but even if it were possible to determine the age of
those which have been found embedded in sand and mud at the bottom
of rivers and inland lakes, we could not, of course, gather from them
any information as to the ancient principles of naval architecture pro-
perly speaking.

From all this it follows" that neither with regard to the Bronze age,
nor with regard to the later part of the Iron age, do we possess any in^
formation on this subject which in any way could render a comparison
possible between the ship-building of those periods and the state of this
art during the Early Iron age in Denmark, so fully and surprisingly
illustrated by the boats discovered at Nydam.

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40 DENMARK IX THE EARLY IRON AGE.

2. WEAEING APPAEEL.

(Thorsbjerg, Plates 1-3.)

The number of objects belonging to this class is not considerable, but they give,
nevertheless, a good idea of the dress of those times, though only as regards the men ;
for neither in this bog nor in any of the others, where similar deposits occur, has any-
thing been found distinctly connected with female dress or female occupations.

1. Two Cloaks were found at Thorsbjerg, each made of a square piece of woollen
cloth, woven in a twill-pattern, the lower edge adorned with a boi'der and fringe. The
pattern is shown in Plate 2, Fig. 4. They measure fifty-two by forty-one inches. One
is of a dark-brown colour, owing to the tanning influence of the bog-water ; the ori-
ginal colour cannot now be determined. The other shows a greenish colour at the
bottom, the fringe being yellow and black. Several fragments of woven cloth with
borders and fringes, belonged seemingly to similar cloaks ; among them is a specimen
of remarkably fine texture, a piece of which is shown in Plate 2, Fig. 5.

2. A Kirtle of woollen woven cloth, thirty-four inches and a half long and twenty-
one inches broad (Plate 1), composed of two pieces, the seams being sewn Avith black
woollen thread of three plies. Fig. b represents the border below. The sleeves have
separately woven borders of a very fine and elegant texture, a piece of which is repre-
sented in Fig. c. The sleeves, moreover, are made of another, and, I presume on ac-
count of their being exposed to wear, stronger sort of cloth, with a diamond pattern —
Fig. a — resembling that of the stockings in Plate 2. This jacket is a very good in-
stance of the singular state of preservation of many of these objects, though one of
the sleeves was almost torn away, and the kirtle itself had many and large rents.

3. Two pairs of long Trowsers of woollen cloth, somewhat coarser than the above-
mentioned garments. The stockings of another and finer cloth than these, and woven
with a diamond pattern, are sewn to them. The best-preserved specimen is forty-six
inches and a half long and forty inches round the waist ; the length of the foot eleven
inches and a half These measures indicate a strongly-built man of more than average
height. At the waist are several straps through which the belt was fastened. This
pair of trowsers was found rolled up; their condition when imrolled is shown by
Fig. 1 in Plate 2.

4. Leather Coverings for the Feet. — A leather sandal in a single piece for the left
foot, discovered at Thorsbjerg, is represented on Plate 3, Fig. 1. It is stitched to-
gether at the heel, and tightened around the toe by means of straps, and, perhaps, but-
tons ; its length from heel to toe is nearly eleven inches ; under the sole two long
impressions in the leather are observable, indicating the place in which an additional
sole had been fastened. On one side of the heel is still preserved a little silver-plated

SANDALS. 41

bronze rivet, probably intended for the strap of the spur. The ornaments appear to be
of a quasi-Roman style. Another simpler and coarser sandal, without ornaments, was
found, and some fragments of others, one of which was furnished along the edge of
the sole with a row of nails with silver-plated heads.

It is extremely rare to find any wearing apparel among the relics of ancient times,
and this is the only known specimen of a tolerably complete dress of the third century
A.c. From the Bronze age we fortunately possess a perfect suit of woollen cloth, found
upon a skeleton in an oaken trunk in a barrow called Treenhoi, parish of Vamdrup, and
preserved in the Copenhagen Museum.* Compared with this earlier dress, the gar-
ments now discovered indicate a much higher skill in weaving. Sandals of Roman
origin, much like those here found, have been frequently discovered in the Thames, -f
and the bogs of Ireland have yielded many specimens that correspond with ours in
shape. I

3. PERSONAL OENAMENTS AND AllTICLES OF THE TOILET.
(Thorsbjerg, Plate 4, and Nydam, Plate V.)

1. Fihulce are of frequent occurrence in Denmark during both the Bronze and the
Iron periods. They present great variety in shape and ornamentation, and are found
not only of simple forms and common materials, but — especially those of later date —
of costly metals, and adorned in a very magnificent manner. More than sixty speci-
mens were brought to light in Thorsbjerg, in two varieties of shape, circular and bowed.
The former are rare in Denmark, and only two were found in Thorsbjerg; they are
made of bronze, plated with gold and silver, and furnished with concentric rings of
very elegant small silver beads, an ornamentation highly characteristic of this period
(Plate 4, Fig. 6 and 7). The other fibuliB from Thorsbjerg Avere of the bowed form,
the principal varieties of which are shown in Plate 4, Fig. 1-5 and 8-13. Many of
them are ornamented with thin plates of precious metals. From Nydam we have only
nine fibulae, all of heavier and less elegant forms than the Thorsbjerg specimens
(Plate V. Fig. 12-14). The common forms are well known among the contents of
Danish tumuli of this period.

2. Two silver Clasps, from Nydam, one set with blue glass, are figured on Plate V.
Fig. 1-2.

* Good drawings of the contents of this barrow are given in Mr. Madsen's ' Afbildninger,' an ably-
illustrated work on our antiquities, to which I wish to draw the attention of archaeologists.

t See C. 11. Smith's ' Catalogue of the Museum of London Antiquities,' 1854, p. 67.

X Compare Sir W. E W^ilde's ' Catalogue of the Antiquities in the Museum of the Royal Irish
Academy,' p. 281 et seqq.

G

42 DENMARK IN TIIE EARLY IRON AGE.

3. The originals of Plate 4, Fig. 17-20, and of Plate V. Fig. 19-21, have proba-
bly been Buttons ; they are too large, it seems, to have sei-ved as beads, and have be-
sides, a Hat and unornamented base, while beads are usually ornamented all over. The
buttons, Plate V. Fig. 19 and 20, are particularly remarkable for their resemblance to
the well-known urns from old English cemeteries. (Compare Nydam, Plate XIV. Fig. 22.)

4. The chief types of the Beads are shown in Plate 4, Fig. 22-24, and Nydam,
Plate V. Fig. 18 and 22. They are either of agate or made of opaque or transparent
glass, or vitrified porcelain. These are sometimes of the same material throughout,
sometimes made of stems of glass of many different colours, so combined as to form a
variegated whole. Sometimes the designs are produced by melting enamel of various
colours into gi'ooves made on the surface of the beads. Beads of this description are
widely diffused all over Europe and the East, but, at least in Denmark, they were not
in common use prior to the first appearance of iron. Through the Iron period they
appear to have been a common article of commerce, being very similar in all countries.
Those here mentioned, for instance, will be easily recognised as resembling specimens
found in England.

5. Two bronze spiral Finger-rings, of three coils (Plate 4, Fig. 16).

6. Among the fragments of gold rings,
cut to pieces in order to serve as ring-money,
six were discovered to have formed originally
a Bracelet (see the subjoined figure). The
other fragments of rings will be mentioned
under the head of ring-money (Plate 16).

7. Attention must be drawn to some
small bronze and silver Pendants in the form I-

-, j^ of weights (Plate 18, Fig. 3, and Nydam, Plate V. Fig. 15 and 16), and in one instance

* ' ' ' 'shaped like a little basket (Nydam, Plate V. Fig. 17). Similar pendants have been

U^L4.^n^,

lately discovered in Vimose, to the number of six, hanging on a bronze ring, five inches
in diameter. They may perhaps have been filled with a heavy substance, and have
served as weights ; in Vimose we discovered scales of bronze very like the oi-dinary
form of the present day.

8. A little Bulla of gold is figured on Plate 4, No. 14, which shows the reverse,
with nine holes, forming an irregular cross. The front is hollow and was perhaps
originally filled with a precious stone, or a piece of coloured glass, now lost.

9. A gold I}rop-orna7nent (Plate 4, Fig. 15) was the only one found here, though
they are of frequent occurrence in Denmark and in the northern part of Germany.*

10. Combs of bone were found in Nydam, but not in Thorsbjerg. They are made
of one piece, as Plate V. Fig. 10, or composed of two pieces, as is the case in Fig. 11
in Plate V. where the small rivets are of iron, or of many pieces, as Fig. 9 in the same

♦ Many specimens are figured in the Meklenburgische Jahrbiicher.

ARTICLES OF THE TOILET. 43

Plate. One comb was found in a bronze buckler, another in a vessel of clay, discovered
in the oak boat.

11. Tweezers of bronze and silver were often found on the same ring with ear-picks
(Plate 4, Fig. 25 and 26, and Nydam, Plate V. Fig. 3, 4, 6-8).

12. Among the objects of the toilet may also be classed a double-barrelled Silver
Box (Nydam, Plate V. Fig. 5), which may have been an ointment pot, and appears to
have been hung on the same ring with Fig. 4 and 6. Certain small Boxes (Thorsbjerg,
Plate 17, Fig. 6, and Nydam, Plate XIV. Fig. 15-17) may belong to the same class.

4. A DIE OF AMBER.
(Thorsbjerg, Plate 4, Fig. 27.)

The edges of this die are rounded, so that it cannot stand on 1 and 6 ; the num-
bers are marked by means of concentric circles. This is the only object of the kind
which has been found in Slesvig, though draughtsmen are frequent elsewhere, and a

draught-board was found at Vimose.

5. AEMS OF DEFENCE.

These have been found in considerable numbers, and are among the most im-
portant objects discovered in the mosses. Helmets, coats of mail, swords and shields
of Gothic origin, were formerly unknown of so early a date ; they are now illustrated
by good specimens discovered in these deposits. Other defensive armour, as greaves
and vambraces, have not been found ; nor does it appear from the accounts of historians
that such were commonly, or even occasionally, used among the Goths. We shall en-
deavour to point out, under each head, what must be assigned to Roman, or at least
Romanized ■workmanship and art, and what, judging from shape and style of ornament,
belongs to the Goths. The former will be found to be very few, compared with the
latter.

a. Coverings for the iTead.

(Thorsbjerg, Plate 5.)

It is probable from the accounts of historians, that the head-coverings of the so-
called barbarian nations were of light and perishable materials, and this may explain

G 2

44 DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

their very rare occurrence in those graves in which weapons have been deposited with
the dead. Procopius (de Bello Gothico, i. 21) indicates the high rank of a man among
the Goths by telling us that he wore a helmet. Among the Heruli, only the king, it
would seem, was permitted to wear this piece of armour. (Warnefried, de Gestis Longo-
bard. i. 20.) In the poem of Beowulf, helmets are often mentioned ; the circumstance,
however, that they have individual names seems to show that they were held in high
estimation, and probably worn only by pei-sons of high rank, not by common soldiers.
Even among the Romans, helmets were not in universal use. Vegetius, in the latter
part of the fourth century, says that, according to old custom, the light infantry wore
caps made of hides.

With this information, gathered from written sources, the discoveries of g,ntiquities
entirely agree. A richly ornamented helmet of bronze was discovered in 1862, in an
ancient channel of the Seine, and is now preserved in the Louvre. It was described
in ' Revue Archeologique ' for 1862, and spoken of as having probably belonged to some
of the Oriental chiefs following Attila on his expedition against the Western Empire.
Mr. Franks has lately,* with great propriety, assigned it a place among a great many
corresponding objects belonging to the Late Celtic period.

Another headpiece, formed of iron ribs, was found in a barrow of inconsiderable
elevation — about six feet from a skeleton — ^on the farm called Benty Grange, near
Monyash, in Derbyshire; it belongs to a late period, probably the sixth or seventh
century, t

In Scandinavia several instances are known of iron helmets having been found in
tumuli in which boats were deposited, and which appear, from their contents, to have
been the burial-places of men of very high rank. These also are of a much later time
— the last period of heathendom.

The Nydam deposit has only yielded some very questionable fragments of helmets
(Plate V. Fig. 23 to 27) ; and all the objects hereafter described as belonging to hel-
mets have been found in Thorsbjerg.

L Fig. 1 in Plate 5 represents a fragment of the back of a Boman Helmet of thin
bronze. A gi-eat many smaller fragments found along with it indubitably belong to
the same helmet, but we have not succeeded in restoring it further than is shown in
the drawing. The workmanship, no less than the ornaments imitating flames, the
thunderbolt, and the star, surrounded by a wreath, suffice at a glance to mark its purely
Roman origin.

2. The Bronze Serpent, of which the engraving, Fig. 2, gives a good idea, once
probably ornamented a Roman helmet. Remains of a soldering material are left on
the under surface.

* See Kemble, ' Horae Ferales,' London, 1863, p. 171.

t Bateman, ' Ten Years' Diggings,' London, 1861, p. 28; and C. E. Smith, ' Collectanea Autiqua,' ii.
p. 238.

