Home Objects Svenska Svenska
Home Boundless meetings Family and hierarchy Midgard Belief and traditions The living and the dead 59: Four scenes in stone 60: The dead were a part of the living society 61: The rituals affected the living and the dead 62: Returning from the underworld by boat? 63: Golden horses and swords 64: The survivors opened graves 65: The Valkyries welcomed the fallen to Valhalla 66: The path to Hel 67: An iron sword was broken in half 68: A funeral pyre with ritual drama 69: Freya’s hall for fallen warriors 70: The path to the Christian paradise 71: To kill an object 72: Important positioning of the body in the grave 73: Individual rituals and winged sacrifices Divine craftwork Trading and raiding Waterways Town-like centres Christian monuments

Listen

Staff

Iron staff with copper and bronze details. The Swedish History Museum collection contains handful of similar staffs. The onde from Klinta is the most elaborate of all. In the upper part of the staff four iron rods create a 'cage' around the main pole. The cage is held in place by eight small predators biting into the rods at the top and the bottom of the cage. Below the cage there is a polyhedral bronze knob. The top of the staff is crowned by a small house on a rectangular plate - one of few contemporary, three-dimensional depictions of a Viking Age house. Around the house were originally four other animals - today there is only one left - looking at the roof of the house. On the platform under the house are the remains of some fastenings. It is unclear whether something was hung from them or if it was a fragmented needle case, which would mean that the platform with the house was originally a brooch which was later attached to the top of the staff. In the state in which it was found the staff is 82 centimeters long. But the lower part is broken off. Originally it was longer. It has also been bent in a couple of places. This may have been done intentionally to take away the power from it before it was driven diagonally down into the grave. Grave find, Klinta, Köping Parish, Öland.

Download image

Object number: 107776_HST

<   8 of 29  >