scholarly journals Archaic Martial Traditions in High Medieval Scandinavia: A Glimpse of Viking Age Warfare?

Viking ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Beñat Elortza Larrea
Keyword(s):  
Viking Age ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Skaldic Poetry ◽  
Military Transformation ◽  
The Military

Most written evidence regarding warfare in Viking Age Scandinavia originates either from contemporaneous chronicles – recorded by those at the receiving end of Norse attacks – from skaldic poetry, or from high medieval Scandinavian texts. However, these sources often prove problematic: either in the form of chronicles from other parts of Europe, whichoften exaggerate the brutality of Viking raids, or from 13th century Icelandic writers, who embellish accounts of long deceased rulers. This article explores archaic martial features found in 12th- and 13th-century contemporaneous sagas and treatises to identify and analyse the continued influence of Viking Age military practices in high medieval Scandinavia. By comparing information found in three medieval texts to scholarly contributions on Viking Age warfare; skaldic poems; and archaeological evidence, this article aims to identify Viking Age military features that survived the military transformation, which followed the periods of internal struggles that the Scandinavian kingdoms underwent from the 1130s onwards.

The Papacy, the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Second Council of Lyon (1274)

Epohi ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Momchil Mladenov ◽  
◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
13Th Century ◽  
Present Information ◽  
History Of ◽  
Military Campaign ◽  
The Military ◽  
Significant Opportunity

The current publications present information about the history of church union negotiations in the second half of the 13th century. The mane goal of emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus is to stop the military campaign against Byzantium. At the Second Council of Lyons (6 July 1274) was declared a union between Catholics and Orthodox. This is the most significant opportunity for the unity of Christendom. But the union also became an occasion for final division. Then any attempt at rapprochement is doomed to failure.

War without Frontiers: The Archaeology of the Arab Revolt, 1916–18

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
NEIL FAULKNER ◽  
NICHOLAS J. SAUNDERS
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
First World War ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
World War ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Archaeological Investigation ◽  
Conflict Archaeology ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Military ◽  
First World

The Arab Revolt of 1916–18 played a significant part in the military collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War. This chapter argues that archaeological evidence indicates that the revolt's importance was probably substantially greater than has sometimes been acknowledged. The evidence demonstrates the need for a critical re-evaluation of the issue in southern Jordan. The archaeological investigation of sites associated with the Arab Revolt in southern Jordan offers dramatic insights into the material consequences for the Ottoman army of combating the guerrilla tactics of British-backed Arab guerrillas. The aim of the discussion is twofold: to give more precision to the military assessment of the Arab Revolt in the area between Ma'an and Wadi Rutm, and to demonstrate the potential of the new and multidisciplinary sub-discipline of twentieth-century ‘conflict archaeology’.

What and Where? Revised Overview of Base Extent

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon James
Keyword(s):  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
The Military ◽  
The City

Archaeological evidence indicates that, during the final halfcentury of the life of the city, the area directly annexed by the military was significantly larger than the original excavators realized. In addition to concentrations of soldiers around the gates and defences, and at various places within the ‘civil’ town, the military came to control a single continuous swathe of the urban interior, comprising the entire N part of the walled area from the W defences to the river cliffs, and extending as far as the S end of the Citadel, plus the floor of the inner wadi right down to Lower Main St opposite the (by Durene standards) showy C3 bath, which it also apparently built. This area totals c.13.5 ha (c.33 acres)—a literal quarter of the intramural area which today covers c.52 ha (c.118 acres, measured from the CAD plan of the city by Dan Stewart; both city and base were slightly bigger in antiquity, before loss of the River Gate and parts of the Citadel). In its final form, the base included several distinct zones (Pl. XXIII). The NW part of the city had become a military enclosure, bounded on the E side by a continuous wall down the W side of G St, incorporating the street facades of the E3 bath and E4 house. On the S it was defined by the ‘camp wall’ from the city defences to D St; with no sign of a wall across blocks F5 or F7, the perimeter between D and F Sts is inferred. It must be presumed that, as to the W, the 8th-St-fronting properties of the two blocks were taken over, but that the party walls comprising the boundary with civil housing to the S was not further elaborated. These lines converged on the amphitheatre, which formed the corner of the enclosure. This perimeter of the NW enclosure involved physically blocking Wall, A, C, D, and 10th Sts. A major entrance was on 8th St, at G St between the amphitheatre and the E4 house.

A Note on the Jewellery Listed in the Inventory of Manninni (CTH 504)

1980 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 85-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. R. Maxwell-Hyslop
Keyword(s):  
13Th Century ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Detailed Assessment

The lack of stratified examples of Hittite jewellery emphasizes the importance of the evidence afforded by inventories such as the Inventory of Manninni recently published by Dr S. Košak. Although many of the words designating specific pieces of jewellery or goldwork cannot yet be translated, a study of the inventories combined with contemporary archaeological evidence can assist in forming a more detailed assessment of the products of Hittite jewellers and gold workers. It is possible to make some tentative suggestions concerning the identification of different types of jewellery mentioned in the Manninni inventory with reference to excavated pieces, some of which, although originating from sites beyond the area of direct Hittite influence yet can be dated to a period contemporary with or slightly earlier than the Hittite inventories. The Manninni inventory has been assigned to the 13th century B.C. by F. Kammenhuber but in Košak's view it could have been composed at any time during the later Hittite Empire.

