Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T17:22:29.236Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bredarör on Kivik: a monumental cairn and the history of its interpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Joakim Goldhahn
Joakim Goldhahn*
Affiliation:
*Department of Archaeology, School of Human Sciences, University of Kalmar, S-391 82 Kalmar, Sweden (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The famous monumental Bronze Age cairn Bredarör on Kivik with its decorated stone coffin or cist has been described as a ‘pyramid of the north’. Situating his work as the latest stage in a long history of interpretation that began in the eighteenth century, the author analyses the human bone that survived from the 1930s excavation and shows that the cist and chamber must have remained open to receive burials over a period of 600 years.

Keywords

south ScandinaviaKivikBronze Agerock artburial ritesinterpretation history
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 83 , Issue 320 , June 2009 , pp. 359 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Almgren, O. 1934. Nordische Felszeichnungen als religiöse Urkunden. Frankfurth am Main: Moritz Diesterweg.Google Scholar
Aner, E. & Kersten, K.. 1977. Die funde der älteren Bronzezeit des nordischen Kreises in Dänemark, Schleschwig-Holstein und Niedersachen. København: Verlag Nationalmuseum.Google Scholar
Baudou, E. 2004. Den nordiska arkeologin: historia och tolkningar. Stockholm: KVHAA.Google Scholar
Briard, J. 1979. The Bronze Age in barbarian Europe: from the megaliths to the Celts. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Christensson, J. 2005. Om Sven Nilsson som arkeologin, in Goldhahn, J. (ed.) Från Worm till Welinder. Åtta essäer om arkeologins disciplinhistoriska praxis (Gotarc Serie C. Arkeologiska Skrifter 60): 63–97. Göteborg: Göteborg Universitet.Google Scholar
Coles, J. & Harding, A.F.. 1979. The Bronze Age in Europe: an introduction to the prehistory of Europe, c. 2000-700 BC. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Eriksson, G. 2003. Norm and difference: Stone Age dietary practice in the Baltic region. (Theses and papers in scientific archaeology 5). Stockholm: Arkeologiska forskningslaboratoret, Stockholms Universitet.Google Scholar
Gadamer, H.-G. 1993. Truth and method (second revised edition). New York: Continium.Google Scholar
Goldhahn, J. 1999. Sagaholm: hällristningar och gravritual (Studia Archaeologica Universitatis Umensis 11). Umeå: Umeå Universitet/Jönköpings: Jönköpings Läns Museum.Google Scholar
Goldhahn, J. 2005a. Bredarör i Kivik. Nya analyser och dateringar av människoben. Fornvännen 100: 97–100.Google Scholar
Goldhahn, J.2005b. Från Sagaholm till Bredarör: hällbildsstudier 2000-2004 (Gotarc Serie C. Arkeologiska Skrifter 62). Göteborg: Göteborg Universitet.Google Scholar
Hallström, G. 1932. Undersökningen 1931. Unpublished excavation report from the 1931 campaign. Antikvariska Topografiska Arkivet, Stockholm.Google Scholar
Harding, A.F. 2000. European societies in the Bronze Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Holst, M.K., Breuning-Madsen, H. & Rasmussen, M.. 2001. The south Scandinavian barrows with well-preserved oak-log coffins. Antiquity 75: 126–12.Google Scholar
Holst, M.K., Rasmussen, M. & Breuning-Madsen, H.. 2004. Skelhøj. Et bygningsværk fra den ældre bronzealder. Fra Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark 2004: 11–25.Google Scholar
Hvass, L. 2000. Egtvedpigen. København: Sesam.Google Scholar
Jensen, J. 2002a. Danmarks Oldtid. Bronzealder 2000-500 f Kr. København: Gyldendal.Google Scholar
Jensen, O.W. 2002b. Forntid i historien. En arkeologihistorisk studie av synen på forntiden och forntida lämningar, från medeltiden till och med förupplysningen (Gotarc Serie Gothenburg, B. Archaeological These 19). Göteborg: Göteborg Universitet.Google Scholar
Kristiansen, K. 1998. Europe before history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kristiansen, K. 2004. Seafaring voyages and rock art ships, in Clarke, P. (ed.) The Dover Bronze Age boat in context: 111–11. Oxford: Oxbow Books.Google Scholar
Kristiansen, K. 2005. Institutions and material culture: towards an intercontextual archaeology, in DeMarrais, E., Gosden, C. & Renfew, C. (ed.) Rethinking materiality: the engagement of mind with the material world (McDonald Institute Monographs): 179–17. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Kristiansen, K. & Larsson, T.B.. 2005. The rise of Bronze Age society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Larsson, L. 1993. Relationer till ett röse - några aspekter på Kiviksgraven, in Larsson, L. (ed.) Bronsålderns gravhögar (University of Lund Institute of Archaeology Report Series 48): 135–13. Lund: University of Lund.Google Scholar
Larsson, T.B. 1999. The transmission of an elite ideology: Europe and the Near East in the second millenniumBC, in Goldhahn, J. (ed.) Rock art as social representation (British Archaeological Reports International Series 794): 49–64. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Linné, C. [1749] 1975. Skånska resa på höga överhetens befallningar förrättad år 1749 med rön och anmärkningar uti ekonomien, naturalier, antikviteter, seder, levnadssätt. Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand.Google Scholar
Marstrander, S. 1963. østfolds jordbruksristninger: Skjeberg (Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning. Serie B: Skrifter 53). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.Google Scholar
Montelius, O.A. 1899. Soldgudens yxa och Tors hammare. Svenska Fornminnesföreningens Tidskrift 10(4): 277–27.Google Scholar
Nilsson, S. 1862. Nordens ur-invånare, ett försök i komparativa ethnografien och ett bidrag till menniskoslägtets utvecklings historia. II. Bronsåldern. Lund: Berlingska Boktryckeriet.Google Scholar
Nordén, A. 1932. Graven i Kivik. Nåra anteckningar kring Sveriges till utsträckning största gravminnesmärke. Ord och Bild 1932: 481–48.Google Scholar
Nordén, A.1942. Kiviksgraven och andra fornminnen i kivikstrakten (Svenska fornminnesplatser 1). Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrands.Google Scholar
Randsborg, K. 1993. Kivik: archaeology and iconography. Acta Archaeologica 64: 1–147.Google Scholar
Randsborg, K. 1996. The Nordic Bronze Age: chronological dimensions. Acta Archaeologica 67: 61–72.Google Scholar
Randsborg, K. 1998. Plundered Bronze Age graves: archaeological & social implications. Acta Archaeologica 69: 113–11.Google Scholar
Thrane, H. 1962. The earliest bronze vessels in Denmark's Bronze Age. Acta Archaeologica 33: 109–10.Google Scholar
Thrane, H. 1990. The Mycenean fascination: a northerner's view, in Bader, T. (ed.) Orientalisch-Agäïsche Einflüsse in der Europäische Bronzezeit (Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Monographien 15): 165–16. Bonn: Habelt.Google Scholar
Tilley, C. 2004. The materiality of stone: explorations in landscape phenomenology. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Trigger, B.G. 1989. A history of archaeological thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Verlaeckt, K. 1993. The Kivik petroglyphs: a reassessment of different opinions. Germania 71: 1–29.Google Scholar
Vogt, D. 2001. Continuity and discontinuity in south Scandinavian Bronze Age rock art research, in Helskog, K. (ed.) Theorethical perspectives in rock art research: 99–109. Oslo: Novus.Google Scholar