04 williams 2005 memory waponry medieval mortuary technologies

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Keeping the dead at arm’s lengthMemory, weaponry and early medieval mortuary technologies

HOWARD WILLIAMS

Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter, UK

ABSTRACTArchaeologists have identified two kinds of furnished graves datingto the late fifth and sixth centuries AD from southern and easternEngland: inhumation and cremation. While the ‘weapon burial rite’ isa frequent occurrence for inhumation graves, weapons are rarelyfound in cinerary urns. This article argues that this divergence mayrelate to the contrasting roles of cremation and inhumation asmortuary technologies of remembrance linked to alternative strate-gies for managing the powerful mnemonic agency of weapons.

KEY WORDScremation ● early medieval ● memory ● mortuary practices ● person-hood ● weaponry ● weapons

■ INTRODUCTION

When considering commemoration and social memory in past societies,archaeologists have tended to consider monuments and their landscape

Journal of Social Archaeology A R T I C L E

Copyright © 2005 SAGE Publications (www.sagepublications.com)ISSN 1469-6053 Vol 5(2): 253–275 DOI: 10.1177/1469605305053369

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254 Journal of Social Archaeology 5(2)

settings (Bradley, 1998). Yet in the mortuary practices of past communities,portable artefacts can serve many commemorative roles. Funerals arecontexts in which objects can influence commemoration when produced,used, exchanged, circulated, fragmented, consumed, destroyed and recycled,as well as when they are placed in the grave with the remains of the dead.Artefacts can evoke social memories through their function and form as wellas their symbolic, metaphorical and biographical associations with thedeceased and the past. Objects can also serve in the creation of new,‘prospective’ memories, serving to portray an idealized identity for thedeceased in an aspired to afterlife existence. Portable artefacts may evenfunction to mediate the changing nature of the deceased’s personhoodthroughout the funeral since, in many societies, mortuary practices can beconsidered as ritual technologies in which the identities of the living and thephysical and spiritual elements of the deceased are transformed. Themnemonic reconfiguration of personhood through the interplay of objects,the cadaver and mortuary technologies can be one means by which themourners cope with their bereavement and transform their relations withthe dead person (Hallam and Hockey, 2001; Hamilakis, 1998;Williams, 2001).

Artefacts can also contribute to both remembering and forgettingthrough the selection of material culture for internment with the deceased,and the deliberate disassociation of objects that are deemed inappropriatein psychological, emotional, symbolic or social terms. Rather than beingunimportant in commemorating the dead, these disassociated objects,whether they are destroyed, consumed, recycled or circulated among theliving, can be a further means by which the social person is commemoratedthrough either forgetting or by redistributing objects and identities fromthe deceased throughout the living community (Fowler, 2001; Hallam andHockey, 2001; Williams, 2003a). Archaeologists are therefore encouraged toconsider the mnemonic relationship between the cadaver as it is trans-formed through mortuary technologies and the selective deployment ofartefacts. Such perspectives encourage archaeologists to appreciate thepotential significance of which objects were absent from graves as well aswhich objects were present in commemorative terms.

This theme has a particular significance for our understanding of thefurnished burial rites of early Anglo-Saxon England that involve two diver-gent mortuary technologies: cremation and inhumation. Both of these ritescan be considered as ‘technologies of remembrance’ (Jones, 2003: 68–71);projects and practices serving to transform and reconfigure socialmemories and the social person in death (Hamilakis, 1998; Williams, 2001:58–67, 2003b). However, the rites employ material culture in very differ-ent ways, suggesting their use to evoke contrasting relationships betweenthe body in death, material culture and social memory. The focus of thisarticle is the contrast between the common deployment of weapons in theinhumation rite and their rarity in cinerary urns. Rather than the result of

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255Williams Keeping the dead at arm’s length

practical utility, this article explains thelack of weapons in cremation graves asdue to the powerful and ‘dangerous’mnemonic significance that weaponsmay have held. The ability for weaponsto forcefully evoke memories of the pastcould have been out of kilter with thedissolution and reconfiguration of thebody and social memory that cremationentailed. In pursuing this argument, thearticle hopes to contribute to ongoingresearch by archaeologists seeking toexplore the functional, symbolic,biographical and multi-sensual qualitiesof material culture in mortuarycommemoration.

