Thinking of Suds

So I have been doing research into soap and soap making... It seems that the Vikings may have been one of the first groups of people to make and use soap consistently for cleaning themselves and their clothing. There is some speculative evidence suggesting that they did both in the same time, and that this fact may have been due in small part the the presence of hot springs in a majority of the locations where these people settled. If you didn't have to spend half the day waiting to prep the bath water, you were more likely to bath. Which makes sense actually...
So, to this end, the AoA circlet project has been abandon due to lack of funding... and I am moving on to soap making. In the next day or two I intend to start with the extraction of lye from wood ash. I will be posting pictures of my progress as soon as I start; and I will try an chronicle the whole process as much as I can. The chemistry of this process is somewhat shaky and involves things like tasting the solution, floating eggs, and melting feathers... it feels so much like alchemy it is spine tingling.

All Projects on Hold

For the momement, all projects and research are on hold until further notice.

Thoughts on Connectivity

I have been talking to my father a lot recently. He has been exploring the depths of Buddhism, and has some especially profound things to say. This has come at a time when I have been doing a lot of thinking on connectivity in general, but specifically how it relates to experimental archeology and my intentions for study.

I have begun to feel very connected to the people I am studying. I dream of misty hills that dive into the clear cold Baltic sea. My thoughts are filled with images of a life not lived in this existence. And I wonder about the connectivity in the world. I feel tied to these North People; not just the Norse people of Gotland, but of all the people living so close to the Arctic Circle. There is frost in my veins....

As I look over the simple objects found in the graves of these people, I wonder about their lives... their conversations... their dreams.

I see a simple expression present in all of the artifacts of the Gautar, the Sevar, the Curonian, the Inuit, the Lapps, and the Sami. They shared an understanding of each other... they shared the ocean, the rock of ages, and the cold.

The similarity of the objects is uncanny. Yes, they differed in small ways only barely visible to experts; and yes, each culture had some major art or craft that the others didn't... but they shared so much. In the picture I have posted... Can you tell if these tools were made by the modern Inuit people, or ancient Norse people... ?

A connection between the ages seems to be evident as well. These people carried the tools of ages past as sacred objects meaningful on the deepest levels. They lived with the past in a way that our modern mind full of living not in the now, but in the next can not begin to comprehend.

It is these connections, these fuzzy edges between cultures, generations, and belief that have me captivated.

It is wondrous, it is beautiful, it is sacred...

It is magic!

The Baltic Connection - Part 2 - Ah Ha I say...

From "The Balts" by Marija Gimbutas (published in 1963 by Thames & Hudson London England)
Located at http://www.vaidilute.com/books/gimbutas/gimbutas-contents.html

"It is to be expected that Curonian weapons and ornaments would be found all
over the western Baltic Sea coasts to Denmark. That they reached Gotland even
before the wars with Denmark is shown by a number of Curonian pins, fibulae and
swords dating from the tenth century. These articles have been found in various
places along the coasts of Gotland. Some are isolated finds, but some come from
graves. In Hugleifs near Silte a woman’s grave containing typically Curonian
ornaments was discovered, including a fibula similar to the one illustrated on
this page. Other Curonian finds on Gotland were pins with triangular or cross
shaped heads, and swords such as are found in great numbers in western
Lithuania, particularly around Klaipėda and Kretinga. Whether these isolated
finds are merely imports from Curonia or the relics of a Curonian colony on
Gotland is difficult to tell, but the grave at Hugleifs certainly proves the
presence of some Curonians on the island. Other Baltic finds on Gotland, and in
Uppland and Öland in central Sweden, point to commercial relations during the
tenth and eleventh centuries. A fragment of a silver neck-ring with
saddle-shaped end, which is a widely distributed type in central and eastern
parts of Lithuania and Latvia, was found on Gotland (Boters near Gerum) together
with Arab, Byzantine, German and Anglo-Saxon coins. Another neck-ring of the
same type comes from Öland.4"

So it seems I was not the first to make the connection!

The Baltic Connection

Recently I have been thinking alot about the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea and their connections to the history of Gotland. I have just now read the most interesting little tid bit...

That the Variagi were of Swedish descent, and that it was they who gave the name of Russia to the Slav countries, is proved beyond the possibility of a doubt. A most weighty argument is the large number of Swedish names in the list of Variag princes who reigned in Russia. It would not have been possible for Nestor to devise the more than one hundred leading names of Swedish origin which occur in his chronicle. Furthermore, it has been shown that there are fifteen Swedish loanwords in Russian. This is very much. Great and powerful nations have left behind a good deal less in modern languages, the Vandals three words, the Burgundians four or five, the Herulians one. Although the Swedes in Russia had no literature in their ancestral language, they have left behind more words than the majority of Teutonic tribes founding states and nations. The Old Swedish equivalents to some of the most important proper names which meet us in early Russian history are as follows : Rurik=Hroerekr, Sineus=Signjôtr, Truvor=Tryggve, Oleg=Helge, Olga=Helga, Igor= Inge, Ingvar.