SILVER HELMET.

45

3. Fig. 3 in Plate 5 represents an extremely remarkable Silver Helmet, unique
among all the objects of the Early Iron age. It is composed of two pieces, the mask
for the face and the crown, which latter is shown separately in Fig. 4. They are
fastened together by a moveable hinge with three rivets. The mask is of silver, lined
with bronze plates, and externally, in many places, covered with thin gold plates. It
weighs, in its present imperfect state, about a pound and a half. The neck-piece is
formed of thin silver ribs plated with gold, and decorated in the same manner as the
visor. The imitations of birds' heads as ornaments occur very frequently on objects
from the peat-mosses, and exclusively, I believe, on objects dating from this period,
of which they may therefore be considered characteristic, nor are they as yet known
from other countries. (Compare especially Thorsbjerg, Plate 10, Fig. 36 and 37, and
Fig. «, in page 19, of a belt-loop of a scabbard from Vimose ; see also Thorsbjerg, Plate
15, Fig. 27, and Plate 18, Fig. 8.)

4. The use of the Curved Plate, figured in No. 47, Plate 11, one of the gems of
the Flensborg collection, has not been ascertained. It
has most probably decorated the front of a helmet, like
the last mentioned. But whatever its use, it is an interest-
ing object, on account of the embossed figures represented
on it, affording good evidence of the advanced art of the
Goths at the time of their arrival in Denmark. The art,
indeed, is " barbarous," but yet by no means undeveloped.
The annexed woodcut shows the profile, half-size. The
piece is composed of a thick bronze plate, with the rims
bent up, and externally plated with silver and gold, in
which representations of animals are worked in relief by
the aid of dies. Above and below are two rows of human
heads in profile, covered with a curious sort of helmet
with ear-flaps; every alternate head is plated with gold,
and all are struck from the same die. The five principal
animals in the centre are a hippocampus, a Capricorn, a
wild boar (the Gullinborste perhaps, of Northern mytho-
logy), a bird, probably the raven of Odin, and the last,
from its posture, a fox or a wolf. The interstices between
these larger animals are filled with smaller figures of fishes,
and a lizard with cleft tail and open mouth. A glance at

the engraving will prove, that the style of art does not show the least trace of Eonian
influence ; it is rather, we should say, Oriental, and has many features in common with
that of the celebrated golden horns found at Gallehuus, in the parish of Mogeltcinder,
South Jutland, unfortunately stolen some sixty years ago.

46 I>ENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

b. Chain Armour.
(Thorsbjerg, Plates 6 and 7.)

The chain armour found at Thorsbjerg (at Nydam no relics of this kind have been
discovered) is composed of interlinked iron rings, generally in alternate rows of riveted
and welded rings, so that four riveted rings are fitted into one welded ring, and vice
versa ; occasionally, however, all the rings are riveted, and in one instance the rivets
are of bronze, whilst the rings are of iron. The rings average a little less than half
an inch in diameter. Borders for the sleeves and the lower part of the hauberk, of
very elegant riveted rings of bronze, were also found, showing the ordinary circum-
ference of the hauberk to be forty inches, and that of the sleeves, eighteen inches and
a half. Five or six specimens of hauberks of this description were met with, all of
them rolled up ; sometimes they contained small fragments of iron swords and mount-
ings in bronze, appertaining to various other weapons, and in two instances they Avere
placed in vessels of burnt clay — circumstances which clearly show that these things
were intentionally deposited in the moss. The coats of mail being much corroded, we
are left in ignorance of their shape ; but we may presume from representations on
Roman monuments of about the same period, that they reached to above the knees,
and that the sleeves were short.

These, as well as the breast-plates and buckles belonging to them, are of Roman
workmanship, yet, as will be shown hereafter, they also testify to an intercourse be-
tween the Romans and the Goths.

It is evident that the Breastplates represented by Fig. 1 in Plate 6, and Fig. 7
in Plate 7 are of Roman, or perhaps rather Romanized manufacture ; the art is of
no very high character, and we are inclined to consider them as having been copied
from better models by barbarian artificers in the service of Roman armourers. The
dies for the Medusa-heads, in open work, surrounding the inner boss, those for the hel-
meted warrior sitting or half-reclining in his chair, with his sword before him, and
leaning his left hand on a buckler, as well as the dies for the small genii, and the
various animals on the outer rim, as, birds, serpents, dolphins, and hippocampi (which
are repeated many times), are all certainly fashioned after Roman prototypes. On the
other hand, however, it js evident that the eight small figures — fishes, birds, horses, and
mythical animals, — each fastened by two rivets to the angles of each of the four com-
partments of the plate, did not originally belong to it ; nor have they been applied as
restorations, for in the upper compartment, from whicb they were removed after the
plate was found, in order that the original might be seen in its entirety, no defect or
mark is to be obseiTed, except the four holes for the reception of the rivets of Fig. 1 c
and 1 d. These small animal figures are undeniably barbarian, even in comparison with
the breastplate, and we cannot account for this, otherwise than by presuming that the

BREASTPLATES.

47

plate must have fallen into the hands of a people, to whom the small figures, which
had been afterwards riveted to the plate, bore a symbolical meaning, or were at least
pleasing and tasteful as decorations.

The breastplate, represented by Fig. 7, may perhaps originally have corresponded
to that last described. The platings of the outer rim may at some time have been torn
off, and in its stead a plate with embossed figures of animals have been applied. Enough
of this outer rim is left to give an idea of the whole. The same representation of
three different animals, with a dolphin between them,— the first and the last of the four
larger animals preserved being from the same die, — has doubtless been repeated round
the whole outer rim, as we often find to be the case in representations of this kind ; for
instance, on a silver goblet from Himlingoie, in Sealand, represented in Worsaae's
Antiquities, p. 77. The arrangement of the figures on the gold-plated upper rim is
shown on the annexed woodcuts, full size.

The breastplates consist of a framework of bronze, with thin platings of gold and
silver. Their diameter is five inches.

Besides the breastplates, four pairs of buckles, examples of which are figured in
Nos. 4-6, and 8, in Plates 6 and 7, evidently belong to hauberks.

Coats of mail, it is believed, were introduced into Europe from Eastern countries ;

48 DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

"^hey were in common use in the fourteenth century, but the elegant manufactm-e of
riveted rings has been hitherto regarded as unknown prior to the fifteenth century.
The coat of mail of the early middle age, as it is seen for instance on the Bayeux
tapestry, is usually regarded as having consisted of iron rings fastened on to a leather
jacket ; but as chain-armour has now been found associated with antiquities of the thii'd
century, we are justified in believing it to have been known in the earliest period of
the middle ages.

It is, nevertheless, probable that such armour must have been very precious and
rare, even among classic nations. According to a Greek author of the middle of the
second century B.C., only those wore such ring-mail who possessed more than ten thou-
sand drachms, the less opulent covering their breasts with plates of metal (Polybius,
vi. 21). From representations on Roman sepulchral slabs, of the first centimes of the
Christian era, we see that coats of mail were used, but we cannot determine whether
the rings were riveted or not.

In Northern countries, no previous discoveries of ancient chain-mail of an earlier
date have been made. A fragment of interlinked rings was found with a human
skeleton outside the gate of St. Severinus at Cologne.* It appears, however, from
the other relics discovered with it, to be of a somewhat later date than ours.

c. Shields.
(Thorsbjerg, Plate 8.)

Shields formed an important part of the military equipment ; they were circular
and flat, their diameter ranging from twenty-two inches and a half to forty-four inches.
In the centre was the opening for the hand, the usual shape of which is seen in Fig. 4 ;
the wooden handle (Fig. 5) was inserted across the opening, and fitted into a notch on
each side of it. Various metal coverings for the wooden handles are represented in
Fig. 6-10. In front of the opening was the boss of metal, concave on the inside.
Rims of metal usually protected the edges (Fig. 19-22 and Fig. 32). The mountings,
several varieties of which are represented in Fig. 23-31, served for repairs, and perhaps
also for decorations.

A great many Boards, once portion of shields, were found in both mosses, sepa-
rately as well as in layers one on the other, and, as already stated, sometimes transfixed
by javelins, as if to keep the whole together. Boards thus fixed together did not how-
ever, by any means usually belong to the same shield, and in spite of the great num-
ber of single boards presei-ved, we have only succeeded in making up three complete
wooden shields, one of which is represented by Fig. 1. These sufiice, however, in con-
nexion with the many fragments, to show the details of the framework.

• See ' Collectanea Antiqua,' vol. ii. 148.

SHIELDS, HANDLES, AND BOSSES. 4&

The boards, varying in breadth from three to nine inches and a half, are smoothly
planed, and traces of the planing tool are clearly seen in many places ; their average
thickness is represented in Fig. 2 and 3. They are of a soft sort of wood, probably alder ;
occasionally also oak or deal boards were found, thougli these latter were very rare.

How the eight or ten boards, of which the shield was composed, were kept toge-
ther, we cannot tell. One fragment with a covering of thin leather, and only one, was
brought to light, but such a cover appears insufficient to liold the boards in their places,
even if we presume that the shields were usually strengthened in this manner. In one
instance only, among the many hundred boards which were found, small square pieces
of wood (or dowels) projected from the edges so as to fit into notches made in the next
board. On one board, traces of an iron mounting were found, but its form could not
be recognised, the iron being much corroded. With these few and doubtful exceptions,
no trace is left of the manner in which the boards were kept together ; the weak cylin-
drical metal rim does not seem sufficient for this purpose.

The Handles of wood were fastened to
the shield by wooden pegs, the metallic cover-
ings by rivets of iron or bronze. (See Fig. 5-10
in Plate 8, and the annexed chemitype.) Wooden handle from Nydam. i.

The Bosses were made of iron and bronze, rarely of silver, wood, or wicker-work.
As the iron in Thorsbjerg moss has been decomposed by the peat-water, no bosses of
this metal have been preserved there, though some small fragments indicate that they
once existed, and from their frequent occurrence at Nydam, where the water is less
corrosive, we may even conclude that iron bosses have been abundant at Thorsbjerg also.

The annexed chemitype shows the usual form of
the iron bosses found at Nydam, which were more
than sixty in number, and for the most part provided
with thin bronze rims. A very few umbones of
bronze, hammered very thin from a single piece of
metal, and of the same shape as those of iron, were
also found at that place. The costliest of the bosses *■

from Nydam consisted of an iron frame covered with a thin plate of silver, overlaid
with a thin plate of gold without ornaments.

The majority of the bosses from Thorsbjerg are of bronze, and of two kinds.

1. Fig. 11 and 12 represent good examples of the six bosses of Roman origin
found here ; their diameter varies from six to seven inches ; the metal is commonly
thicker than that of the other kind. On one is an inscription in dotted Roman
letters, ael. aelianvs.* It may be the name of the owner, or that of the general, for

* The names occur on a sepulcliral slab in the Lateran church at Eome. See Muratori ' Novus The-
saurus Veterum Inscriptionum,' p. 1126, n. 2. See also Gruter, 697, 7. Similar repetitions occur in the
names ^milius ^milianus, Fabius Fabianus, Vibius Vibiauus, etc.

H

50 DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

it was common in the later times of the republic, and during the first centuries A.c,
for the Roman soldiers to inscribe the name of the general on their shield-bosses. (See
Mr. A. W. Franks, " On Bosses of Roman Shields," Archaeological Journal, 1858,
vol. XV. p. 55.)

2. Those of the other kind, of which sixteen have been found, are of Gothic origin.
They average six inches and a quarter in diameter. The metal is surprisingly thin,
so as to render it probable that many of them have been furnished with some inner
support. The edges have almost always been protected by metal rims. The chief
peculiarity of these bosses consists in an opening at their top for the reception of a
hollow or massive spike — as shown by Figs. 17 and 18 in Plate 18, the use of which
I had not found out at the time when the plate was engraved. Some have also a
mounting of the kind represented in Fig. 14, Plate 8, fastened by a rivet on the
inner side of the hollow. Another variety is shown in the annexed woodcut of a frag-
ment of a silver boss from Thorsbjerg.

Two objects which have obviously served as inner supports for
such thin bosses of metal have been preserved. One in size and
shape perfectly resembles the bosses of metal, but is made of com-
paratively thick wood.* The other, the original of Fig. 15 (Plate
8), is composed of wicker-work. That these bosses are of Go-
thic origin, is probable from the workmanship, the peculiarities
of form, and a Runic inscription on one of them ; as well as from
the ornamental details and the style of art of the fragment figured
i- in Fig. 18 (Plate 8.). The latter presents some peculiarities worthy

of notice. Representations of living forms for decorative purposes were at this period
usually either worked in relief by the aid of a die, or engraved in the metal as is the
case on a bronze vessel found at Baunshoi (Worsaae's Ant. fig. 302). On the fragment
in question, however, the indented ornaments and the figures of animals are cut out of
a very thin gold plate, and then soldered to the silver boss. The Runic inscription
occurs on the inner side of the outer rim of one of the very thin bronze bosses, it con-
sists of six distinct letters engraved rather carelessly with a pointed tool (Plate 8,
Fig. 16).t

Commonly, the shields have been provided with rims consisting of thin plates of
bronze, or more rarely, of silver, fastened round the edge by rivets through the metal
itself, or through small projecting roundels. (Plate 8, Fig. 19-22, and the annexed figure
a.) A few shields have been found without any appearance of having been strengthened
in this manner. Traces of old repairs and restorations have, as we might expect, been
often found not only on the thin metal bosses, but also on the wooden shields. The

• In the course of the diggings in Vimose, in Fyen, in 1865, no less than five wooden umboncs were found,
t The runes have been read by the Eev. D. Haigh as aisc ah (Aisc owns). See ' Archaeological
Journal,' 1863, voh xx. p. 298.

