I promised a follow-up on the book I was reading, so Im cutting and pasting this from a post I made on another page: Just finished the Mound People by PV Glob. The first half of the book details the stories of several early excavations-- besides detailing the contents of the mounds, these double as cautionary tales in the importance of the archaeologists work, with tantalizing (and sometimes heartbreaking) hints about ancient treasures stolen, ruined or lost by unscupulous or ignorant diggers. There are also humorous accounts of late-Victorian prudery, specifically reactions to the immodest Bronze age string skirt that shattered the existing conception of the dignified Bronze Age lady. The book really clicked for me at pg. 119: So firmly rooted in Bronze Age culture was Scandinavia that it persisted there for nearly *five hundred years* longer than it did in central Europe, where the Iron Age was to set in earlier, in spite of... steady trade communications... This perhaps more than anything else indicates the inner strength of the Scandinavian Bronze Age culture. What grabbed me was how profoundly they must have loved and trusted what they knew, to preserve their cherished ways that long... suddenly the somewhat-repetitive catalogue of tattered woollens, rotted sandals and tiny fibulae acquired *meaning* in my mind-- and thats when the book became truly exciting. The illustrations bring the text very much to life (or vice versa,) and as an artist I relish the chance to peer more deeply into both the holy images and the objects of daily life. I was suprised to learn that the eventual onset of the Iron Age brought goddess figures to the fore-- popular accounts I have read in the past make much of the subjugation of goddesses by an invading warrior culture as some kind of pattern and norm, and its refreshing to see an account of a very different transition. One of the greatest mysteries Im left with is whether the revered Sun-disc was a feminine precursor to the goddess Sunna of later times, or if it was conceived as masculine, or simply a divine, fiery radiance, not yet anthropomorphised. I will want to read this book again, to see if the later chapters help me better appreciate the first ones.
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 16:10:30 +0000
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