and weapon parts from the site shows a clear concentration at the manor. Sherds of
Carolingian drinking glasses are likewise only found in the manor. Another element is
objects from the Carolingian and insular areas. The Carolingian ones include sword-belt
fittings, brooches and coins minted under Charlemagne and Louis the Pious. The
number of coins totals more than 130 with no fewer than c. 110 Arabic coins from the
eighth to the tenth century.
MARKET AND WORKSHOP AREABoth south and north of the large house area there are extensive workshop and market
areas. There are thousands of post-holes, in which, however, it is extremely difficult to
find any system mainly due to the ploughing-down to which the site has been exposed.
One building type in the market areas, however, is the pit-house, of which eighty-five
have been excavated. In the southern workshop area iron forging and bronze casting
seem to have dominated the activities. Semi-finished material for strike-a-lights, shears,
knives and arrowheads are among the finds. Bronze casters worked in the same areas, and
among other things casting-moulds for tortoise brooches have been found, patrix dies,
models as well as miscast keys, brooches and Thor’s hammers. The distribution of
molten bronze and lead shows that jewellery was produced over most of the site. Tools in
the form of burins, small chisels and hammers for metalwork appear in the southern
workshop area.
The distribution of the trading activities is evident from the c. 350 weights, many
fragments of hack-silver and Arabic coins that have been found all over the area. The
distribution of the dateable finds shows that a very large part of the overall market area
was functioning at the same time. By contrast there are indications that this was only for
a short period at any one time. Compared with the find frequency at emporia such as
Ribe, Haithabu, Kaupang and Birka, the quantity of finds is smaller at Tissø. This does
Figure 7. 1. 3 Pendants depicting valkyries of the Norse mythology of gilded silver with niello inlays.
(Photo: John Lee, The National Museum of Denmark.)–– chapter 7 ( 1 ): Manor, cult and market at Lake Tissø––