HOW THE SHIELD WAS USED.

51

various forms of metal mountings used for the latter purpose may be seen in Plate 8,
Fig. 23-31, especially in Figs. 23 and 23 «, the wood having been in this instance pre-
served. Compare also the tvpo annexed figures b and c.

Nydam.

Nydam. \. Silver.

Having met with Roman bosses among the antiquities from these excavations, we
might naturally expect also to light upon Roman shields. But all the fragments, with-
out a single exception, indicate shields of the above description, and none agree either
with the square and convex shield {scutum), or with the oval and hollow shield {clypem)
of the Romans, such as are described by historians of the second century, and are
represented on the triumphal arches of the later emperors.

There is another and very important difference, viz. as to the manner in which the
shields were carried. The Roman shield, it is well known, had two loops on the inner
side, one for the arm to pass through, the other for the hand. The Gothic shield, on
the contrary, was intended to be held in the left hand before the body ; the warrior's
skill and dexterity was shown by handling it so as to catch the javelins and darts of the
enemy, and in close combat so as to protect the body against the blows of swords and
axes. In this respect, the following account of one of the last battles between the
Romans and the Goths in Italy, in the vicinity of Mount Vesuvius, is of interest. The
king, says Procopius, De Bello Gothico, a.d. 553, " stood covered by his shield in the
front of the little band of warriors that was left. The Romans attacked him, hoping
that his death would decide the battle in their favour. The king of the Goths caught
the missiles with his shield, and occasionally he rushed forward and killed one of his
opponents. When he observed that the weight of the javelins bore down his shield,
he called to his attendant to give him another. After he had thus fought about the
third part of the day, it happened that twelve javelins were sticking in his shield,
so that it was difficult for him to move it, and at the. same time keep the enemy at
a distance. He accordingly called to his attendant, without stirring from the spot.
With his sword in his right hand he carried havoc among the enemy, while he kept
back those that thronged upon him by the aid of the shield in his left hand. But
while changing his shield, his breast for a moment was left uncovered, and a javelin
pierced" him."

H 2

52 DEXAL4.RK IN TIIE EARLY IRON AGE.

In the poem of Beowuilf, the shield is called " the refuge of warriors," " the won-
drous war-board," and other names that obviously show the great importance attaching
to it at that time. And yet the thin wooden shield with which we become acquainted
from the peat-mosses, must have been a very weak defence. Nor were the shields of
a later period of Northern antiquity stronger than these. In Kormak's Saga, for in-
stance, we read that each of the warriors in a single combat had three shields at his
disposal, carried by an attendant, and when these were shattered, they had to finish the
combat with their swords.

6. OFFENSIVE WEAPONS.

The principal kinds of oifensive weapons known to antiquity, such as swords,
spears, bows and arrows, are represented in our moss-deposits, and many specimens are
in a fine state of preservation. We shall first consider —

a. Swords.
(Thorsbjerg, Plates 9-11, and Nydam, Plates VI.-IX.)

The peat-water, as I have before observed, had decomposed almost all the iron
objects of the Thorsbjerg deposit ; only a few fragments of iron blades remained, and
these much oxidized ; a dark streak, hardly discernible in the peat, was, in most in-
stances, all that was left. Occasionally small fragments, wrapped up in chain-mail, were
discovered, but from these it was impossible to infer anything as to the form and manu-
facture of the weapon.

Fortunately, the discovery of more than a hundred swords in Nydam moss sup-
plied this deficiency.

The Nydam swords are of iron, long, straight, and two-edged ; the blades are for
the most part — ninety out of a hundred — richly damascened in various patterns, and
afford good illustrations of the poet's sword, " the costliest of irons, with twisted hilt,
and variegated like a snake " (Beowulf). Iron wires, arranged in patterns, have been
laid in grooves made in the surface of the blades, and then the whole has been welded
together, so that the surface must originally have been smooth. That we now see the
patterns raised is probably owing to unequal oxidation. Among the many elegant
and ingenious patterns represented on Plates VI. and VII., I would call special attention
to Fig. 5 and 5a, with borders of flowers freely rendered in twisted iron wire.

It is no uncommon thing to find the blades ground hollow (compare Fig. 3 a, 1 2 a,
and 19 a), but blades with facets (Fig. 14), and without damascening are, as I have

SWORDS, HILTS, AND SHEATHS. 53

already observed, very rare in this deposit. Neither has a single curved sword or seax,
such as are frequent at Vimose (see p. 20), been discovered in the two Slesvig mosses.

The Nydam swords are between thirty and forty inches long ; the blades are one
inch and a half to two inches and three-quarters broad near the hilt, from which
the breadth gradually decreases until about one inch from the point.

On the tangs and blades of some of the Nydam swords are found different stamps
(Fig. 2, 14, 18, and 22), and inscriptions with raised Eoman letters in sunk squares,
Ricvs (Fig. 18), RicciM (Fig. 20), cocillvs (Fig. 21), vmorcd (Fig. 22).* Inscriptions,
which, on account of the oxidized state of the iron, cannot be read, occur on three
other tangs.

On the original of Fig. 18 we have the number xx., and on the blade of a broad
sword without damascening (Fig. 17), two figures resembling Runic letters are inlaid
with golden wire (Fig. 17«); they stand on a conspicuous part of the blade, and pro-
bably may have had a magic signification.

In Thorsbjerg was discovered a wooden sword (see Plate 9, Fig. 3), which has
attracted the special attention of antiquaries, for it is, oddly enough, not the only
wooden weapon found in the mosses. In the same depository there was a spear-head
of wood, and the excavations of Vimose in 1865 also brought to light a wooden sword.
These weapons cannot have had a warlike destination, but may have been vised for the
practice of recruits, as Polybius mentions (x. 2) that wooden swords, over which a
leather covering was stretched, were used for such purposes, f Nevertheless we should
perhaps rather consider those found in our mosses as votive offerings to the gods, in-
tended to take the place of the real weapons.

Hilfs of swords were dug up in surprisingly great numbers ; with only one excep-
tion, those from Thorsbjerg are made of wood; nearly all have metal ornaments, or
are mounted with plates or nails of metal. The greater portion are of the description
figured in Figs. 1 and 2 on Plate 9. Most probably they have all been covered with
leather, stretched over them while it was yet wet. They consist of three pieces : — the
pommel, for varieties of which see Fig. 9, 11, 13, and 14, the grip, and the hemi-
spherical piece below (see Fig. 8, 12, 15, and 19). They are, it will be seen, differently
ornamented. The exception alluded to above is a fragment of a very magnificent hilt,
of which two pieces remain (Fig. 10 and 10 h), consisting of bronze plated with gold
and silver. This form of the hilt is commonly seen on sepulchral monuments dating
from the decline of the empire.

Another variety of hilt, represented by various figures on Plate VI., and Fig. 5 in
Plate 9, was of much rarer occurrence in Thorsbjerg, but very common in Nydam.
These consist of cylindrical pieces of wood, with plates of bronze and silver, and some-
times also of bone, the two cross-pieces above and below being quite similar in shape.

* The fourth letter may be r instead of e, and the sixth p instead of d.
t Compare also Vegetius, 'De Ke Militari,' vol. i. 11.

54 DENMARK IN THE EAKLY IRON AGE.

Many specimens of this description are known from Kragehul (p. 21) (Worsaae's Ant.
no. 330). Another found in a barrow near Ssetrang, in Norway, is described in the
' Annaler for Nordisk Oldkyndighed,' 1836-37, and a very similar specimen found in a
barrow at Coombe, in Kent, is described in C. Roach Smith's ' Collectanea Antiqua,'
vol. ii. 164.

The wooden hilt, figured in Plate 9, No. 4, is hitherto unique. The aperture
below, shown in Fig. 4 «, would appear to indicate a single-edged sword-blade with a
broad back, though no such swords have been discovered in the turbary deposits of
South Jutland, but only in the Vimose in Fyen.

The Sheaths were composed of two very thin wooden laths, held together at the
edges by mountings either of wood, partly cut out of the same piece with the front
lath, or of metal. Among the latter, two varieties may be distinguished. Of one
variety only two specimens were discovered, represented on Plate 10, Fig. 31 and 42.
The swords to which they belonged were evidently of early Roman, or at least
Romanized form, short and broad, and the mountings of the sheaths are also of
Romanized work and stjde, diff'erent from the others dug up in the same locality. The
original of Fig. 31 was cut in two, one half was laid on the other, an additional proof,
if any were needed, that the objects were deposited intentionally. Of the hundred
swoi-ds that were brought to light by the diggings in Nydam moss, not a single one
would fit such scabbards as these which were found at Thorsbjerg.

The ordinary sheath, of which Plate VIII., Fig. 26, will convey an idea, is narrower
aud longer than the last mentioned. From some fragments it would appear that they
were sometimes covered with leather. The laths of which they are composed are mostly
so thin, and were so saturated with water, that it was only with great difficulty some
fragments could be taken up from the great depth at which they were laid, and pre-
sen'ed. Many of the mountings are distinguished for their tasteful forms and elegant
workmanship. I beg to draw attention to the chapes, and the mountings for the middle
of the sheath, forming a loop through which the thin end of the sword-belt (see Plate
11, Fig. 48) was passed for the purpose of suspending the sheath. Many examples of
them are shown in Plates 9-10 and VIII.-IX. The more costly ones are manufactured
in a manner characteristic of this period, a plate of bronze being decorated with a thin
casing of precious metal, in which various ornaments are wrought. The original of
Plate IX., Fig. 44 of iron, with a pattern inlaid with gold wire, is hitherto unique
among our antiquities. The patterns, it would seem, are quite Pompeiian.

The original of the chape (Fig. 41, Thorsbjerg, Plate 10) has a Runic inscription of
two lines, one on each side, and each consisting of ten letters.* This inscription is written
in the earlier Runic alphabet, which was in use prior to that found on most of the Runic
stones in Denmark, almost all of which date from the last centuries of heathenism. This
earlier alphabet difi'ers from the later in the shapes of several runes, and but few of the
♦ See the ' Archaeological Journal,' 1863, toI. xx. p. 298.

SWORD-BELTS AND TPIEIR MOUNTINGS.

00

inscriptions have hitherto been satisfactorily read. They have in Denmark been found
chiefly on portable objects, and eleven instances of such are known, besides many on
bracteates.* It would, however, in my opinion be a mistake, if from the circumstance
that large monuments with the earlier Runic letters have not hitherto been discovered
in our country, we should infer that the portable objects we have mentioned have be-
longed to a people which only passed through the land on their way to another country.
It appears from the contents of the graves, and their frequent occurrence in all parts of
Denmark, that the people to whom these relics must be assigned settled regularly, apd
remained here for a long period.

Girdles and shoulder-belts of leather were of very rare occurrence. Fig. 48
in Plate 11 represents a shoulder-belt, with a large button, of a shape frequently found
in deposits of the earlier Iron age in this country. One extremity of the belt, it will
be seen, ends in a very thin and narrow strap, which passing through the belt-loop, was
twisted several times round the wooden sheath.

Metal Mountings for girdles were found in great numbers. Those of the types
figured in Thorsbjerg, Plate 11, No. 49-51 and 53-55, are of rare occurrence. The fylfot
ornament, crux Gothica, as it is sometimes called, occurring in Fig. 55, is highly charac-
teristic of this period. About two hundred buckles and square girdle-ornaments — of
shapes resembling those figured in No. 52 and 57-67 in Plate 11 — were dug up in
Thorsbjerg. The greater number are of bronze, plated with silver, occasionally also
with gold, and variously ornamented, in the same way as other articles found in this
deposit. The buckles of the forms 63 to 67 are, no doubt, of Gothic origin, the others
we should be inclined to look upon as of Romanized style and work. How many
square girdle-ornaments appertained to a complete set, I cannot determine. The
highest number found of corresponding pieces was fourteen, and this number I think
would suffice, with proportionate intervals, to ornament the belt the whole way round
the waist.

* The eleven instances alluded to are the following: — 1. An umbo of bronze (Plate 8, Fig. 16 and
IG a ) and 2. A scabbard-tip of bronze (Plate 10, Fig. 41), both from Thorsbjerg. 3. An iron sword
(Plate VII. Fig. 17 and 17 a), from Nydam ; and 4. Several wooden
shafts of arrows (Plate XIII. Fig. 36-39), from the same locality.

