interventions were very considerable in nature, such as the cutting into of the chambers
in the Vestfold ship burials. Not enough work has been done on this phenomenon
at present, but it seems likely to represent an integral part of the ‘mortuary behaviour’
that has hitherto been erroneously considered only in relation to the actual burial
itself.
In considering the wider dramas of burial, Viking Age attitudes to dying and the
dead should not be seen as restricted to the material culture of the graveside. One
example of this is the phenomenon of hoard deposition. It has long been clear that
buried hoards of silver and other metals are too numerous for them to represent nothing
more than primitive banking, the Viking Age equivalent of hiding one’s money under
the mattress. Given the very large numbers of hoard finds within relatively small areas,
especially Gotland, it is similarly evident that those doing the burying cannot all have
died without telling anyone else where their wealth was concealed. There were probably
many concurrent explanations for hoarding behaviour, but it is possible that it could
relate to mortuary ritual either in the absence of a corpse or in addition to one disposed
of elsewhere. There is also an alternative, relating to the actions of a person in advance
of their own death. We know that some ambitious individuals were capable of erecting
runic memorials to themselves in their own lifetimes, and we should therefore recon-
sider Snorri’s suggestion that hoarded wealth could be buried by the person who had
accumulated it in order to enjoy it themselves in the afterlife. Scholars have often been too
ready to dismiss details of the Ynglingasaga account, and yet this is the kind of telling
observation that is at least as likely to reflect Viking Age reality as it is Snorri’s
imagination.
Clearly, Viking funerals were complex affairs, and there is no reason to suppose that
this did not apply right across the social spectrum beyond the spectacle of the ships and
chambers. The vast diversity of ritual practice, and perhaps belief that underpinned it,
has been mentioned above and it may be that we are looking in effect at a complex world
of funerary narratives, linking the living with the dead through the storytelling medium
that we know played such a central role in Viking culture (Price 2008 ).
THE VIKING WAYS OF DEATHThe above review of ancient burial practices is a conventional one in terms of its perhaps
rather cold packaging of archaeological terminology and ‘mortuary behaviour’. It is also
worth remembering the individual component of emotion and loss. While we cannot
know the exact feelings present in the onlookers at any funeral, grief must surely be a
recurring theme. Confronting the material remains of death is not always a straight-
forward process for archaeologists (cf. Downes and Pollard 1999 ), but in an ethical
context it is appropriate to respect the general dignity of the dead, and to spare a
thought for the very human pain that was probably present at the construction of many
of the Vikings’ burial monuments.
To pursue this subject further, it may well be that the variability present in the graves
is also to some degree a result of relatively spontaneous gesture, the deposition of
favourite things and objects with an emotional resonance: a pebble from a habitual
fishing spot, the shiny coin played with as a child, the last treasured fragment of the
wine glass awarded years earlier to a warrior by his commander. The presence in graves
of material culture with an enhanced personal value might also reflect a formal custom
–– Neil Price––