■ WEAPONS IN EARLYANGLO-SAXON INHUMATIONGRAVES

In southern and eastern Britain in the later fifth and sixth centuries AD (a period attributed a range of miscella-neous labels including ‘early Anglo-Saxon’, ‘sub-Roman’, ‘Migration Period’or ‘Dark Ages’), we see the emergenceof a distinctive furnished burialtradition. Following the end of theRoman administration and the Romansocio-economic system, the emergenceof these rites is often attributed to‘Anglo-Saxon’ invasion and settlementand the emergence of new sociopoliticalstructures in southern and easternEngland. In these rites, a panoply ofobjects have been found placed with the dead, including elements of dresssuch as buckles, brooches and necklaces, as well as containers of wood,pottery, glass and metal (Lucy, 2000).Weaponry represents a further import-ant category of grave goods, most often found in the graves of adult males(Figure 1). Spears, shields and swords are the most frequently uncoveredweapons (Dickinson and Härke, 1992; Swanton, 1973), while less frequent

Figure 1 A weapon burial ofthe sixth century from Grave 24,Berinsfield, Oxfordshire (redrawnafter Boyle et al., 1995: 153)

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discoveries include seaxes (short swords), franciscas (axes), arrowheads,helmets and mail corselets (Härke, 1990: 25–6, 1992b).

Weapons continue to be valuable for typological and chronologicalresearch (Dickinson and Härke, 1992: 4–30; Høilund Nielsen, 1997a: 73–5;Swanton, 1973), studies of weapon-making techniques (Dickinson andHärke, 1992: 31–54; Ellis Davidson, 1962; Härke, 1981; Lang and Ager, 1989;Watson, 1994) and discussions of early medieval combat and warfare (Dick-inson and Härke, 1992: 55–61; Härke, 1990: 22–4). However, the last threedecades have also seen increasing research into the social, symbolic andideological significance of the early medieval weapon burial rite (Arnold,1980; Lucy, 2002; Pader, 1982; Theuws and Alkemade, 2000). The mostdetailed and influential study to date has been the work of Heinrich Härkeemploying a large database of graves from across southern and easternEngland. Härke refuted the association of weapon burials with ‘warrior’status by emphasizing the role of weapons as multi-vocal symbols, selectivelyplaced with the dead by mourners to display the age, gender, status, house-hold, lineage and perhaps even the ethnicity of the deceased (Dickinson andHärke, 1992; Härke, 1989a,b, 1990, 1992a,b, 1997a; Härke, in Boyle et al.,1995). Weapon burial was also interpreted as a means of commemorating amyth of Germanic origin by immigrant groups at a time of social competi-tion and conflict (Härke, 1997b). Härke subsequently combined literary,historical and archaeological evidence to construct a model for the ritualexchange and circulation of weapons in early medieval societies, arguing thatburials were but one context within which weapons had a ritual significance(Härke, 2000).While there remain ongoing debates concerning the interpret-ation of ethnicity from weapon burials (Hills, 2003; Lucy, 2000; Tyrell, 2000)and there are instances of weapons interred with female-sexed skeletonsthat challenge an exclusive male association (for recent debates, see Knüseland Ripley, 2000; Lucy, 1997; Stoodley, 1999), Härke has provided a complexand sophisticated social and symbolic interpretation of the early Anglo-Saxon weapon burial rite that has been supported and developed in subse-quent research (Marzinzik, 2003; Stoodley, 1999).

Building on these insights, we can discuss further how weapon burialoperated in constructing social memories and the social person in death.Certainly the weapons themselves may have been symbols of mythicalorigins, but memories were also promoted by the composition of the burialdeposit (Figure 1). The display of weapons formed part of a ‘tableau’composed using the dead body and artefacts. This ‘symbolic text’ wasintended to be ‘read’ by mourners and onlookers as part of a ritual perform-ance and social display (Barrett, 1994; Bazelmans, 2002; Carver, 2000;Geake, 2003; Halsall, 1998, 2003; Pader, 1982; Whitley, 2002). Yet equallyimportant for remembrance was the relative brevity of the display, whatGuy Halsall has referred to as the ‘scene-making’ quality of furnished burialrites (Halsall, 1998; 2003: 68). The image created in the grave from the

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careful deposition of artefacts and the laying out of the corpse wascomposed and displayed, but then rapidly transferred to memory throughits burial and concealment (Williams, 2001). This phenomenon of remem-bering by forgetting through sequential display and concealment finds closeparallels in anthropological discussions of mortuary practices and socialmemory (Küchler, 1999, 2002). Unlike permanent and above-ground monu-ments that functioned in commemoration through inscribing memoriesonto a place, weapon burial created a memory that was effective becauseof its concealment and impermanence, allowing the image to be re-used andadapted in subsequent mortuary rites.