5. Silver mounting for a sheath (Worsaae's Antiquities, no. 381).

6. A bone comb ; and 7. A wooden plane, covered with no less
than eighty runes in five lines — all three from Vimose — the two
last pieces found in 1865. 8. A fragment of a wooden shaft, re-
presented in the accompanying woodcut ; compare p. 22. 9. A
golden diadem (ibid. no. 366), from Sfcaarup, in Slesvig. 10. One
of the celebrated golden horns, from Gallehuusin South Jutland, — since stolen and melted down. 11. A
bronze fibula (ibid. n. 384), from Baunshoi, near Himlingoie, in Sealand. Thirty-seven bracteates of gold,
bearing inscriptions in these runes, are known, besides duplicates. Among our Kunic stones there are
nine, which, having regard to the form of characters on them, may be considered as belonging to a tran-
sition period. The author is indebted to Professor Stephens for these details.

56 . DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

The buckles from Nydam (Plate IX. Fig. 53 to 66) are of simpler work, and
appear, on the whole, to be of Gothic origin.

We have, for the sake of convenience, considered all the buckles under this head,
but it is scarcely necessary to point out that though the greater portion were adapted
for belts, others may have had a different use, as, for instance, for harness.

b. Lances and Javelins.

(Thorsbjerg, Plate 12, Fig. 1 to 4, and Nydam Plates X. and XL)

Judging from the sui-prising numbers of wooden shafts and iron spear-heads found
in oui- bogs, the spear must have been a common weapon among the people whose
relics we are considering. In Thorsbjerg, however, nothing remained of the heads,
except in the very few instances where they had been deposited wrapped up in chain-
mail, in which cases small fragments were left. From these, however, we are not able
to determine the usual form, but iron spear-heads of about the same period have been
dug up in other Danish mosses, especially at Nydam, where they occurred in great
number and variety.

The general form of the shaft will be better understood by reference to Plate 12,
Fig. 1, and Plate X. Fig. 5, than by any description. It was mostly made of ash; the
butt-end was rounded, and has never been furnished with a spike. The average length
is about nine feet ; the longest shaft was ten feet, the shortest eight feet ; the diameter
commonly one inch. On the middle of the shaft are often found either small bronze
rivets between which a cord had been fastened, or a mounting of bronze ; both of them
probably for the purpose of indicating the point of balance for the weapon Avhen

thi'own, something like the amentum of the Greeks.*
See Fig. 2, 3 and 4 in Plate 12, and the annexed che-
mitype. The original, of which our illustration gives a
fragment, is a complete shaft of the length of eight
feet three inches ; from the fracture in the middle there are forty inches and a half to
the pointed end, and fifty-eight inches and a half to the butt-end ; we may accordingly
suppose that the iron spear-head must have had a weight equal to a piece of a wooden
shaft of the length of about eighteen inches and a half.

* In a notice on the weapons of the Greeks in the ' Eevue Archeologiquc' of 1862, N.S., vol. v. p. 175,
M. Penguilly I'Haridon observes, " L'amentum ... est una courroie phjcee a quelque distance du centre
de gravite du javelot, et dans laquelle s'engagent les deux premiers doigts de la main droite. Quand on lance
le trait, l'amentum fait a peu pres 1' office de la corde d'une fronde et augraeute la force d'impulsion du
bras de toute celle que peuvent fournir les doigts de la main." And afterwards : " L'amentum plie en
deux, lie au bois par un nceud ordinaire, presente une ganse simple, ou s'engagent les deux premiers doigts
de la main dressee en I'air, la paume en dessus." See also the representation of a javelin with the amen-
tum on a Fanathenaic vase, with black figures, in the British Museum, given by M. Merimee in the ' Eevue
Archeologiquc,' 1860, N. 8. vol. ii. p. 211.

AWLS ; BOWS AND ARROWS ; QUIVERS. 57

The principal varieties of form of the five to six hundred iron spear-heads from
Nydam are the leaf-shaped, the bayonet-shaped, and the barbed. They vary in length
from five inches and a half to twenty-three inches and a half, and have commonly a
socket into which the pointed end 6f the wooden shaft was driven, and fastened with
one or, in a very few cases, two or three rivets. Some specimens have flat tangs, to fit
into the split end of the shaft (Plate XI., Fig. 30, 33, and 45). These are sometimes
furnished with a ferrule at the junction of the spear-head with the shaft (Plate XI.,
Fig. 45, a and h). The rivets are commonly of iron, sometimes of bronze.

Most of the spears are devoid of ornament ; but some specimens have points and
stripes engraved in the metal, or a little round plate of gold let into the round part
of the iron (Plate X., Fig. 9), or else a little wheel-shaped ornament of gold similarly
inlaid (Plate XL, Fig. 40). Some of the first-named ornaments were perhaps grooves
for the reception of gold or silver wire.

The spear-heads were often found in heaps, and, as it would appear, were originally
deposited wrapped up in cloth, as was frequently found to have been the case in the
Vimose deposit.

Before leaving the subject of the blades, I may mention that a wooden spear-
head was found in Thorsbjerg, probably destined for the same use as the wooden
sword mentioned at page 53.

The great length of these spears renders it probable that they have been used by
horsemen rather than by foot soldiers, who at any rate would have great difiiculty in
wielding weapons of that length.

Under this head I shall also group —

c. The Awls, .

(Thorsbjerg, Plate 12, Fig. 5 to 8, and Nydam, Plate XV., Fig. 18 to 28,)

because they were chiefly used, I think, for the purpose of making a new hole
when the thin spear-shaft had been broken immediately below the Iron head, as must
often have been the case. They have been part of the wariior's equipment, and
the handles are accordingly perforated for the reception of a cord, by which the awl
was worn suspended from his girdle in the same manner as the whetstones hereafter to
be described. Fragments of bast-cords still remained in some holes. The handles are
of wood or of bone, from two inches and a half to four inches and a half long, and
sometimes very elegantly ornamented. '

d. Bows and Arroivs ; Quivers.
(Thorsbjerg, Plate 12, Fig. 9-11 and 15, and Nydam, Plates XII. and XIII.)

According to written testimony, bows and arrows were used by all ancient races,
and the Goths, we are informed, made general use of these weapons for their infantry,

58 DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

though not for their cavalry. They used to commence the battle with missiles, and
the Romans often suffered from their superiority in this mode of fighting (Procopius,
and Gregory of Tours). Nevertheless the actual construction of ancient bows and
arrows has hitherto been but little known, in consequence of their being made of such
perishable materials, and the only remains preseiTcd were arrow-heads of flint, bone,
and bronze, mostly found in the graves of the Stone and Bronze periods. Nor indeed
could we expect to find iron aiTow-heads in the graves of the Iron age, on account of
the oxidation of the metal.

The wooden long-botv, which was held vertically by the middle in the left hand,
is uniformly straight, thicker in the middle, and of decreasing thickness towards the
ends. The common length is about five feet; different sections are given in the Plates.
The bows have at both ends crossed bands of thread to fasten the string, or else notches
in the wood for the same purpose. They are generally flat on the inner side and con-
vex on the outer, the edges being a little rounded. No less than forty bows of this
description were found in Nydam; some were discovered in the boat, and about fifteen
lay together. It is to be observed that two of them had spikes, one of iron, the other
of bone (Plate XII., Fig. 10 and 15), so that in case of need these bows may have been
used as spears. In Thorsbjerg bows occurred less frequently, only three specimens
having been found, but these had elegantly-engraved designs on the outer side ; the
various carved ornaments are shown in Plate 12, Fig. 9 a, 9 b, and 10 a.

Arroiv-shafts occurred frequently in both places, as frequently almost as javelins,
sometimes in bundles of twenty or thirty. They exhibit all the same elegant form
as represented in Plate 12, Fig. 11 and 11 a; they are from two feet three inches to
three feet long ; the diameter of a section in the middle is shown in full size. Fig. Wb.
One end i« pointed and cleft for the reception of the tang of the head, or, in very
rare instances, merely pointed so as to fit into the hollow socket of an arrow-head.
The other end shows where narrow bands and thread were twisted round it, in order,
perhaps, to secure four rows of feathers, of which, however, no portions remained. The
shafts found in Nydam are remarkable on account of the frequent occurrence upon them
of different signs (represented in Plate XIII.), which may have served as the owners'
marks. The victors could thus after battle collect the proofs of their successful valour,
and not be deprived by others of the honour of their deeds. As an illustration, we are
reminded of the arrow which the Danish King Sven TveskjfEg sent round among his
guests, at the festival in commemoration of his father's death, and which was acknow-
ledged \fy Palnatoke as belonging to him.

As all aiTOw-heads, which were probably of iron, were wanting in one of these
peat-bogs, it was a happy circumstance that great numbers of them were preserved in
the other, for though the two deposits cannot be regarded as quite contemporary, we
may be justified in combining the general forms of objects from one of these deposits
with those of the supplementary remains found in the other, and thus obtaining a com-
plete idea of the weapons of the time.

WHETSTONES, HARNESS. 59

The one hundred and seventy specimens of arrow-heads of iron and of bone
brouglit to light in the diggings in Nydam, present different forms, of which the leaf-
shaped, the four-sided, the three-sided, and the barbed, are the most common. Their
length is between two inches and a half and six inches, and ornaments are rarely found
upon them. (Plate XII., Fig. 5, 6, and 18-32.)

Nydam moss is the only peat-deposit which has yielded quivers. One of them was
of wood and richly decorated. (Plate XIII., Fig. 03.) Of the other, only the bronze
fittings seem to have been deposited (Plate Xlll., Fig. 64), as no traces of the quiver
itself were left.*

Whilst the spears, on account of their length, as already stated, must have been
ill adapted for warriors on foot, and therefore, as well as the small shields of about
two feet in diameter, most likely were used by the cavalry, — bows and arrows, we think,
belonged to the infantry ; swords, no doubt, were common to both.

e. Wlietstones,
■ (Thorsbjerg, Plate 12, Fig. 12, and Nydam, Plate XIIL, Fig. 65-69.)

most probably used for sharpening smaller weapons and instruments, such as arrow-
heads and awls, occur frequently in almost all deposits of this period, and the syste-
matic excavations brought forth no less than about one hundred specimens. They
are small oblong stones, with traces on the broad side of their use for sharpening,
and either left in their natural shapes, or with a groove worked round them for the
reception of a cord by Avhich they have been carried hanging from the girdle. A few
square stones of a soft substance are also known from these deposits. (Plate XIIl.,
Fig. 67.)

7. HAENESS.
(Thorsbjerg, Plates 13 to 16, and Nydam, Plate XIV.)

A great number of bridles, bits, and other portions of horse-trappings,
a driving-rein, and fragments of waggons, prove abundantly that the
people of the Early Iron age had a full knowledge of the use of the horse ;
they had trained the animal to their service, and understood how to ride
it as well as to use it for draught. The beauty of the bridles and of the

* A bronze end-socket of a quiver (see the accompanying woodcut) was found along with
other objects near a skeleton in a gravel-pit by Aasoe, in Sealand. "We have undoubtedly
similar specimens preserved in the bronze objects represented in Plate 15, nos. 42 and 141,
of Neville's ' Saxon Obsequies,' London, 1852, and there described as boxes.

I i

60 DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

various metal fittings of the harness, and the surprising metallurgic skill evinced in
them, -will convince us of the advanced state of civilization in this respect in the Early
Iron age. It -will be seen by the following description, that much care was employed
in the manufacture and ornamentation of horse-trappings, and that precious metals
were often used for their decoration. Many of the articles, however, which we now
consider as necessary for the horse and rider, were then unknown. Stirrups, saddles,
and horse-shoes came later into use ; the earliest known specimens seem to belong
to the last period of heathenism, between the sixth and tenth centuries.

The Goths, according to ancient writers, made good cavalry soldiei'S, and we are
told that Justinian the First, during a war, purchased horses of them. To procure
provender for their horses, they chose for their place of assembly a town surrounded
by extended plains. (Procopius, de Bello Goth.) These statements, it is true, apply to
a somewhat later time, when the Romans had come into close contact with the Goths
on the frontiers of the Empire, and afterwards in Italy, but they hold good also as
regards an earlier part of their history. Horses are frequently mentioned, and the
names of the horses of the gods are cited, in our earliest mythological poem, the Older
Edda. It was a favourite anim^il with one of the gods, and when Baldur died, his horse
was led on to his funeral pile.

