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Board Games in Boat Burials: Play in the Performance of Migration and Viking Age Mortuary Practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Mark A Hall
Mark A Hall*
Affiliation:
Perth Museum & Art Gallery, Perth, UK
*
[email: [email protected]]
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Abstract

This contribution explores an aspect of boat burials in the second half of the first millennium AD across Northern Europe, specifically boat burials that included equipment for board games (surviving variously as boards and playing pieces, playing pieces only, or dice and playing pieces). Entangled aspects of identity, gender, cosmogony, performance, and commemoration are considered within a framework of cultural citation and connection between death and play. The crux of this article's citational thrust is the notion of quoting life in the rituals surrounding death. This was done both in the service of the deceased and in the service of those wanting to remember the deceased, the argument distills around the biographical trajectories or the different social and individual uses to which people put ostensibly simple things such as gaming pieces.

Cet article a pour but d'explorer un aspect des sépultures à bateaux de la seconde moitié du premier millénaire apr. J.-C. en Europe septentrionale, et plus particulièrement les tombes à navires qui contenaient des éléments de jeux de société (conservés sous forme de plateaux et de pièces à jouer, de pièces à jouer seules, ou de dés et de pièces à jouer). L'examen porte sur les aspects du jeu qui entremêlent des notions d'identité, de genre, de cosmogonie, de performance et de commémoration dans un cadre formé par les références culturelles et les liens entre la mort et le jeu. L'idée essentielle derrière l'usage de ces références consiste à invoquer la vie dans la mort pour servir le mort tout autant que ceux qui désirent le commémorer, et ces notions se concrétisent autour des divers usages auxquels on a pu soumettre des objets apparemment tout simples. Translation by Madeleine Hummler

Dieser Artikel versucht, einen Aspekt der Schiffsbestattungen der zweiten Hälfte des ersten Jahrtausends n. Chr. in Nordeuropa zu untersuchen, namentlich die Bootbestattungen, die Elemente von Brettspielen (verschiedentlich als Spielbretter mit Spielsteinen, nur als Spielsteine oder als Würfel und Spielsteine erhalten) enthielten.

Keywords

Migration periodViking Ageafterlifeboard gamesboat burialsship burialsperformanceplayremembrancepériode des grandes migrationsépoque vikingau-delàjeux de sociétésépultures à bateauxtombes à naviresperformancejeucommémorationVölkerwanderungszeitWikingerzeitJenseitsBrettspieleSchiffsbestattungenBootbestattungenAufführungSpielErinnerung
Type
Article
Information
European Journal of Archaeology , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , 2016 , pp. 439 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 the European Association of Archaeologists 

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