scholarly journals AMAZONS IN VIKING AGE

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-84
Author(s):  
O. Ye. Fialko
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Demographic Expansion ◽  
Southern Sweden ◽  
Small Series ◽  
Age Range ◽  
The Military ◽  
Social Level

Amazons are usually associated with the period of the early Iron Age. However, a large number of graves of armed women of the early Middle Ages are known in the territory of Eurasia. In the Scandinavian countries, the period of the 9th — the first half of the 11th centuries was called the «Viking Age». This period is related to the military, commercial and demographic expansion of the Scandinavians. During the archaeological researches, burials of women with weapons were recorded in the cemeteries of Denmark, Norway and Southern Sweden. They constitute a small series of 16 funerary complexes. Typically, the female warriors were buried in individual graves, and only occasionally they were accompanied by a woman or a child. Only in two cases armed man and woman of equal social level were placed in one grave. In the necropolis, the graves of the Amazons are usually localized among the military graves. On the territory of Western Europe, both rites of burial of warriors — inhumation and cremation are registered. The age range of female warriors is quite wide — from 10 to 50—60 years, with the domination of young women. The material complex showed that women’s weapons were intended for both remote (bows and arrows, spears) and close combat (swords, knives, axes). And in this period preference was given to axes. Several graves of female warriors were accompanied by a horse or a set of horse ammunition. This means that women could also fight in the equestrian battles. Based on the range and the number of weapons, the Amazons of the Viking Age mainly were part of the lightly armed units. These women took up arms on a par with men in moments of acute necessity — periods of seizing of new territories or defending their lands from an external enemy.

Russia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Zysk
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Structure ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Will ◽  
Human Capabilities ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
Force Structure ◽  
Military Transformation ◽  
Defence Sector ◽  
The Military

The Russian armed forces and military thought have been undergoing a historic transition. Following several failed attempts at military reforms since the 1990s, it became increasingly clear that the organizational structure, operational doctrines, and weaponry of Soviet provenience were poorly adapted to the radically changed security environment, as well as to Russia’s economic, material, and human capabilities. Since Vladimir Putin’s second presidential term, the political will to prioritize the defence sector has systematically increased and eventually led to a comprehensive military transformation. A new command and force structure, massive introduction of new materiel, and sharply increased quality and quantity of training have been accompanied by doctrinal revisions to accommodate changing forms of warfare. Nevertheless, the modernization efforts have been unevenly distributed and in some cases incoherent, undermined by inadequate industrial, technological, socio-economic, and demographic resources. The end objective of the military transformation remains a subject of an ongoing discussion.

When? New Outline of Development and Chronology

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon James
Keyword(s):  
Traumatic Shock ◽  
Project Team ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Urban Fabric ◽  
Military Base ◽  
Military Transformation ◽  
Epigraphic Evidence ◽  
The Military ◽  
The City

Such was the extent of the base in its final form, before the disruptions of the 250s. But how and when did it reach this extent and conformation? As we have seen, the small number of direct epigraphic dates coming from key structures in the military base concentrate c.209–16. While the Yale expedition were aware that there had been resident Roman auxiliaries from the later second century, and also identified (mostly erroneously) some components as belonging to the 220s–250s, they took this ‘epigraphic dating horizon’ as indicating that the military base, from camp wall to principia to baths, amphitheatre, and campus, including creation of most military accommodation, was overwhelmingly a rapid creation of the 210s. This notion of a sudden military transformation of the urban fabric at that time supposedly reflected a radical expansion of numbers of the Roman garrison—resulting in traumatic shock to the city. The concentration of dated inscriptions from the military base does seem to constitute a tight ‘epigraphic dating horizon’ c.209–16, or indeed c.209–12 if the amphitheatre was really an opportunistic coda. It certainly represents a major military building campaign. However, it has been misinterpreted, and its significance exaggerated, especially in taking it to mark effective creation of the base. Central to the ‘epigraphic horizon’, of course, is the dating of the principia to 211–12, with rebuilding of the Mithraeum around the same time. Other components of the programme may be implied by epigraphic information. Notably the detail of the undated inscription attesting building of the A1 Temple of the Roman Archers and expansion of the campus plausibly fits in the context of the 210s. However, the Yale project team pushed interpretation of the epigraphic evidence much too far in employing other texts to date military structures. While the ‘camp wall’ may well also have been built c.210, the epigraphic argument for this, comprising an inscription of debated reading not even found in proximity to the wall, is flimsy in the extreme. Similar misuse of epigraphic evidence is seen in the case of the three altars to Dolichenus found in X7.

La Roundele, Berwick-upon-Tweed

2020 ◽  
Vol 149 ◽  
pp. 131-144
Author(s):  
Catherine Kent
Keyword(s):  
Early History ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Secondary Use ◽  
History Of ◽  
Similar Complex

A late 13th-century survey of Berwick-upon-Tweed includes an entry entitled ‘la Roundele’. It has not previously been interpreted satisfactorily but this paper shows it to have been a large circular site, in a secondary use by the time of the survey, at the head of the town’s early beachside marketplace. It is argued that the site’s shape, size and ability to survive in the changing townscape means that it originated in a substantial earlier structure – such as a broch or similar complex Atlantic roundhouse. The proposition accords with what is known of the early history of the Tweed estuary and southern brochs in general. Archaeological evidence for the structure may survive beneath later buildings.   Canmore ID 25990

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