The only tolerably well-preserved head-stall which is left from antiquity was found
in Thorsbjerg, and represented in Plate 13, Fig. 1, some details being drawn full-size
in No. Iff to Id. It is almost complete, and in all essential points wonderfully like
some of those used nowadays. It is made of stout leather, ornamented with bronze
studs, of which the heads are silver-plated. The drawing shows the ordinary trian-
gular openings for the horse's ears formed by the head, the front and the crown strap
in the middle. A large stud indicates the place where we fix the rosette, and beyond
this crossing point the continuation of the front forms a throat-lash, whilst that of the
head forms the head-pieces on each side, in which the snaffle-ring is suspended by
means of hooks passing through slits in the lower ends of the head-pieces. To the
snaffle-rings are attached, besides the hooks for the head-pieces, the bridle, which con-
sists of flat rings joined by solid links of bronze ; a strap, of which only a fragment
was left, but which no doubt was a lip-strap, taking the place of the chain, and finally
a bronze case for the reception of the bit, which must have been of iron, but which is
now destroyed. All the other pieces of metal are of bronze. The crown-strap is con-
tinued beyond the front into a large face-piece, by which an ornamental plate of bronze
was suspended, which in the head-stall in question is only a fragment, but of which
perfect specimens are represented in Plate 15, No. 26-31'. To the sides of this plate,
which protected the nose of the horse, smaller straps were evidently attached, which
were tied behind the lower jaw of the horse, or perhaps to the snaffle-rings, thus
performing the office of the nose-strap, and keeping the plate in its place. If this sup-
position be correct, it will be seen that not a single necessary piece was wanting,

HORSE-TRAPPINGS AND REMAINS OF WAGGONS. 61

and that the harness makers of those times thoroughly understood the principles of
their art. The two large transverse straps at the top of the drawing evidently de-
scended one on each side of the horse's neck ; but the use of them cannot be determined
with certainty.

Besides this complete set, a great many single pieces were discovered in Thors-
bjerg, whilst only a veiy few were found at Nydam, where they all lay near skeletons
of horses.

Of hits we found only one at Thorsbjerg,
which was of bronze (see the accompanying
figure). But six iron bits with snaffle-rings
were discovered at Nydam, three of them Bronze, i.

between the jaws of horses' skulls.

Several bronze bridles and fragments of one similarly shaped, but of iron, were dug
up at Thorsbjerg. Some terminate in square metal pieces, ornamented on the outside,
and with remains of a leather coating inside (perhaps remains of a leather middle-piece
for the hand ; see the drawing of the complete head-stall).

Three pairs of snaffle-rings with cheek -plates and mountings attached for head-
pieces and leather bridles, but without trace of the bit, were found at Thorsbjerg.
(See Plate 14, No. 12, 13, 14.)

Several nose-fieces destined to protect the horse's nose, are represented on Plate
15, Fig. 26-31; they are purely characteristic of the Thorsbjerg and the Vingsted
deposits, none like them having to my knowledge been found elsewhere. They are
certainly not Roman, and must be regarded as aifording a special instance of " barbarian"
contrivance.

A very great number of ornamental studs and bosses for placing along the leather
straps, as may be seen in our figure of the complete headstall, and in representations
of such objects on Roman sculptures of the first centuries after Christ. They occur
in a great variety of shapes, figured in Plate 13, Fig. 2-11.

A still greater number (about two hundred) of a very peculiar kind served pro-
bably for fringe-like ornaments for the edges of leather straps, of which remains were
discovered on their cleft ends. (See the Profiles 42 a and 43 a on Plate 15.) Their
principal varieties are represented on Plate 15, Fig. 36-48, and Plate XIV., Fig. 6-11.

One bronze spur only was found in Thorsbjerg (Plate 15, Fig. 32 and 32 a) among
so many other objects belonging to harness. It is not complete, as the conical spike
which we know from other contemporary specimens (compare pp. 12 and 15) to have
belonged to it, is now wanting; being .probably of iron, it has corroded. In
Nydam we found several iron spikes like the original of Plate XIV., Fig. 5, which may
probably have belonged to spurs.

Of doubtful use, but certainly appertaining to harness, are the following objects
from Thorsbjerg: —

6 -J DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

1. Four bronze objects; like that sho^^^lin Thorsbjerg, Plate 14, Fig. 22 and 22 a.

2. The pendant, Plate 14, Fig. 23, which ought perhaps to have been drawn in an
inverted position. It somewhat resembles a very large spur, and this kind is of rare
occurrence in Denmark ; in Ireland, however, they are frequently found in somewhat
similar foi-ms; and Sir W. E. Wilde* is of opinion that they may "have been slung
from the rings of the bridle-bit, or were attached beneath the horse's jowl. In the
latter position," he observes, " they could only serve as ornaments ; in the former, they
would prevent the horse from grazing."

3. The bronze object represented by Fig, 16, 16 a, and 16 b, in Plate 18. At the
time when the plates were being engraved I could not determine its use. Afterwards I
saw in the Copenhagen Museum a similar piece, found near Ebeltoft, in North Jutland,
proving that whatever its use may have been, it belonged in some manner to a bridle.

Along with all these antiquities from Thorsbjerg were dug up some remains of
^vaggons, the principal of which was a fragment of an oak wheel, (see Fig. 2 in Thorsbjerg,
Plate 16,) much like those of the present day, and composed of several smaller
pieces held together by strong wooden pegs or dowels. The projecting ends of the
spikes served to protect the felloe, so that the rim has not been furnished with any
metal tire. Judging from the fragment presei'ved, the wheel was little less than three
feet in diameter. The original of Plate 16, Fig. 3, I take to have been one-half of a
splinter bar. Some large pieces of wood, which may also have belonged to a chariot,
were unfortunately so incomplete when taken up, that no definite idea of their use
could be formed.

Here may also be mentioned a complete drimng-rein (Fig. 1 in Plate 16), ten feet
six inches long, formed of three leather straps joined together by small bronze rings.
The complex leather straps figured within the rein were found together with it, but we
cannot make out for what purpose they were intended.

8. AGEICULTUEAL IMPLEMENTS.

(Thorsbjerg, Plate 16, and Nydam, Plate XV.)

1. A scythe blade from Nydam (Plate XV., Fig. 17), about fifteen inches long, was
so much corroded that its exact fonn could not be ascertained, nor its breadth deter-
mined. Similar objects are known in their perfect state from Vimose on Fyen, and
from La Tene, in Lake Neufchatel.f

• In his ' Descriptive Catalogue,' Dublin, 1861, p. 608-9.

t Sec Keller, 'Pfahlbauten,' 2terBericht,Ziirich, 1858 ; aud Desor, ' L'Age du Fer dans les Constructions
du Lac de Neufchatel' (' Musde Neuchatelois,' Sept. 1864).

DOMESTIC VESSELS, BASKETS, .IXES, AND CLUBS.' 63

2. Wooden harrows and rakes were found at Thorsbjerg (Plate 16, Fig. 4), one of
which is about seven feet long, although the shaft is not complete. The latter is roughly
hewn, square, and terminating in a pointed end to be passed through the transverse
piece, which is furnished with wooden teeth about nine inches long. Some shafts have
perforated holes to receive a cord by which to draw them, for they are so clumsy and
heavy that one man could not manage them.

3. Several tethering-poles of neat workmanship, with a deep notch in the upper
end, and between five and fifteen inches long, were also discovered at Thorsbjerg.

9. OBJECTS OF DOMESTIC USE.
(Thorsbjerg, Plates 16, 17, and Nydam, Plates XIV., XV.)

The deposits contained a large number of houselwld vessels both of clay and of
wood, spread over the whole area; but the water had decomposed some, and the
superincumbent layers of peat had broken many to pieces, so that comparatively few
remained in such a state of preservation that the forms could be ascertained. The
clay of which some are made is mingled with pulverized quartz. We draw particular
attention to the clay vessel represented in Plate XIV., Fig. 22, because of its evidently
common parentage with many pieces of pottery found in German and Old English
graves.* A few similar vessels have been found in burial places in Slesvig. The sizes
and forms of the other vessels are various — large cooking-vessels, household pottery of
ordinary sizes, platters, cups, and goblets. . Almost all were, as I have already stated,
discovered a little beneath the layer of antiquities ; many were sunk by means of large
stones, and in the handles of some were found remains of cords. In one instance, a
wooden vessel was found inside an earthen pot ; another was discovered in a basket
of wicker-work, and two of the earthen vessels contained half of a hauberk of chain-
mail rolled up and including fragments of small iron objects, such as spear-heads,
knives, etc. The largest cooking-vessels had marks of fire at the bottom, and were
about sixteen inches high. Examples of the ordinary household pottery are given in
Plate 17, Fig. 21 to 23 ; they are of the average height of four inches and a half The
mast elegant, though a very common form, is represented by Fig. 10-12; some of these
vessels — the original of Fig. 10, for instance — are so symmetrical in shape, that there
is good reason to believe they were turned on a lathe, while all the others seem to be
hand-made. These also aff"ord the oldest known examples of a black vitrified glaze,
and are formed of a finer clay than other specimens. Other forms, but of more rare

* Kemble ou Urus Irom Stade-on-the-Elbe, iu ' Horse Eerales.' Loudon, 1SG3.

64

DENMAEK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

occurrence, are seen in the small cups or goblets, Fig. 13, 18, 19, and 24, of rough
workmanship. The original of Fig. 20, it would appear, is a crucible.

On the whole they are devoid of ornament, and where such is found, the figures
have been roughly and carelessly engraved on the moist clay. (See Fig. 14 to 17, and
19.) The originals of 10 a and 11 are exceptions, the handle and the ornaments being
more carefully executed. The fylfot ornament on the bottom of a vessel (Fig. 11a)
deserves attention.

The wooden vessels — Plate 17, Fig. 1 to 8 — are usually of elegant forms and well
finished. So far as we can judge from the original of Fig. 1, a block of wood was first
roughly chopped into shape, and then turned on a lathe. Wooden vessels have been
found in the four mosses, in which systematic diggings have been made, and they
apparently formed the finer and more elegant household vessels of the Iron age.
Besides these, we have from the Nydam find a large and thick water-trough, roughly
hewn (Plate XIV., Fig. 25), and staves of a wooden pail (Fig. 24) ten
inches and a half high, Avith traces of metal hoops. It would seem
also that barrels have been deposited in this place, for the original
of the annexed figure is certainly a stopper for a wooden barrel.

Fig. 6. Plate 17, rei^resents a little wooden box with a cover.
I cannot indicate its use, but several similar specimens were disco-
vered in Nydam. (Plate XIV., Fig. 15-17.)

Fragments of baskets of wicker-work were of frequent occur-
rence ; the pattern in which they were usually plaited will be seen
in Plate 16, Fig. 12.

The axes of this period are of two different kinds, as repre- *• Wood,

sented by Plate XV., Fig. 10 and 13. The latter is of the kind commonly called
" celts." These socketed celts of iron have been discovered not only in Nydam, but
also in Vimose, though the shaft in the last-named locality was somewhat different.
Both sorts of axes were implements of domestic use, we suppose, and not niartial
weapons.

In both places wooden clubs were brought to light; but those from Thorsbj erg
were on the whole finer and more elegant than the specimens found in Nydam. (Com-
pare Plate 16, Fig. 5, 9, and 10, with Fig. 15 and 16 in Plate XV.) Some of these
clubs are made out of one piece of wood ; in other cases, the heads are of a harder
wood than the handles.

I cannot determine the exact use of the — ^j^sss^^MST^

original of the annexed figure. It may pos-
sibly have been used as a sort of crowbar.

Under the head of domestic objects, we have also to mention knives and spoons (Plate
16, Fig. 11, 15-17, and Plate XV., Fig. 2-9). At Thorsbjerg only the handles of the
knives were left, and they are smaller and more elegant than those from Nydam. The

EIXG-MONEY AND COINS. 65

last-mentioned find contained eighty-six specimens of knives, of which many were well
preserved and complete, between six and thirteen inches long, with broad backs, and,
in a single instance, the blade was hollow-ground. The handles are usually made of a
hard sort of wood, and unornamented. Only one handle of solid brass was found.

The piece represented by Fig. 1 in Plate XV. is supposed to have been a sheath
for a knife. It is roughly cut out of wood and has a groove round the top, in which
there are remains of cords. It was found beneath the fir boat.

Another article which was also discovered near the fir boat may have served as a
Jishing-net. It is formed of cord, and fastened to a piece of wood of a singular shape
(Plate XIV., Fig. 14).

There were found, moreover, twelve pieces of pyrites (Plate 16, Fig. 13) for
striking fire. Steels for that purpose are not yet known as belonging to this period.

Knotted and plaited fabrics, cords, and strings of bast were frequently met with
over the whole extent of the diggings. For the most part they were the remains, we
may suppose, of the cords by which the objects had been tied together.

Whether some of the wooden originals represented by Nos. 23 to 34 in Plate 18,
belonged to a loo7n, I cannot positively say, though I think it probable. They were
found separately, and are incomplete. I refer for further particulars to the engravings
and to the description of the Plates.

Some arched pieces of wood, of which the commonest form is represented in Plate
16, Fig. 14, seem to have answered as stretchers for suspending slaughtered cattle.
These were found only in Thorsbjerg moss.

