Mount

Gilded silver mount or brooch depleting a female figure carrying a shield and an long object, probably a seeress’s staff The theory that it is a spear cannot be ruled out. The shield is round, with ring and dot decoration has a shield boss in the centre and mounts around the edges and is also decorated with four long band mounts. The staff also has ring and dot ornamentation, which suggest that it represents a spear. Woman is depicted from the front with her face in profile. Her hair is braided and she is carrying an ankle length coat or cape, under which she has an ankle length dress or skirt. The material, gilded silver, and the size are reminiscent of the fifty or so other similar objects discovered in Scandinavia. These miniature's are known popularly as "Valkyries". Almost half of these are also carrying a spear, sometimes along with another weapon. But none of them is also carrying staff, which makes the motif of the Norrtil find unique When it was found a small rivet head was wedged between the staff and the woman's hair, which suggest that it had been rivetted as a mount on the base of another object. But on the back there are also traces of what may have been another kind of fastening, so the object may have originally been a small brooch, which was possibly reworked into a mount. There was a surface layer covering house 101, a post supported house interpreted as an outhouse dated to the 13th or 14th century. But the object is considerably older than that and may, on stylistic grounds, be dated to the late ninth or 10th century. Settlement find, Norrtil, Sankt Olof Parish, Uppland. Loan from Sigtuna Museum.

Image rights: Ola Myrin, Historiska museet/SHM (CC BY 4.0)

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