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Gullgubber

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Gold foil figure from c. AD 700, found at Aska in Hagebyhöga, Sweden, in 2020.
6th–7th-century gullgubber fromSorte Muld,Bornholm
A "wraith" gullgubbe

Gullgubber(Norwegian,pronounced[ˈɡʉ̀lːˌɡʉbːər]) orguldgubber(Danish,pronounced[ˈkulˌkupɐ]),guldgubbar(Swedish,pronounced[ˈɡɵ̂lːdˌɡɵbːar]), are art-objects, amulets, or offerings found inScandinaviaand dating to theNordic Iron Age.They consist of thin pieces of beaten gold (occasionally silver), usually between 1 and 2 cm2(0.16 and 0.31 sq in). in size, usually stamped with a motif, and are the oldest examples oftoreuticsin Northern Europe.

The wordgullgubbemeans "little old man of gold" and is taken from a report published in 1791 by Nils Henrik Sjöborg,[1]in which he said that villagers inRavlunda,Scania,who found them in the dunes called themguldgubbar.[2]

Approximately 3,000 gullgubber have been found, from approximately 30 sites inNorway,Sweden,and the greatest number inDenmark.No fewer than 2,350 were found at the settlement ofSorte Muld[da]on the Danish island ofBornholm,while over 100 were found at Lundeborg, nearGudmeon the Danish island ofFunen,and 122 atUppåkra,Scania,Sweden.[3]Relatively few gullgubber have so far been found in Norway, although 19 were found during excavations atVingromchurch inOpplandbetween 2003 and 2005, and the distribution of finds may be affected by modern circumstances as much as the political situation at the time they were laid down.[4]

They date to the lateIron Age,from the end of theMigration Ageto the earlyViking Age,particularly what is referred to in Norway as theMerovingianera, in Sweden as theVendel era,from 550 to about 800, but can be hard to date because they are often found in contexts that do not establish date. It seems likely that they replacedbracteates,which require far more metal, after obtaining gold from theByzantine Empirebecame difficult.[5]

Iconography and purpose[edit]

Many of the gullgubber that have been found in Norway and Sweden depict a man and a woman facing each other, sometimes embracing, sometimes with a branch or a tree visible between them. Sometimes the figures' knees are bent and they may be dancing.[6]They are almost always clothed, with the clothes generally depicted carefully and more formal than casual. Some have only a single figure, either male or female, or an animal. A few are unstamped cutouts. Sharon Ratke, in her dissertation on the gullgubber, has added a further category of "wraiths"and suggests that they may indicate that some gullgubber were a tribute to the dead or to travellers.[7]She rejects the notion of dancing, interpreting those figures as static and classing them among the wraiths.[8]

A common interpretation of the motif of the man and woman on the gullgubber is that it symbolises thesacred marriagebetween theVanir-godFreyrand thejötunnGerðr,which we know of from theEddic poemSkírnismál.[9]Some have interpreted the tree branch as a reference to the grove, Barri, where Gerðr agrees to meet Freyr; others have noted its resemblance to theGarden Angelica,a plant associated with fertility. The thinking is that the deposition of the gullgubber was intended to ensure fertility,[10]or that it was intended as a depiction of the mythical pair who gave rise to a chieftainly line.[11]From historical sources, for example, we know that theYnglingline traced its ancestry toFjölnir,son of Gerðr and Freyr.

Recent finds have somewhat changed the view of gullgubber. Almost 2,500 have been found at Sorte Muld, on the Danish island of Bornholm, by far the highest number at any site.[12]And in 2000–2004, 122, the second highest number, were found not far away atUppåkra,Scania,Sweden. Several of those found at the two sites are similar; some were made using the same dies orpatrices,and four dies and part of a fifth were found at Uppåkra, which was therefore presumably the point of manufacture for at least some of the Sorte Muld gullgubber. In addition, some gullgubber found at some other sites also show strong similarities to some from Uppåkra, and some from Uppåkra are unusually sharp in their details.[13][14]At Uppåkra they were found in postholes and wall ditches of a building that is interpreted as aheathen hofpartly on the basis of their presence as votive offerings, which is how they are now generally interpreted.[15]

Recent attempts have been made to interpret the gestures of the couples depicted on gullgubber in terms of medieval sources such as theSachsenspiegel,as denoting betrothal, for example.[16][17]However, at both Uppåkra and Sorte Muld, the majority of the gullgubber do not depict couples. At Uppåkra, most depict men, a smaller number depict women, and only a few depict couples.[18][19]Some iconographic features of the single figures – a thumb to the mouth gesture associated with being aseeras in representations of the legend ofSigurð,a group of figures with clubs and two others with staffs or sceptres of differing lengths – have been seen as relating to individualNorsegods.[20]

Locations of finds[edit]

Gullgubber have been found at 42 sites in Norway, Sweden, and in greatest numbers in Denmark.[21]Some of the most notable locations are:

About 1800 gullgubber are on display in the Bornholm Museum inRønne.Most of the gullgubber from Uppåkra can be seen at the Historical Museum atLund University.