10. EING-MONET AND ROMAN COIN.
(Nydam, Plate *¥*., Fig. 20-25, and the Vignette on the title-page.)

It has been often surmised that foreign trade was very active during the Bronze
age, and some have even maintained that the bronze objects used in northern
countries were imported from the south. Yet not a single instance is known in Den-
mark of coins of any description having been discovered along with relics characteristic
of that period. It is in the Early Iron age that foreign coin and ring-money make their
first appearance. During this period smaller and larger fragments of bracelets and
other personal decorations were used as a metallic currency to replace or supplement
the direct interchange of commodities. Our earliest native coins are of the eleventh
century (King Sven Tveskjfeg). At first they appear to have been rare ; and barter, it
is believed, was carried on until the time of Sven Estridsen (1046-107G).

The ring-money found here comprises : —

K

66 DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

1. Fragments of golden Bracelets, six of them forming parts of one and the same
bracelet. (See page 42.)

2. Golden Rings, linked together in twos and threes. Originally they may
perhaps have been finger-rings; at the time of their being deposited they were clearly
used as ring money. (See Plate 16, Fig. 25.)

Under this class we may group some Touchstones, one of which is perforated. (See
Fig. 18 and 19 in Plate 16.)

The thirty-seven Roman silver denarii found in Thorsbjerg (the earliest and the
latest are represented on the title-page) extend over the period from 60 to 194 after
Christ. They are of the following Emperors and Empresses : —

Nero (1), Vitellius (1), Vespasian (4), Domitian (1), Trajan (7 — one of these is an
ancient counterfeit, being copper plated with silver), Hadrian (6 — one counterfeit),
.Elius (1), Antoninus Pius (6 — one counterfeit), Faustina the Elder (1), Marcus Aurelius
(3^, Faustina the Younger (2), Commodus (3), and Septimius Severus (1).

The last, as I have stated above, was minted a.d. 194. The coins are mostly much
worn, and a few have marks of fire upon them.

In Nydam, Roman denarii were discovered, embracing about the same period as
those from the other moss, 69 to 217 of our era, and of the following Emperors and
Empresses: — Vitellius (1), Hadrian (1), Antoninus Pius (10), Faustina the Elder (4),
Marcus Aurelius (7), Faustina the Younger (1), Lucius Verus (2), Lucilla (2), Com-
modus (5), and Macrinus (1). The latest of these coins was minted in the year a.d. 217*

TTiey give us an approximate date for the object s with which they were found. AUoto-
inff some time for their transport from southern countries, the deposits in our peat-bogs
cannot have taken place before about the middle of tlie third century.

All the known coins from discoveries of this age — from mosses, graves, and chance
finds — are of the three first centuries of the Christian era ; the latest known is of Macri-
nus (a.d. 217). Among them, coins of the Antonines are of most frequent occurrence.

11. OBJECTS OP UNKNOWN USE.
(Thorsbjerg, Plate 18.)

I have often had occasion to observe that the objects from both our moss deposi-
tories were mostly found incomplete ; partly because they had been so when they were
first buried, and partly on account of the decomposition of the iron. It was, more-
over, the first time that antiquarian excavations of such an extent had been undertaken,

• Obv. : Laureate head. iMp(erator) c(aius) M(arcu8) 0PEL(iu8) SEv(erus) maceinvs ATa(ustus).
ll'jv.-. poNT(ifex) MAx(imu8) Tu(ibunitia) p(ote8tate) co(n)s(ul) p(ater) p(atri8B). Jupiter standing, a
spear in hia left hand, and the thunderbolt in his right.

NONDESCRIPTS.

67

and the use of many of the objects dug out in a fragmentary condition had for the
first time to be explained and determined. By degrees, as more perfect or better-pre-
served objects were brought to light, especially in the Nydam find, it became possible
to arrange many of the previously indeterminate fragments under the different classes,

which we have now been considering. Still too many objects remain unclassified. A
description of these would be of little use ; I must refer the reader to the engravings in
Plate 18,* to the Index to the Plates, and the annexed figures representing some of
the seemingly more important nondescript objects from the Nydam depository. They
are all of wood ; the original of Fig. / consists of two pieces roughly cut, and tied
together by means of a cord.

12. HUMAN AND ANIMAL EEMAINS.

Portions of human skeletons have certainly now and then been discovered in our
peat-mosses, containing antiquities of the Early Iron age, but hitherto not in such a

* The portion of a bridle (Fig. 16), the fragments of umbones (Fig. 17 and 18), mentioned at pages
61 and 49 respectively, must be excepted. Fig. 19 to 21 are studs for sandals, etc.

k 2

68 DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

juxtaposition with the other relics as would justify us in pronouncing them undoubtedly
contemporaneous. There exists, for instance, a communication dated in 1809, from a
clergyman in Snogbaek, near Nydam moss, stating that human bones had been found
in this moss together with iron arms ; as, however, these bones have disappeared, we
cannot be sure that they really were human, especially as no human skeletons or even
bones have been found duiing the systematic diggings either in the two South Jutland
mosses or in Kragehul moss in Fyen. A skull of a child and a fragment of another
skull were discovered in Vimose in 1865, but not in very close connection with the
antiquities, and in places where these lay only sparingly scattered. They were found
exactly at that depth at which the antiquities ceased, and until other discoveries afford
more certain information, it remains impossible to decide whether they belong to the
race of the Early Iron age or even are contemporaneous with the antiquities.

Bones of horses and other animals are, on the contrary, not unfrequently found in
these mosses, though the case is different as regards each of the four which have
hitherto been thoroughly examined. In those of Thorsbjerg and Kragehul (Fyen) but
few bones were met with ; in the former they were found in cutting peat, and we have
no information as to whether they occurred together with antiquities and at the same
depth ; in Kragehul so small a part of the moss was left for systematic investigation,
that the bones discovered, which, moreover, have not yet been properly examined,
were too. few to allow of any well-founded conclusion. In the third antiquarian moss
which has been systematically excavated, viz. Vimose, in Fyen, near Broby and
Alleso, the layer of antiquities was, as it were, sown over with bones almost exclu-
sively of horses, mixed with and surrounded by the antiquities in such a manner that
their association could not possibly be ascribed to accident. I have more than once
heard it suggested that they were the remains of old worn-out horses which had been
killed from time to time by a blow with an axe on the forehead, and then thrown
down into the peat trench near which they had been executed. But although many
of the skulls certainly exhibited a rather large hole in the forehead with splintered
edges, yet, considering that many were found with antiquities lying under and over
them, in large heaps splintered and hewn to pieces, and close to chopping-blocks with
many marks of extensive use, it seems more reasonable to consider them as forming
part of the deposit. I must, however, observe, that the osseous remains from Vimose
have not yet been examined by any physiologist.

With regard to the bones found at Nydam, no doubt can exist as to their having
really formed part of the original deposit. They were scarcely so numerous as in
Vimose, and less scattered over the whole area ; whether this is due to the bones having
got into the moss at Nydam in another manner than at Vimose, or to the motion of the
water in the latter place having spread them more equally over the space occupied
by the antiquities, 1 cannot say.

Skeletons and parts of skeletons were found at Nydam on the shell-strewn bottom.

HOKSES FROM NYDAM. 69

and often surrounded by antiquities below, above, and on the sides. Near a tolerably
complete skeleton of a horse were found, besides shield-boards, shafts of lances and
other wooden objects, several beads, two iron bits, several metal mountings for shields,
an iron spear-head, a whetstone, several arrow-heads, an awl of iron, and a Roman
silver denarius. Not far from it were two skulls and other remains of horses, and
near them some iron bits. The skulls of horses, which, just as those last mentioned,
appeared to have been deposited without the other parts of the animals, had still their
bits in their mouths, one of the bits being incomplete and evidently deposited in that
state. And if there could still be any doubt as to the skeletons being contemporaneous
with the antiquities, it must yield to the fact that several of the skulls have been
exposed to a similarly violent and inexplicable ill-treatment as the vast majority of the
other objects deposited. (Compare, for instance, the cut-up boards of a boat, Plate IV.,
Fig. 27, and page 29.) All the bones in Nydam were of horses, excepting a skull and
some other fragments of one of the smaller races of oxen. In the mouth of this skull
there was a board of a shieldj a circumstance which, however, probably was due merely
to the accidental movement of the water.

Several boxes with bones from Nydam were forwarded to the Museum of Natural
History at the Copenhagen University, for the inspection of the learned director of that
institution. Professor Steenstrup, who has been good enough to communicate to me his
observations on these skeletons, from which the following extmcts may be found
interesting :^

Professor Steenstrup remarks, first of all, that the three skulls which he has had
under inspection are those of three stallions, aged respectively about three, six, and ten or
eleven yeai's. The length from the condyloid processes to the anterior edges of the front
teeth is from 49 to 50 centimetres, and the stallions were consequently of middle size.
There is an almost complete skeleton belonging to the oldest of these three skulls, and the
horse has probably come into the moss, if not in an entire state, at any rate as an almost
complete skeleton. Of the two stallions, no other bones were found besides the skulls
except those of the four extremities, the two forelegs from the forearm to the hoof-bone,
and the hind-legs from the stifle-joint downwards. Professor Steenstrup lays stress on
this remarkable difference between the three individuals in the number of bones pre-
served, as the two, of which only the skulls and the lower parts of the extremities
have been found, cannot of course have perished on the spot, or the other parts of
the skeletons would have been discovered in the same place. With regard to this
point the learned Professor states, that he has several times found skulls not only of
horses, but also of oxen and sheep, either alone or together with the lower parts of
the four limbs, in such positions in the peat, that there could be no doubt but that they
had been purposely immersed in the water, where the peat afterwards formed itself
round them. In those cases, however, the limbs were cut off below the knee and hock,
marks of the cutting instrument being often distinctly traceable, whilst no such marks

70

DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

have been discovered on the horse bones from Nydam as could indicate a severance
of the limbs, or that the flesh had been eaten.

1^}^;

^ — \ t

^^'■'^\\

i \

With regard to the third tolerably complete skeleton, two circumstances are parti-
cularly noticed by Professor Steenstrup. One is, that those bones which were found
with the antiquities bear unmistakable evidence of some carnivorous animal — wolves or
large dogs — having had access to them before their immersion in the peat, just as is
the case with innumerable other bones from other peat-mosses. At the same time,
the marks of teeth on the bones from Nydam are so few, and confined only to those
])arts which ai-e usually attacked first, that the carnivorous animals cannot be supposed
to have had access to them for any length of time, nor can the bones have been long
exposed to the air before they were buried.

The other fact commented upon by Professor Steenstrup is the existence of
extensive and very distinct marks of sword-cuts (Fig. A, b, and c). A minutely-sj)lin-
tered fracture has been produced by the chip having been broken away from the bone
by a vigorous twist of the sword, leaving a smooth, sharply-cut surface ; and this
circumstance seems to indicate that these violent blows have been inflicted when the
bones were no longer covered by flesh ; for, if the flesh had still been on the bones,
these would probably have presented a more jagged or roughly splintered fracture.

HORSES FROM NYDAM.

71

Similar incisions with sharp swords are observable on all three stallions' skulls ;
and on two of them they are both deep and numerous. The second skull (Fig. d) is the
worst treated of the three. It shows not less than ten different cuts, of which six
are in a transverse direction across the forehead between the upper part of the nose
and the top of the head, whilst four are found on the right side of the face, the bones
of which have been cut through. Several of them are ten or thirteen centimetres
long, and the direction of the cuts — all more or less across the skull — seems also to
indicate that the person who inflicted the blows had the horse's head lying on the
ground before him. The oldest of the skulls has had six heavy blows not less deep
than those of the preceding. Their depth and direction is shown in Fig. e.

The manner in which these bones have been treated must necessarily be con-
sidered in connection with the violent ill-treatment to which the numerous weapons
and ornaments have been subjected. Professor Steenstrup cannot believe that the
bones could have been cut in battle in the manner described while the animal was
living. If the horses were killed in battle, he thinks that this ill-treatment must
have been inflicted afterwards. He regrets that he has not succeeded in finding on
any of the bones examined by him such crossings of cuts of swords and marks of
the teeth of carnivorous animals, as would show more clearly which were first inflicted ;
but the circumstance that all the lower jaws are entirely free from cuts inevitably
suggests the idea that the lower jaw had already fallen from the head when this
received the heavy blows. It had certainly separated from the skull when the wolf
gnawed the articular processes of one of them.

Besides this, there are evident traces of these stallions having been exposed to a
shower of arrows. One of them has got one of the four-sided arrow-heads deeply fixed
in the upper part of the posterior margin of the left shoulder, whereby precisely such a

72

DENMARK IN THE EARLY IRON AGE.

sharply-defined quadrangular hole has been produced (Fig. f) as may be observed in
many of the shields and bucklers ; one of the ribs of the same horse has a three-
cornered hole, caused by a pointed missile. In both holes, which still contained rust,

the iron points have been fixed till the bones were taken out of the peat, when they
have either fallen out or crumbled away, being probably reduced to rust at the time.

Professor Steenstrup observes in conclusion, that the oldest of these stallions has
not presented a handsome figure while still living. Its teeth were very irregular ; it
was veiy badly spavined, and its back very much broken. " To do justice to the equip-
ment of warriors in those times," Professor Steenstrup concludes, " I will assume it to
have been a baggage horse."

