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Germania : Anzeiger der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Bd. 88 2010(2013)

Rezension zu: Silke Eisenschmidt und Ute Arents, Die Gräber von Haithabu. Die Ausgrabungen in Haithabu, Band 15. Wachholz Verlag, Neumünster 2010. Bandi (Text und Literatur): 368 Seiten mit 109 Abbildungen und 11 farbigen Plänen. Band II (Katalog, Listen, Tafeln und Beilagen): 430 Seiten mit 11 Listen und 129 Tafeln sowie 4 großformatigen Faltplänen im Anhang, Bonner Jahrbücher, Bd. 210/211.2010/2011(2012): Bonner Jahrbücher

In 2003, a hitherto unknown Viking age settlement was discovered at Füsing in Northern Germany close to Hedeby/Schleswig, the largest of the early Scandinavian towns. Finds and building features suggest a high status residence and a seat of some chiefly elite that flourished from around 700 to the end of the 10th century. The site may be identical with the mystical Sliesthorp, which is mentioned in the earliest historical records as the power‐centre of the first Danish kings in this disputed border‐region of their realm. What would in other circumstances have been merely another productive site and manor complex, thus takes on a quite different significance. The perspectives of the discovery lies beyond an understanding of the site itself, but also on a more general level to gain a better understanding of the character and development of Early Medieval economy, the process of urbanisation and the transformation of socio‐political structures in Northern Europe as it transitioned from prehistory into the middle Ages.

Drawing on both historical and archaeological evidence, this paper investigates the significance of the foreign, and in particular the ‘stranger king’ concept in Viking Age Scandinavia. Focussing on the case of the Danish Jelling dynasty, the monumental complex at Jelling is reinterpreted as a materialization of a stranger king myth, with the ship‐setting reproducing the narrative of the founding of the dynasty by an immigrant forefather, and the burial mounds conveying the idea of the foreign king taking possession of the locals’ land. In a broader erspective, the stranger king concept and the special association of the king with the foreign is identified as an integral element of Germanic and Old Norse myth and a Scandinavian archetype of ruler‐ship. The embracing of the foreign in many different forms is seen as a political strategy with the aim to illustrate a kingʹs special connection to the forces of the distant and unknown world beyond direct human control, and to clothe him with an aura of strangeness and exoticness. In this way, and closely related to the concept of sacral ruler‐ship, the foreign emerges as a source of power and a presupposition for the formation of the early state of the Jelling dynasty.

Group of finds from Aggersborg

Various finds from Aggersborg, including charcoal and rivets, which may come from buildings or larger objects.