For two hundred years after Rurik, all the leading men in Russian history carry Swedish names, and all the czars of Russia were the descendants of Rurik, up to the year 1598. The emperor and historian Constantine Porphyrogenitus, speaking of Russia, makes the distinction between the Slays and the Russians proper. In his description of the cataracts of the Dniepr, he gives to each the Russian and the Slav name, and these Russian names are nearly all understood by reference to old Swedish roots. Examples are Gellandri (Gellandi)=the Noisy, Eyfôrr=the Al-ways Turbulent. Luitprand, the Italian chronicler, speaking of the Russians, says : "The Greeks call them Russians, we call them properly Northmen. The annals of St. Bertinus tell how Emperor Theophilus recommended some Russian envoys to Louis le Débonnaire, but how he, taking them for Norman spies, threw them into prison. The first Russian Code of Laws, compiled by laroslaf, presents a striking analogy to the Old Swedish laws.

The Slays must have originally borrowed the name Russian from the Finns, who, up to the present day, call the Swedes Ruotsi. The name is in Sweden connected with a part of the coast of Upland still called Roslagen. The etymology of the name is Old Swedish rodr (rudder) and rodsmenn (oarsmen). Roslagen means "associations of oarsmen." The district is famous for its large peculiar rowboats. By the term Russians, the Slays originally meant people from Roslagen, later Sweden in general. But when these Russians had become the founders of a new empire, south of the Baltic, it became necessary to devise a new name for the inhabitants of Sweden. This name was found in Variagi. Only the Swedes seeking employment as sworn warriors in the service of the new Russian dynasty, or in the body-guard of the Byzantine emperors, were originally thus called. But when the name of the new nation of Swedes and Slays became Russians, the Swedes, and the Scandinavians in general, became known as Variagi. The etymology of the word has been given as the Old Swedish var (sacramentum) and voeringar (sacrarnentarii, soldiers bound by oath). The same name applied to Swedes, or Northmen, occurs frequently in slightly altered forms in Greek and Arabic manuscripts.

So it seems to me that my suppositions regarding Gotland likely having a more Baltic influence than other parts of Scandinavia is correct in that for the Swedes to get to the Baltic region (i.e. Russia) they would have had to have sailed past Gotland and would have likely stopped there. If taken with evidence of Baltic coins being found in the Visby hoard, the supposition becomes even stronger.

Add this quote from Wikipedia... yeah, I know, but this site had sources

Latvians or Letts (Latvian: latvieši; Livonian: laett), the indigenous Baltic
people of Latvia, occasionally refer to themselves by the ancient name of
Latvji, which may have originated from the word Latve which is a name of the
river that presumably flowed through what is now eastern Latvia. A
Finnic-speaking tribe known as the Livs settled among the Latvians and modulated
the name to "Latvis," meaning "forest-clearers," which is how medieval German
settlers also referred to these peoples. The German colonizers changed this name
to "Lette" and called their initially small colony Livland. The Latin form,
Livonia, gradually referred to the whole territory of the modern-day Latvia as
well as southern Estonia, which had fallen under German dominion. Latvians and
Lithuanians are the only surviving members of the Baltic peoples and Baltic
languages of the Indo-European family.

And this from a similar site on Lithuania...

Baltic tribes
The first Lithuanians were a branch of an ancient group known
as the Balts, whose tribes also included the original Prussian and Latvian
people. The Baltic tribes were not directly influenced by the Roman Empire, but
the tribes did maintain close trade contacts (see Amber Road).

Lithuanians have built a nation that has endured for most of the past
ten centuries, while Latvians acquired statehood in the 20th century and
Prussian tribes disappeared in the 18th century. The first known reference to
Lithuania as a nation (Litua) comes from the annals of the monastery of
Quedlinburg and is dated February 14, 1009.

Today, the two remaining
Baltic nationalities are Lithuanians and Latvians, but there were more Baltic
nationalities/tribes in the past. Some of these have merged into the Lithuanian
and Latvian nationalities (Samogitians, Selonians, Curonians, Semigallians),
while others have disappeared (Prussians, Sambians, Skalvians, Galindians).

Towards the creation of a single state
During the 11th century,
Lithuanian territories were included in the list of lands paying tribute to
Kievan Rus', but by the 12th century, the Lithuanians were plundering
neighboring territories themselves. The military and plundering activities of
the Lithuanians triggered a struggle for power in Lithuania, which initiated the
formation of early statehood and was a precondition of the founding of the Grand
Duchy of Lithuania.

And this regarding the Cori or Curonians...