73

APPENDIX.

Peofessoe L. R. von Fellenberg, in Bern, has, in 'Berner Mittheilungen/ nos. 497-8 and 535-6,
given the following results of analyses of some of the objects from Thorsbjerg presented to him
by M. A. Morlot, of Lausanne : —

Copper,
per cent.

Zinc,
per cent.

Tin,
per cent.

Lead,
per cent.

Iron,
per cent.

Silver,
per cent.

Nickel,
per cent.

Roman bronze hel-
met(Fig.l,Plate5)

82'98

6-56

9-77

0-51

0-18

Umbo

96-12

2-41

0-21

1-16

0-10

Kim of an umbo . .

9019

4-92

3-41

0-90

0-20

0-38

Upper part of an
umbo, similar to
Plate 8, Fig. 13 .

93-67

4-17

1-96

0-10

008

002

Handle of a sli eld .

98-42

1-26

0-23

0-09

Different fittings

87-54

5-72

4-98

1-51

0-22

003

Bosses or studs si-
milar to Plate 18,
Fig. 19-21 . . .

89-33

8-18

6-84

0-50

007

008

Small nails. . . .

25 00

10-44

12-83

0-24

51-49

74

INDEX TO THE PLATES.

PLATES I— IV.
BOATS FEOM: NYDAM. (Pp. 29-39.)

Plate I. — Clinker-built oak boat, seen from different points.

Plate II. — Measurements and details of construction of the oak boat : the measurements
are given in English feet (see the scale). 1 and 2. Plan and side view of about one-half of the
boat. 3-7. Sections at the 10th, 14th, and 18th ribs, and near the prow, showing the shape of
the ribs and their position with regard to the clamps|jon the boards, to which they were tied by
cords passed through the holes in both. 5 a. Section of the gunwale board. 5 b. Section of the
bottom plank, and the boards on either side of it. 6 shows the construction of a thwart ; 7,
the section of the sternpost ; 8 shows the connection of the prow and the bottom plank. 9 a, h,
and c. Side-rudder ; the handle at the top can be detached.

Plate III. — Details of the oak boat. 10. Interior view of one end of the boat. 11. A clamp
of the upper row supporting the heads of the ribs; in the holes are remains of cords. 12. One of
the ordinary clamps; 13. Fragment of one of the oak boards, with iron nails. 14. Part of the
two top planks, seen from the inside. 15-18. Rowlocks of deal. 19-20. Oars of oak and of deal.
21-22. Ends of long deal poles roughly hewn; the original of 21 is twenty feet eight inches,
that of 22 about fourteen feet long ; two such poles were found in the oak boat, two others in
the fir boat. 23. Round wooden spar about three feet long, with a hole at each end ; several
bundles of twenty to thirty similar spars were found in the spaces between the ribs of the boat,
and they have, no doubt, belonged to the boat's inventory (stretchers ?) .

Plate IV. — 24-25. Rowlocks of the fir boat of which the remains are described, pp. 35-37.
26. Wooden instruments of unknown use with rounded perforated ends, frequently found in both
the boats; from forty to sixty inches long. 27. Fragments of an oak board with projecting clamps,
which are ornamented in some places, and rowlocks, not made from separate pieces, but cut out of
the same piece with the gunwale board, p. 29. 28. Portion of a wooden conduit ; on one of its

INDEX TO THE PLATES. 75

sides the figure of an animal is rudely engraved. 29. The middle tliwart of the large oak boat
(comp. Plate II. 6). 30. In oak, found in the boat, but of unknown use and incomplete. 31-32.
Pieces o( wood destined for repairs in the fir boat. 33. Ornamented figure (of a bird ?) found in
the oak boat. 34. Small thwart for one of the ends of the boat. 35-36. Wooden scoops.

WEARING APPAREL. (Pp. 40, 41.)

(Thorsbjerg) Plate 1. — Kirtle of woollen cloth, a, shows the woven pattern in the sleeves ;
b, the border below ; c, the loose wrist-band.

(Thorsbjerg) Plate 2. — 1. Trowsers of woollen cloth. 2. The pattern. 3. Pattern of the
stockings. 4. Pattern of a woollen cloak, p. 40. 5. Pattern of another woollen cloak.

(Thorsbjerg) Plate 3. — Leather sandals, p. 40. 1. Unfolded sandal for the left foot. 2.
Fragment with a border of silvered bronze rivets ; 2 a has probably belonged to the same sandal.
3. Fragment, with an impressed ornament.

PERSONAL DECORATIONS, ARTICLES OF THE TOILET, ETC. (Pp. 41-43.)

(Thorsbjerg) Plate 4. — 1-13. Fibulse, bow-shaped and circular, all of bronze. [Fig. 4, 6,
and 7 are covered with silver gilt plates.] 14. Bulla in gold. 14 a. Piece of the rim, actual size.
15. Pendant of gold (for an earring?), actual size. 16. Bronze finger-ring. 17-24. Beads, the
larger ones perhaps buttons: (17, 18, and 19, of glass; 20, of agate; 21, of greenish glass; 22 and
23, of variegated porcelain ; 24, of white glass, with a gold-foil within.) 25-26. Tweezers of
bronze. 27. Die of amber, p. 43.

(Nydam) Plate V. — 1-2. Silver clasps, one of them set with two pieces of blue glass. 3-8.
Tweezers and ear-picks ; 4 and 6 of silver, the others of bronze. 5. A silver double box, p. 43.
9—11. Combs of bone. 12-14. Bronze fibulae. 15-17. Pendants of bronze and silver in the
shape of small weights (p. 42, and compare Fig. 3 in Plate 18). 18-22. Beads and buttons, made
of coloured glass, except Fig. 21 and 22, which are of amber. The originals of 23-27 were found
together, and have apparently belonged to the same piece (helmet? see p. 44) ; 23 is of wood
the others of bronze plated with silver and gold.

DEFENSIVE WEAPONS.

HELMETS. (Pp. 43-45.)

(Thorsbjerg) Plate 5. — 1. Neck-piece of a Roman helmet in bronze ; the designs are embossed
in the thin metal. 1 a. Piece of the arched top-piece. 2. Bronze serpent, of Roman workman-
ship ; it probably once ornamented a helmet. 3. Silver helmet, of Gothic origin, in many places
covered with ornamental gold plates. 4. Front view of the crown or head-piece* Compare also
the bowed plate in Plate 11, 47 (p. 45), and perhaps PL V., 23-27.

CHAIN-AEMOmi. (Pp. 46-48.)

(Thorsbjerg) Plates 6 and 7 ; all the figures actual size. — 1 . Breast-plate in bronze, plated
with silver and gold, [i, side view ; a, one of the heads in open-work ; c, d, and e, three of the

L 2

76 INDEX TO THE PLATES.

figures of animals whicli have been riveted to the breast-plate at a later time, but did not originally
belong to it.] 2 and 3. Patterns of interlinked chain-mail. 4 to 6. Buckles for hauberks : 4, in
bronze with silver-gilt plates — the designs are embossed; 5, of iron; 6, of bronze. 7. Breast-
plate, formed in the same manner as Fig. 1 ; the Medusa-heads are struck from the same die as those
on Fig. 1 ; the outer rim is a mixture of Barbarian and Roman workmanship : whether it ori-
ginally belonged to the piece is doubtful (7 a, the profile ; 7 h, one of the Medusa-heads). 8. Richly
ornamented bronze buckle, with platings of gold and silver; the reverse, with iron rings still
attached to it, is shown in 8 a, side view of the central part in 8 h.

SHIELDS. (Pp. 48-52.)

(Thorsbjerg) Plate 8. — 1. Circular wooden shield, composed of nine boards. 2 and 3. The
greatest and smallest thickness of the boards. 4. The central opening, with recess to hold the
handle. 5—10. Handles : 5, in wood; 6, of wood fastened to the shield with wooden pegs, and
with its bronze covering fastened with bronze rivets; 7-9, of bronze; 10, in silver, with two
golden transverse bands. 11-18. Umbones : 11, in thick bronze, with a Roman inscription, shown
full-size in 11 c; 11 Z>, thickness of the metal; 11 a, side-view; 12, in thick bronze, and appa-
rently of Roman workmanship; 13 and 14, of thin bronze and Gothic manufacture; 15, inner
coating of wicker-work for a thin metal umbo; 16, fragment of thin bronze of the shape of either
13 or 14, with a Runic inscription, — shown full-size in 16 a ; 17, of bronze, — it is badly mutilated
at the top; 18, fragment of thin silver, with embossed golden ornaments on the outer rim, and
figures of animals and other ornaments cut out from golden plates and laid on the piece, one-haJf
the actual size; 18a, one of the outer ornaments, full size; 19-22 and 32, rims of bronze in
various shapes and sizes ; 21 a and 22 a, seen from the end ; 23 and 23 a are the front and back of
a fragment of a wooden shield repaired with bronze plates. 24. Wooden fragment repaired by
means of bronze clamps. 25-31. Bronze pieces of various shapes and sizes, intended for repairs
or ornaments on wooden shields. 32 : see 19.

OFFENSIVE WEAPONS.
SWOED8. (Pp. 52-56.)

(Nydam) Plate VI. — Damascened Swords op Iron. — 1 . Ornamented with lines on each side,
and with triangular bronze pommel. 3. Ground hollow : on the tang are two makers' stamps :
it had a handle of wood similar to that represented by 2 in Plate 9, but which has not been
preserved. 3. The handle is of wood, with silver platings. 4. Handle of bone, in three pieces.
6. Upper part of a bone handle with bronze mounting. 7. Wooden handle, with round pieces
of ornamented bronze. 8. Of massive bronze. 9-11. Patterns of damascened sword-blades.

(Nydam) Plate VII. — 12. Damascened; with two longitudinal hollows; the section shown in
12 a. 13. Not damascened. 14. Forged in facets ; the maker's mark is shown full size at the side
of the figure; it occurs on either side of the blade. 15. Damascened; the section shown in 15a.
16. Damascened; the original has in one edge twenty-three marks of sharp cuts, eleven in the
other. 17. Not damascened; the figures inlaid in the blade with flat gold wire are shown
fuU size in 17a. 18. Damascened; below the name, EICVS, on the grip there is maker's stamp.
19. Damascened; the Latin number XX. is engraved on the tang; 19 a, section of blade. 20-21

INDEX TO THE PLATES. 77

(both damascened) and 22 (not damascened) have Latin stamps, p. 53. On 22 there is a second
stamp like a crescent, with three horns behind it. The sword, of which a fragment is represented
in 22, is thirty-four inches long, and one inch and three-quarters broad ; the length of the
grip is four inches and three-quarters.

(Thorsbjerg) Plate 9, 1-19.— Sword Hilts. — 1. Complete hilt of wood, with plaited bronze
bands covering the handle proper, bronze rivets ornamenting the two end-pieces, and a small
bronze knob at top; la, the lower end-piece from below. 2. Wooden handle without any orna-
ment; this species was of frequent occurrence. 3. Fragment of a rudely- made wooden sword.
4. Wooden handle, of unique shape, roughly made ; 4 a, the same, seen from belowj full-size, to
show the difference from la, which was obviously intended for a two-edged sword. 5. Hilt of
wood, with ornamented silver bands, of rare occurrence in this deposit, but not unfrequently
met with in the moss of Nydam. 6 and 6 a are hollow pieces of thin silver, once forming parts
of a handle like 5 ; on 6 the fylfot ornament is engraved, in a complex manner, showing that though
the sign may have had originally a symbolical meaning, it is here only an ornament. 7. Button-
shaped pommel of bronze, of very frequent occurrence. 8 and 9. Pommels of wood, ornamented
with large and small silvered rivets. 10. Of silvered bronze, ornamented as shown in 10 a. lOi.
Fragment of a hUt with golden ornaments, and probably belonging to 10. 11-19. Pommels of
hilts like Fig. 1, of wood, partly with ornaments cut in the material, partly ornamented with bronze
rivets in various designs. 20-28. Chapes of bronze, except Fig. 25, which is in silver : in 23
and 27, remains of the wooden scabbard are left.

