Anglo-Saxon and Viking Art & Artifacts Module 8 done

Tools and Resources

  • Readability and Contents are key aspects of the presented material.

The Sutton Hoo Purse Lid

  • Wealth display was used to establish status in early Anglo-Saxon society.
  • The purse lid from Sutton Hoo is the richest of its kind found.
  • Discovered in 1939.
  • The lid covered a leather pouch containing gold coins.
  • It hung from the waist belt with hinged straps and was fastened by a gold buckle.
  • The lid was likely made of whalebone, a precious material in early Anglo-Saxon England, though it had decayed.
  • Seven gold, garnet cloisonné, and millefiori glass plaques were set into the lid.
  • Large and small garnets were combined to pick out details of the imagery.
  • This combination links the purse-lid and shoulder clasps to the workshop of a single master-craftsman.
  • It is possible that the craftsman made the entire suite of gold and garnet fittings discovered in Mound 1 as a single commission.

Style II

  • Style I was superseded by Style II in the late 6th century.
  • Style II has more fluid and graceful animals that writhe and interlace, requiring patient untangling.
  • The great gold buckle from Sutton Hoo is decorated in Style II.
  • From the thicket of interlace, 13 different animals emerge.
  • Ring-and-dot eyes, hooked beaks, and four-toed feet are good starting points for spotting the animals.
  • At the tip of the buckle, two animals grip a small dog-like creature in their jaws.
  • On the circular plate, two snakes intertwine and bite their own bodies.
  • Such designs reveal the importance of the natural world.
  • Different animals were thought to hold different properties and characteristics that could be transferred to the objects they decorated.
  • Fearsome snakes, with their shape-shifting qualities, demand respect and confer authority.
  • Snakes as symbols were suitable for a buckle that adorned a high-status man or an Anglo-Saxon king.

Norse Ships in the Early European Middle Ages

  • Norsemen, of Scandinavian descent, are often called Vikings after their trading locations on the Norwegian shoreline.
  • Vikings were pre-Christian traders and pirates who used their great ships to invade European coasts, harbors, and river settlements seasonally.
  • They created fast and seaworthy longships that served as warring and trading vessels and media for artistic expression and individual design.
  • The Oseberg Bow demonstrates the Norse mastery of decorative wood carving and intricate inlay of metal.
  • The ship head post represents a roaring beast with complicated surface ornamentation in interwoven animals.
  • "King" or "Chieftain" vessels were designated for the wealthier classes and distinguishable by the design of the bow, such as bulls, dolphins, gold lions, drakes, human beings cast in gold and silver, and other unidentifiable animals cast in bronze metal.
  • Typically, the sides of these vessels were decorated using bright colors and wood-carvings.

A Ship Burial

  • The Oseberg ship was discovered in a large burial mound at the Oseberg farm near Tønsberg in Vestfold County, Norway.
  • It is celebrated as one of the finest artistic and archaeological finds to have survived the Viking Age.
  • The Oseberg burial mound contained numerous grave goods and the remains of two female human skeletons.
  • The ship's interment dates from 834 CE, but parts of the ship date from around 800 CE, and scholars believe the ship itself is older.
  • The bow and stern of the ship are elaborately decorated with complex woodcarvings in the characteristic "gripping beast" style, also known as the Oseberg style.
  • This style's primary features are the paws that grip the borders around it, neighboring beasts, or parts of its own body.
  • The Osberg style distinguishes early Viking art from previous trends, but it is no longer generally accepted as an independent style.
  • Although seaworthy, the ship is relatively frail and thought to have been used only for coastal voyages.
  • One woman wore a fine red wool dress of fabric woven in a lozenge twill pattern and a fine white linen veil in a gauze weave.
  • The other wore a plainer blue wool dress with a wool veil, showing some stratification in their social status.
  • Neither woman wore anything entirely made of silk, although small silk strips were appliqued onto a tunic worn under the red dress.
  • The grave had been disturbed in antiquity, and many precious metals went missing.
  • Everyday items and artifacts were found during the early 20th-century excavations.
  • These included four elaborately decorated sleighs, a four-wheel wooden cart, bedposts, wooden chests, and other richly decorated items.
  • The "Buddha bucket" features a brass and cloisonné enamel ornament of a bucket handle in the shape of a figure sitting with crossed legs.
  • The bucket is made from yew wood held together with brass strips, and the handle is attached to two anthropomorphic figures compared to depictions of the Buddha in lotus posture.
  • Archaeologists also found mundane items, such as agricultural and household tools, and a series of textiles that included woolen garments, imported silks, and narrow tapestries.
  • The Oseberg burial is one of the few sources of Viking-age textiles, and the wooden cart is the only complete Viking-age cart found so far.

The Lindisfarne Gospels

  • A medieval monk uses a quill pen to copy the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the scriptorium of Lindisfarne.

Global Connections: The Decorative Art of Cloissonné

  • Cloisonné is a technique in which artists use metal strips (often gold) to define a pattern or imagery on an object's surface, creating areas (cloisons) that can be filled with glass, enamel, or gems.
  • The shiny gold borders remain visible, separating the colors and giving the object a rich, sumptuous appearance.
  • It was chosen during the Middle Ages to decorate metalwork, architecture, and fabric.
  • The Coronation Mantle pairs Islamic and Christian visual forms and Arabic calligraphy and is embellished with jewels, gold, gems, filigree, and cloisonné enamel.
  • The Kufic inscription on the robe gives a later date, and it was likely made for the Norman ruler Roger II.
  • The Fieschi Morgan cross reliquary is a Byzantine example of enamel worked in cloisonné.
  • Cloisonné was not new to the Early Medieval Period; a pectoral from Middle Kingdom Egypt (c. 1880 BCE) uses shaped, semi-precious stones rather than enamel.
  • The cloisonné enamel process was first developed in the Near East and spread to Byzantine and Islamic art; to China via the Silk Road; and to Russia, Ukraine, Japan, Korea, and beyond.
  • China is now famous for its fine cloisonné artwork.
  • Japanese artist Kaji Tsunekichi championed a renaissance in Japanese cloisonné manufacturing throughout the Nagoya region in the 19th century.

The Vikings

  • The materials in this article date to the early ninth century and make a useful comparison to the Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo a century earlier.
  • The Viking art of the Oseberg ship burial links to later Christian art in the same part of the world.