■ COMPARING WEAPON DEPOSITION IN INHUMATIONAND CREMATION GRAVES

Contemporary with these early Anglo-Saxon inhumation graves we find thevery different mortuary technology of cremation. A complex chain of oper-ations constituted early Anglo-Saxon cremation technologies, from thepreparation of both the body and the pyre, the sacrifice and placing ofanimals on the pyre, the cremation itself, through to the collection of ashesand artefacts and their burial within a decorated ceramic urn (Figure 2;Richards, 1987; Williams, 2003b). If weapon burial was such an important

Figure 2 An early Anglo-Saxon cremation burial (A1419) of an older adultfrom the Sancton cemetery, East Yorkshire (redrawn after Timby, 1993)

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means of constructing social memories in early medieval furnished inhu-mation rites, then why were weapons so rarely placed with the cremateddead? This question was posed explicitly for the first time by the pioneer-ing Victorian antiquary Charles Roach Smith:

. . . why are Saxon interments by cremation never accompanied by weapons,and those by burial almost universally so? It may be, and has been,suggested, that the fire which destroyed the body would also consume theswords and spears. But it may be doubted whether it would do so to such anextent as to leave no traces whatever. (Roach Smith, 1861: 120)

To date, Roach Smith’s astute question has yet to be satisfactorilyaddressed. Cremation and inhumation burials dating to the later fifth andsixth centuries are found together in the same regions and often in the samecemeteries. Indeed, in East Anglia, the East Midlands and (to a lesserextent) East Yorkshire, where cremation rites are most commonly found,Härke’s study identified the highest frequency of weapon inhumationburials (Härke, 1989a: 51).A new survey of the grave goods found in crema-tion burials by the author confirmed Härke’s estimate that less than onepercent of cremation graves were interred with weapons (Härke, 1990: 25),both in the large cremation cemeteries of eastern England (Davison et al.,1993; Fennell, 1964; Hills, 1977; Hills and Penn, 1981; Hills et al., 1987, 1994;Kinsley, 1989; Lethbridge, 1951; Myres and Green, 1973; Myres andSouthern, 1973; Timby, 1993; Webster, 1952) as well as among the mixed-rite cemeteries of southern England (Cook and Dacre, 1985; Down andWelch, 1990; Evison, 1988, 1994; Leeds and Harden, 1936). The contrast canbe illustrated by the high-quality published data from the cemetery atSpong Hill in Norfolk, where over 2500 excavated cinerary urns haveproduced no more than seven weapon fragments (Hills, 1977; McKinley,1994). In stark contrast, weapons are a frequent occurrence among the smallgroup of inhumation graves from the same cemetery (Hills et al., 1984).Thiscontrast is confirmed by comparing the Spong Hill cremation graves witha sample of undisturbed inhumation graves (1230) compiled from 46 ceme-teries from across southern and eastern England by Nick Stoodley andHeinrich Härke (Stoodley, 1999, 2000). Furthermore, belt-buckles (import-ant in both male- and female-gendered grave assemblages but with a malebias as well as being the only metal dress accessory commonly found withsexed male adult skeletons; Marzinzik, 2003) and knives (items central tothe display of social identity of all age and gender groups in early Anglo-Saxon society; Härke, 1989b) are under-represented in the Spong Hillcremation graves when compared with the inhumation sample (Figure 3a).The contrast is even more marked than the bar chart denotes because manyof the ‘knives’ found in cremation graves are as likely to be broken shearsor razors (Hills, 1977; Richards, 1987).