The Curonians or Kurs (Curonian: Kursi; German: Kuren; Latvian: Kurši;
Lithuanian: Kuršiai; Estonian: kuralased; Polish: Kurowie) were a people living
on the shores of the Baltic sea in what is now western parts of Latvia and
Lithuania from the 5th to the 16th centuries. They gave their name to the region
of Courland (Kurzeme), and they spoke the Old Curonian language. Curonian lands
were conquered by the Livonian Order in 1266 and they eventually merged with
other Baltic tribes participating in the ethnogenesis of Latvians and
Lithuanians. Direct descendents of the Curonians include the Kursenieki of the
Curonian Spit and the so-called Curonian Kings of Courland.

The Curonians were known as fierce warriors, excellent sailors and pirates. They
were involved in several wars and alliances with Swedish, Danish, and Icelandic
Vikings. Grobin was their main center during the Vendel Age. Chapter 46 of Egils
Saga describes one Viking expedition by the Vikings Thorolf and Egill
Skallagrímsson in Courland. They took part with the Oeselians in attacking
Sweden's main city Sigtuna in 1187. Curonians established temporary settlements
near Riga and in overseas regions including eastern Sweden and the islands of
Gotland and Bornholm.VIIa.Scandinavians begin settling in Western Baltic lands
in Lithuania and Latvia.

The Curonians were an especially religious
people, worshipping pagan gods and their sacred animal, the horse. Some of the
most important writing sources about the Curonians are the Rimbert's Vita
Ansgarii, the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, the Livländische Reimchronik, Egils
Saga, and Saxo Grammaticus's Gesta Danorum.

It seems to me that my best bet for finding the information I am looking for is to seek out a connection to the Curonians and Gotland.... More to come later

AOA Circlet Research - Part 4

More Jewlery form Grave digs - these are from Denmark (Black background from Terslev and Blue background North Vedsted) images from http://oldtiden.natmus.dk/

Both of these have firmly concluded my research... Twisted and woven jewelry was clearly created and worn by peoples of the Viking era throughout the region.

It has also pointed out something subtle to me. The pieces from Gotland show a marked influence from the Latvian and Lithuanian areas of the same time period. Clearly these cultures were more closely linked than has been previously discussed by most scholars... Surely I am not the first to notice.

AoA Circlet Research 3 - Twisted Arm Rings from the Isle of Orkney

From the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow --A Silver Hoard, The Skaill, Orkney

(most of the pieces on display are replicas of originals now in the Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh)

In March 1858 a boy chasing a rabbit into a hole near Sandwick church close to Skara Brae found some fragments of silver kicked up by the rabbits. From the accompanying coins, and also from the style of ornament, the hoard has been dated to about AD 950. The characteristic patterns of interlaced S shaped animals are known as the Jellinge style, from a Danish royal site where similar patterns are found.

The silver ornaments at Skaill may well have been made in the Isle of Man. Such large silver brooches are common in the English Scandinavian areas but are otherwise unknown from Scotland.

Replica of one complete armlet formed of interlaced wires with a plain section having imitation terminals of a penannular ring, formed into open-jawed animals.

Replica of a larger, incomplete, twisted ring

Fragment of a one of the larger silver twisted rings from the hoard; with a plain flat terminal ending in a hook; it appears to have been split into wires for twisting


So, ah ha! I say... The theory has hope of being correct. It seems they did twist metal wires to get this effect!

AOA Circlet Research - Part 2

Here are two more images of circular jewerly from Gotland.

This one is from the same reproduction supplier as the first one posted

And this one is from an actual grave find... From the Polotsk National Historical Cultural Museum and Reserve (http://polotsk.museum.by/en/node/129)

Twisted ring from island of Gotland. 11th century. Gold 900*, filegreed. D-25,0.
Excavations by V. Bulkhin.
Upper Castle, Polotsk, 1978.

All of what I am finding looks like a large gauge metal wire with a smaller wire or multiple wires twisted with it. More specifically two small gauge wires twisted with one another, and then that new created twist then twisted with a larger gauge wire. The terminals all seem to either be animal head or tendril like scrolls… More research on actual grave finds is needed, but I think this has me going the right direction

AOA Circlet Research

As the people of 10th century Gotland did not wear circlets and weaving metal to look like tablet weaving is waaaayyyyy beyond my skill level (for the moment); I have decided to look at other ring shaped jewelry and then use it as a base for my design. Here is what I have found so far:

In the category of allegedly of period origin, but with no specific extant piece listed we have:

From: http://www.urweg.com/


Gotland Bracelet
Lye, Gotland, Sweden - Viking Era

More to come as I figure out how to better incorporate images into a post

Visby Lenses from Gotland

As I have been doing a little research for another project, I realized I must add a 51st thing to my list...

I keep running into references to "the Visby lenses", for more information go see: http://www.sacerdotesse.com/the-visby-lenses.html )