(Thorsbjerg) Plate 10. — Sheaths. — 29. Fragment of a triangular wooden sheath with bronze
mounting, of a kind frequently occurring in contemporaneous deposits. 30. Bronze rim for the
upper part of a wooden scabbard"; in the squares are plates of silver, gilt and ornamented. 31.
Complete wooden scabbard, with elegant bronze fittingsj: it is obviously of Eomanized workman-
ship, but hitherto unique among our antiquities. 31a. Mouth of the same. 32. Silver rim with
fragments of a wooden sheath. 33-40 (and 43) . Metal loops for suspending the sword on the
belt : 33, bronze with gold and silver ornaments ; 34, of thin silver ; 35, bronze with transverse
bands of ornamented silver plated with gold ; 36, of bronze ; in the bird's head ornament are
marks of arrow-heads; 37, of bronze covered all over with silver and gold, and very elegantly
ornamented with various designs ; 38, of bronze still fastened on the fragment of a wooden sheath
of plain work, and such as frequently occur in the larger moss deposits ; 39, of bronze with en-
graved ornaments inlaid with silver ; 40, bronze with ornamental transverse bands of silver and
gold ; above and below are rows of triangular grooves, destined for the reception of a substance
now lost, perhaps silver; 40a, side-view; 43, plain mounting of bronze. 41. Bronze chape, with
clear and distinct Runic inscriptions on both sides : 41a, showing the letters on the reverse; 42,
of bronze with ornamented rosettes in silver gilt. 43 (see after 40). 44-46. Fragments of
wooden sheaths : 44 has a bronze chape ; 45 is ornamented with lines carved in the wood ; 46, it
would appear, has had no metal mounting ; it is here shown from the inner side ; 46a gives the
thickness of the wood.

(Nydam) Plate VIII. — Sheaths. — 23-24. Rims for the upper part of sheath, bronze. Fig. 25,
wooden sheath with a bronze fitting, shown full-size in 25a : this sheath was discovered in its
present incomplete state on the iron sword represented by Plate VII., Fig. 22. 26-27. Wooden
sheaths. 28-36. Scabbard-fittings; all of bronze except 32, which is made of bone. 37-39.
Scabbard-tips of bronze. A raised ornament is carved on the piece of wooden sheath represented
in 39. 40-43. Belt-loops of bronze, except 41, which is of iron.

78 INDEX TO THE PLATES.

(Nydam) Plate IX. 44-50. Scabbard-tips. 44 is of iron } tlie patterns are of flat gold wire
inlaid in the iron. 45—50 of bronze. 46 and 47 are cut and pierced in several places, and in such
a manner as could hardly have occurred in battle. 51-52. Bronze studs. 53-66. Buckles, all of
bronze, except 59, which is of iron, and 62, the bow of which is of solid silver.

(Thorsbjerg) Plate 11. — Shoulder-belt, Buckles, and other Metal Mountings for Belts, etc.,
except 47, the original of which may have belonged to a barbarian helmet, see page 45. 48.
Shoulder-belt of thick leather ; in the middle is a large bronze button, shown also in 48a and 486.
One end is broad and emarginated with a button hole ; to the other end a triangular piece is sown
on, terminating in a long leathern tongue, which was intended to be passed through the eye
formed by the metal mounting on the middle of the sheath and twisted several times round the
latter. 49-51 and 53-56. Bronze fittings for shoulder-belts ; most of them plated with silver
and gold, and ornamented in different ways ; 55 has the fylfot ornament in open work. 52 and
67-67. Buckles and square plates for sword-belts, all in bronze. (57 is plated with silver and
ornamented with gold plates ; 63-67 are obviously not Roman.)

SPEAES, LANCES, JAVELINS, AND AWLS. (Pp. 56, 57.)

(Nydam) Plate X. — 1-4 and 7-21, leaf-shaped lance-heads ; on 1, 4, 8, and 9 are ornaments
engraved in the iron, possibly intended to receive gold or silver wire. 16, with octagonal socket,
18, with faceted ridge, and 21, with flu tings on either side of the ridge, recalling certain Irish
bronze spears, are very rare forms in our finds. 5. Complete javelin, with the casting cord round
the middle; ten feet four inches long. 6. Fragment of a wooden shaft, with projecting nails in it,
and wound round with string,

(Nydam) Plate XI. — 22-38. Barbed iron spear-heads, some much bent. 39—45. Bayonet-
shaped spear-heads. They have usually a hollow socket, polygonal, round, or lozenge-shaped, but
some, as 30, 33 and 45, are tanged to fit into a split shaft, in which they were secured by a metal
ring; 46, is a bronze ring for this purpose. The illustrations, 30, 30a, 45a and 6, show the details
of this method of fixing the head. 22, 31, 33-36, and 43, present forms of rare occurrence.
The ornament on 40 is inlaid with gold.

(Thorsbjerg) Plate 12. — 1-8 and 16, lances and awls. 1. Perfect shaft of a lance, nine feet
six inches long, made of ash ; both the ends and the middle are shown one-half the actual size.
2. Middle part of a lance shaft, with remains of a cord. 3. Fragment of a shaft with bronze
rivets. 4. Fragment of a spear shaft with a silver mounting. 16. Bronze ring for a spear-shaft.
Compare Nydam, Plate XI., 45 and 46. 5-8. Wooden handles for awls, some perforated for sus-
pension; 6 a shows the top, 8 a the bottom of one of these handles, with the socket for the awl.
(See below, Nydam XV., 18-28.)

BOWS AND AEEOWS, QUIVEES, AND SHARPENING STONES. (Pp. 57-59.)

(Thorsbjerg) Plate 12 continued. — 9-11. Bows and arrows. 9. Bow of yew with ornaments
carved on it, and traces of the cords that have held the string. 9a and 9 b. Piece of the bow, actual
. size ; 9 c, section of the middle. 10. Fragment of a wooden bow, with carved and punctured orna-
ments. The fragment was found in the condition shown by the drawing. 10a. Piece of the bow
fuU-size, to show the details of the ornamentation. 10b. Section. 11a and b. Arrow-shaft of deal.

INDEX TO THE PLATES. 79

with notch for the bow-string, wound round with string possibly for fixing four rows of feathers,
and split at the upper end to receive the tang of an iron head which was secured with string.
12. Oval whetstone with traces of wear, and a groove running round it, probably for a string
by which to carry it. 15. Fragment perhaps of a bow; 15a, side view; 156, section.

13. Iron axe, with wooden handle to be passed from above through the opening in the head.
13a. Another specimen seen from above. 14. Ornamented wooden handles. (See below, Nydam,
Plate XV. 10.)

(Nydam) Plate XII. — 1-9. Details of wooden arrow-shafts ; the heads on 5 and 6 are of iron,
the shaft itself is roughly pointed on 1 and 4. The complete arrow, represented by 5, is two feet
nine inches long. On 7, 8, and 9, ornaments are carved at the notched end. 10-17. Long
bows of wood. 10 has an octagonal spike of horn ; 12 is ornamented with longitudinal lines
engraved in the wood (see the section and the figure at the side) ; 12a represents the end.
15 has an iron spike. 16 has a notch for the string and a projecting bronze nail. 17 is wound
over with pitchy thread. 18-32. Arrow-heads of bone (18-23) and of iron (24-32).

(Nydam) Plate XIII. — 33-62. Parts of arrow-shafts, on which are engraved owner's marks
and Eunic letters (35-38, and also, perhaps, on 39-41). 63. Quiver of wood, closed at one end by
a massive wooden stopper. 63b, 64, and 64a. Bronze mounting for a quiver; no traces of the
woodwork remained ; in the engrailed edge of the mouthpiece and end socket are small nails
with silver-plated heads. 65-69. Whetstones : 67 is of a rare form.

HORSE HARNESS AND RIDING AND DRIVING GEAR. (Pp. 59-62.)

(Nydam) Plate XIV. — Fig. 1-13. Riding gear. 1. Bit, consisting of two bronze rings of
unequal size and a middle-piece of iron. 2. Twisted iron bit. 3. Bit of iron fixed in bronze sockets,
with bronze rings jointed. 4. Iron bit. 5, of iron, is supposed to have been the spike of a spur.
6-11. Pendants of bronze, except 8, which is of silver. 12, 13. Bronze rings, with loose bronze
fittings. {For continuation of this Plate see helmv.)

(Thorsbjerg) Plate 13. — 1. Complete head-stall of leather; the heads of the bronze rivets —
serving as rosettes — are covered with ornamented silver plates : the bridle is composed of bronze
rings, la. Bronze cap for the bit proper. \h. Bronze hook for the head-piece. \c. Bronze
ring of the bridle, side view. \d. Thickness of the leather straps. All the figures full size-
2-11. Rosettes of bronze for fastening together the leather straps; 4 is of sUver, plated with gold
on the fluted knob ; 11 is bronze plated with silver, with fylfot ornaments.

(Thorsbjerg) Plate 14. — 12-14. Cheek -plates of bronze : 14 is plated with silver. 15-25.
Bronze bridles and mountings. The square end-pieces in 18 and 19 are covered with ornamented
plates of silver and gold. Pieces like 20 may also have belonged to sword-belts.

(Thorsbjerg) Plate 15. — 26-31. Bronze pendants for protecting the nose of the horse.
(Compare Plate 13, 1.) 29 and 30 are overlaid with silver and gold plates. 32. Fragment of
a bronze spur; the spike is wanting. 33-48. Pendulous ornaments ; perhaps for a sort of fringe
to the bridles; in bronze, except 35, 36, and 40, which are in silver. (Comp. Plate XIV., 6-11.)

(Thorsbjerg) Plate 16. — 1. Driving-rein, page 62. The bit, which was probably of iron, is
now wanting, though the bronze end-caps remain. In the middle are figured some leather straps,
with buckles and rings of bronze of uncertain use. Compare page 61, and the bronze bit there
figured. 2. Fragment of an oaken wheel, page 62. 2 a. Section. 3. Fragment of an oak
sphnter-bar (?).

80 INDEX TO THE PLATES.

AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC IMPLEMENTS, RING-MONEY, TOUCHSTONES.

(Pp. 62-66.)

(Thorsbjerg) Plate 16 continued. — i. Wooden rake ; the teeth are about nine inches long,
p. 63. 5. Complete wooden club or maUet ; the head is of a harder wood than the shaft. Heads
of somewhat different forms are given in' 9 and 10. 6. Wooden wedge. 7. The pointed edge of
a long wooden pole. 8. Fragment probably of an axe-handle (see Nydam, Plate XV., Fig. 14).
11. Bowl of a wooden spoon j fragment. 12. Pattern of the wicker-work in a basket enclosing a
wooden vessel, p. 63. 13. Piece of pyrites. 14. Wooden stretcher, p. 65. 15-17. Handles
of knives : 15 is in sohd brass, 16 and 17 in wood. 18-19. Touchstones : the original of No. 19
is perforated, p. 65. 20-25. Ring-money in gold, one-half the actual size, p. 65 ; compare the
golden bracelet figured in p. 42. The three rings (25) were found linked together.

(Nydam) Plate XIV. continued. — 14. Part, probably, of a fishing net; the cords are fastened
to a web of bast bands, and this again fastened to a wooden pole. 15-17. Small wooden boxes
without lids. Compare Thorsbjerg, Plate 17, 6. 18-21. Wooden vessels and cups, turned on a
lathe. 22. Vessel of clay, with projecting massive knobs. The impressions round the neck of
the vessel, 23, were produced by a finger when the clay was wet. 24. Six staves of a wooden
bucket, with marks on the wood of four iron hoops. 25. Large wooden trough.

(Thorsbjerg) Plate 17. — Household vessels, pp. 63-64. 1-6 are of wood. 1. Roughly
chopped out. 2. Unfinished. 6. Vessel with cover. 7-24. Cooking vessels, household vessels,
cups, platters, etc., of burnt clay. 10 a shows the handle of 10. 11 a shows the bottom of 11, with
5*fi2s£S • the fylfot ornament. Fig. 20 may be a crucible.

(Nydam) Plate XV. — Objects of domestic use. Fig. 1. Roughly-cut cylinder of wood, pos-
sibly a knife-sheath. 2-9. Knives with iron blades and wooden handles. The ornaments on the
backs of 4 and 7 — a rounded notch on either side, with rows of sharp notches across the back of
the knife, above and below — are highly characteristic of our Early Iron age. 10-14. Axes, of the
two forms known of this period, p. 64. (See Thorsbjerg, Plate 12, 13 and 13a.) 15. Large
club, made of rather soft wood. 16. Wooden mallet? of a single piece. 17. Iron blade of a
scythe, much corroded. 18-28. Awls. The handles, 18-21, are of bone, and very elegantly
turned on a lathe ; the other handles are made of wood. 25 is furnished with an iron ring, instead
of the hole which is usually found in the handles of these implements (s. Thorsbjerg Plate 12, 5-8).

(Thorsbjerg) Plate 18. — Objects of Unknown Use (p. Q&), except the following : — 6, a
bronze button. 12. Probably fragment of a buckle (plated with gold and silver). 16. Pro-
bably belonging to harness (see p. 62), in bronze. 17 and 18, which latter ought to have been
drawn in an inverted position, are fragments of shield bosses, both in bronze; 17 is solid, 18
hollow (compare p. 50) ; and 19-21, buttons of bronze and of silver, actual size; of very frequent
occurrence in this deposit. The use of the other articles has not been determined : 1 in silver, 2
bronze, 3 bronze filled with wood (pendant or weight? — compare Nydam, Plate V., 15 and
17, and page 42, 7) ; 4, bronze, plated with silver; 5, bronze; 7, 8, and 10, bronze, plated with
precious metals ; 9, bronze; 11, bronze ; 13, thin silver band, with raised stripes ; 14-15, bronze,
plated with silver ; 22, bronze ; 23-34, of wood.

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