References[edit]

  1. ^Margrethe Watt,"The Gold-Figure Foils (Guldgubbar) from Uppåkra, "Archived2016-03-04 at theWayback Machinein Lars Larsson, ed.Continuity for Centuries: A ceremonial building and its context at Uppåkra, southern Sweden.Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2004,ISBN91-22-02107-8,pp. 167-221, p. 167.
  2. ^Topographia paroeciæ Raflunda et monumentorum quæ circa sunt: quam publico examini offerunt praeses Nicolaus H. Sjöborg et respondens Gustavus Sjöborg(dissertation,University of Lund,1791, Latin), OCLC 248443661; later account in Swedish in Nils Henrik Sjöborg,Försök till en nomenklatur för nordiska fornlemningar,Stockholm: Delén, 1815,p. 112.
  3. ^Watt, pp. 168 (map), 169 (Uppåkra).
  4. ^Martin Rundkvist,"Östergötland's First Gold Foil Figure Die Found at Sättuna in Kaga Parish,"Archived2021-06-12 at theWayback MachineFornvännen102 (2007) 119-22, p. 120 makes this point with respect to the dies used to make gullgubber: unlike the foils themselves, they register on metal detectors, and the fact that they have so far been found concentrated in southern Scandinavia likely reflects the relative prevalence of metal detectorists.
  5. ^Rundqvist, p. 119.
  6. ^Hilda Roderick Ellis Davidson,Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions,Manchester University Press, 1988,ISBN071902207X,p. 121.
  7. ^Sharon Ratke,"Guldgubber - Einblicke in die Völkerwanderungszeit,"PhD dissertation,University of Bonn2009 (German), category D,Schemenin German: pp. 79-95. For memorials or thoughts of travelers (her suggested third purpose for gullgubber), seethe summaryArchived2012-03-03 at theWayback Machine(German and English).
  8. ^Sharon Ratke andRudolf Simek,"Guldgubber: Relics of Pre-Christian law rituals?" in Anders Andrén, Kristin Jennbert, Catharina Raudvere, eds.,Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives: Origins, Changes, and Interactions: an international conference in Lund, Sweden, June 3–7, 2004,Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2006,ISBN91-89116-81-X,pp. 259-66,p. 262.See also Ann-Britt Falk, "My home is my castle: Protection against evil in medieval times" in Andrén, Jennbert and Raudvere, pp. 200-05,p. 202:"Ratke and Simek instead propose an interpretation of their body positions as being of refusal or incapability, they might even be dead".
  9. ^E.O.G. Turville-Petre,Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia,London: Weidenfeld, 1964, OCLC 460550410,Caption, Fig. 43.
  10. ^Ellis Davidson,pp. 31-32:"It has been thought that they symbolise the marriage of god and goddess and that they may have been used at weddings, or to bless a new home".
  11. ^Watt, p. 217, citing this as a more modern view espoused byGro Steinsland.
  12. ^John McKinnell,"On Heiðr,"Saga-Book25 (2001), 394-417, p. 409 refers to the painstaking methods of the Sorte Muld excavation and suggests that there may have been far more gullgubber at other sites than were found.
  13. ^Lars Larsson,"The Iron Age ritual building at Uppåkra, southern Sweden,"Antiquity81 (2007), p. 16; pictures p. 18.
  14. ^Watt, pp. 169, 170, 214.
  15. ^For example McKinnell, p. 409 simply refers to "the custom of using goldgubber as temple offerings".
  16. ^Watt, p. 208, citing Rudolf Simek.
  17. ^Sharon Ratke makes a detailed case for such interpretations on the "Interpretations" page of her site athttp:// guldgubber.deArchived2010-04-28 at theWayback Machine.See also Ratke and Simek in Andrén, Jennbert and Raudvere.
  18. ^Larsson, p. 16.
  19. ^Watt, p. 216: "the gold-foil figures from both Uppåkra and Bornholm form the core of [a] southeastern Scandinavian group of mainly single figures".
  20. ^Watt, pp. 206, 208-11, citing Karl Hauck and on the thumb gesture, Hilda Ellis Davidson. The "seer" figures Hauck relates toOdin,the long-staffed figures toThor.The few naked, ithyphallic figures may plausibly be related toFreyr.
  21. ^Ratke, p. 21; Fig. 3.5, p. 22, reproduces a map from Jan Peder Lamm's 2004 article, "Figural Gold Foils Found in Sweden".
  22. ^Andreas Haugdahl,Gullgubberfrom Mære church, Steinkjer Kunnskapsportal, retrieved 4 May 2010 (Norwegian): 22 gullgubber were found.
  23. ^Gullfunnet i Kongsvik,Tjeldsund lokalhistorielag, 2004, retrieved 4 May 2010 (Norwegian): at least 11 gullgubber were found, likely more.
  24. ^Ratke, p. 24.
  25. ^Watt, p. 216.
  26. ^Lillemor Birgersson,"TV: Fynd av guldgubbar väcker sensation",Sveriges Television,15 November 2013(in Swedish)

Sources[edit]

  • Jan Peder Lamm. "Figural Gold Foils Found in Sweden". In Helen Clarke and Kristina Lamm (ed.)Excavations at Helgö XVI: Exotic and Sacral Finds from Helgö.Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2004.ISBN91-7402-339-X
  • Rundkvist, Martin;Löfving, Axel; Gustavsson, Rudolf; Heimdahl, Jens & Viberg, Andreas (December 2023). "Gold-foil figures and human skulls in the royal hall at Aska, Hagebyhöga, Östergötland".Antiquity.97(396): 1534–1547.doi:10.15184/aqy.2023.157.
  • Margrethe Watt. "Die Goldblechfiguren ('guldgubber') aus Sorte Muld, Bornholm". In Karl Hauck (ed.)Der historische Horizont der Götterbild-Amulette aus der Übergangsepoche von der Spätantike zum Frühmittelalter: Bericht über das Colloquium vom 28.11.-1.12.1988 in der Werner-Reimers-Stiftung, Bad Homburg.Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992.ISBN3-525-82587-0.pp. 195–227.
  • Margrethe Watt. "Guldgubber". In Christian Adamsen, Ulla Lund Hansen, Finn Ole Nielsen, Margrethe Watt (ed.)Sorte Muld.Rønne: Bornholms Museum ogKulturarvsstyrelsen,2008,ISBN87-88179-11-7.pp. 42–53.

External links[edit]

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