Silver, Butter, Cloth

This book advances current debate about the nature and complexity of Viking economic systems. It explores how silver and other commodities were used in monetary and social economies across the Scandinavian world of the Viking Age (c.AD 800–1100) before and alongside the wide-scale introduction of coinage. Through a multidisciplinary approach that unites archaeological, numismatic, and metallurgical analyses, it examines the uses and sources of silver in both monetary and social transactions, addressing topics such as silver fragmentation, hoarding, and coin production and reuse. It also goes beyond silver, giving the first detailed consideration of the monetary role of butter, cloth, and gold in the Viking economy. Indeed, the book is instrumental in developing methodologies to identify such commodity-monies in the archaeological record. The use of silver and other commodities within Viking economies is a dynamic field of study, fuelled by important recent discoveries across the Viking world. The fourteen contributions to this book, by a truly international group of scholars, draw on newly available archaeological data from eastern Europe, Scandinavia, the North Atlantic, and the British Isles and Ireland, to present the latest, original research. Together, they deepen understanding of Viking monetary and social economies and advance new definitions of ‘economy’, ‘currency’, and ‘value’ in the ninth to eleventh centuries.

2018 ◽  
pp. 251-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michèle Hayeur Smith

In medieval Iceland, apparently alone among the North Atlantic Norse colonies, cloth evolved into a highly standardized form of currency within a broader-based commodity-money system imported from Norway. Within the Icelandic economy, the production of currency cloth (vaðmál or vöruvaðmál) was legally regulated and was used within Iceland to pay debts, taxes, and tithes. This chapter presents the first detailed analyses of over 1,000 archaeological textiles stored in Icelandic museum collections. The way in which this ‘legal cloth’ was woven and constructed provides insights into the emergence of standardized cloth currency and its use across Iceland. Analyses challenge the assumption that organic forms of commodity-currency are unavailable to archaeologists studying early economic systems. Cloth currency, produced chiefly by women, emerged around the end of the Viking Age. It was central to the Icelandic economy until the mid 1500s, after which its role progressively declined as Iceland entered into the increasingly globalized trade networks of the early modern industrialized world.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-59
Author(s):  
Yulia Shtyryakova

Abstract Today we know much about the culture of the Viking Age, but there are still gaps to fill. One of them is what the legendary weapon called atgeirr in Icelandic sagas really was. Nowadays researchers prefer to view atgeir as a kind of spear. But the defining features of atgeir are not clearly described and the range of different kinds of spearheads suggested as related to this weapon is frustratingly wide. This paper draws on saga material with the aim to describe essential characteristics of atgeir which differentiate it from the spear. This would allow to considerably narrow down the list of proposed candidates for the role of atgeir among archaeological finds from the Viking Age and to recognise it as a special type of weapon, just as it is referred to in Icelandic sagas


2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW BAINES

In reading archaeological texts, we expect to be engaged in a characteristically archaeological discourse, with a specific and recognisable structure and vocabulary. In evaluating the published work of 19th Century antiquarians, we will inevitably look for points of contact between their academic language and our own; success or failure in the identification of such points of contact may prompt us to recognise a nascent archaeology in some writings, while dismissing others as naïve or absurd. With this point in mind, this paper discusses the written and material legacies of three 19th Century antiquarians in the north of Scotland who worked on a particular monument type, the broch. The paper explores the degree to which each has been admitted as an influence on the development of the broch as a type. It then proceeds to compare this established typology with the author's experiences, in the field, of the sites it describes. In doing so, the paper addresses wider issues concerning the role of earlier forms of archaeological discourse in the development of present day archaeological classifications of, and of the problems of reconciling such classifications with our experiences of material culture.


2020 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 181-192
Author(s):  
Anna A. Komzolova

One of the results of the educational reform of the 1860s was the formation of the regular personnel of village teachers. In Vilna educational district the goal was not to invite teachers from central Russia, but to train them on the spot by establishing special seminaries. Trained teachers were supposed to perform the role of «cultural brokers» – the intermediaries between local peasants and the outside world, between the culture of Russian intelligentsia and the culture of the Belarusian people. The article examines how officials and teachers of Vilna educational district saw the role of rural teachers as «cultural brokers» in the context of the linguistic and cultural diversity of the North-Western Provinces. According to them, the graduates of the pedagogical seminaries had to remain within the peasant estate and to keep in touch with their folk «roots». The special «mission» of the village teachers was in promoting the ideas of «Russian elements» and historical proximity to Russia among Belarusian peasants.


2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 220-243
Author(s):  
Verena Mayer

How do we understand other minds? The current debate uses the iridescent term “empathy” to explain our quite different mindreading capacities. Since no alternatives seemed to be available the discussion has been mostly in a deadlock between “simulation theory” and “theory theory”. Only recently the relevance of phenomenological findings on the issue has been brought forward. In this paper Husserl’s two concepts of “Einfühlung”, as developed in the second volume of his Ideas, are set against the background of the latest discussion. Husserl’s explanation of empathy in terms of analogical experience highlights the transcendental role of empathy in the context of constitution. At the same time it may solve some of the many riddles left by the recent debate.


Author(s):  
Putri Ananda Sari ◽  
Abdul Kadir ◽  
Beby Mashito Batu Bara

This study aims to determine the role of the Ombudsman of the Republic of Indonesia in North Sumatra Representative in the Supervision of Population and Civil Registry Service in Medan City. This study uses a qualitative approach with descriptive methods describing information about the data obtained from the field in the form of written and oral data from the parties studied. Data is collected based on interviews and documentation. The results of this study indicate that the role of the Ombudsman of the Republic of Indonesia in North Sumatra was carried out in the form of external supervision. External supervision is supervision carried out by the Ombudsman of the Republic of Indonesia Representative of North Sumatra to the Medan Population and Civil Registry Service. Actions taken in the supervision process are incoming reports, follow-up of the first report and follow-up of the report. Based on the research that has been carried out, it has been concluded that the role of the Ombudsman of the Republic of Indonesia in the North Sumatra Representative in supervising the service provider of the Population and Civil Registry services is carried out in the form of external supervision. In supervising the handling of public reports of alleged poor service in the area of population administration, it has been effective, with several efforts to handle reports such as: (1) Clarification; (2) Investigation; (3) Recommendations; (4) Monitoring.


Author(s):  
Ana Brígida Paiva

As works of fction, gamebooks offer narrative-bound choices – the reader generally takes on the role of a character inserted in the narrative itself, with gamebooks consequently tending towards being a story told in the second-person perspective. In pursuance of this aim, they can, in some cases, adopt gender-neutral language as regards grammatical gender, which in turn poses a translation challenge when rendering the texts into Portuguese, a language strongly marked by grammatical gender. Stemming from an analysis of a number of gamebooks in R. L. Stine’s popular Give Yourself Goosebumps series, this article seeks to understand how gender indeterminacy (when present) is kept in translation, while examining the strategies used to this effect by Portuguese translators – and particularly how ideas of implied readership come into play in the dialogue between the North-American and Portuguese literary systems.


Author(s):  
Magdalena Zarzyka-Ryszka

The paper describes the past and present distribution of Colchicum autumnale in the vicinity of Cracow, highlights the role of Stanisław Dembosz (who published the first locality of C. autumnale near Igołomia in 1841). Gives information about the occurrence of C. autumnale in Krzeszowice in the 19th century (reported by Bronisław Gustawicz), presents new localities noted in 2012–2014 in meadows in the north-eastern part of the Puszcza Niepołomicka forest and adjacent area (between the Vistula and Raba rivers), and gives a locality found in Cracow in 2005 (no longer extant).


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