Practical explanations do not address this contrast, because while the

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Figure 3 (a) Comparison of the percentage frequencies of weapons, knivesand buckles in a sample of undisturbed cremation burials from the Spong Hillcemetery, and a sample of undisturbed inhumation burials from cemeteriesacross England compiled by Heinrich Härke and Nick Stoodley (Stoodley, 2000).(b) Comparison of the percentage frequencies of artefacts over-represented incremation burials when compared with a sample of inhumation burials

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cremation fire might damage iron objects, pyres would not reach tempera-tures capable of completely destroying them. Weapons, buckles and kniveswere likely to have remained intact and distinguishable for mourners tocollect and inter with the ashes if this had been the intention (contra Härke,1990: 25). Furthermore, while some of these items may have been too largeto be placed within cinerary urns, this cannot explain the absence of smallerweapons, knives and buckles. The practicalities of size and shape equally donot account for why weapons were not placed in the grave adjacent to theurn (Richards, 1987: 80–1). Moreover, many burnt and fragmented objectsmade from glass, bronze, bone and antler are commonly found in earlyAnglo-Saxon cinerary urns (Figure 3b), materials that were much moresusceptible to the heat of the pyre than iron weapons, knives and buckles.Paradoxically, those objects that are most likely to survive the cremation fireintact are those least often found. It may also be relevant that items of femaledress including brooches and beads are relatively well represented despitethe effects of melting and fragmentation on the pyre (Figure 4a). A finalobservation concerns those artefacts more frequently found in cremationgraves. These include ivory, bone and antler bag rings, toilet items (tweezers,razors, shears, blades and ear-scoops of iron and bronze, some of them minia-tures) as well as bone and antler combs (Figure 2). Bag rings have a femalebias, toilet implements have a slight male bias, and combs are found with thegraves of both genders and in most age-groups. Therefore, aspects of thedeceased’s identity – both male and female – were represented, but thesewere items with very different associations from weapons. Rather than itemsassociated with violence and battle, they were objects used in the presen-tation and maintenance of the body’s surface, and hair in particular, andconsequently concerned with aesthetics of beauty and the re-building of anew ‘body’ for the dead following cremation (Williams, 2003b, 2004).

■ WEAPONRY IN CREMATION RITUALS

At this stage it would be tempting to conclude by suggesting that for crema-tion rites, weapons were simply not important (Welch, 1992: 64–5), surplusto requirements given the importance of combs, toilet implements and potform and decoration in communicating identities (Ravn, 1999, 2003;Richards, 1987; Williams, 2003b), or disposed of to deliberately mask iden-tities in cremation rites (Parker Pearson, 1982). However, despite thelimited direct evidence for pyre-sites of early Anglo-Saxon date (Carnegieand Filmer-Sankey, 1993; Filmer-Sankey and Pestell, 2001: 252–4), there arehints that weapons formed part of the theatre of display that focused onthe placing of the dead on the pyre dressed and adorned with artefacts andsacrificed animals (Bond, 1996; Mattingly, 1948: 123; McKinley, 1994: 83–4).

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Figure 4 (a) Comparison of the percentage frequencies of female-genderedartefacts in early Anglo-Saxon inhumation and cremation burials. (b) Boneand glass beads from sexed cremation burials from the Spong Hill cemetery

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Some positive evidence for weapon fragments from cremation burialssupports this view. Most instances are from antiquarian reports and aretherefore difficult to substantiate (Gallagher, 1987: 13; Leeds and Harden,1936: 21; Neville, 1852: 25; Roach Smith, 1848: 43; Swanton, 1973: 171), butfrom Thurmaston in Leicestershire, an un-urned cremation burial wasinterred beneath a shield boss. This unusual rite has no parallels elsewhereand it is notable that in this instance the weapon is not used as a ‘gravegood’, but as a part of the structure of the grave (Williams, 1983). The onlyother exceptions occur in the very wealthy cremation burials such as thosefrom Coombe in Kent, Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, and possibly at Loveden Hillin Lincolnshire that represent a late, high-status innovation in early Anglo-Saxon cremation rites (Carver, 1998: 192; Dickinson and Speake, 1992:128–9; Ellis Davidson and Webster, 1967; Fennell, 1964). However, thedetailed analysis of the grave-finds from Spong Hill produced seven frag-ments of swords, in five cases fragments of scabbards, and in two instancessections of sword-hilt (Hills, 1977; Hills and Penn, 1981; Hills et al., 1987,1994; Hines, 1989: 37). While these may reflect the presence of a ‘warriorelite’ using the burial site (Ravn, 1999, 2003), it is equally clear that the finalburial deposits did not overtly symbolize martial identities. The only otherweapons found in cremation graves at Spong Hill are a small number ofarrowheads found in the graves of infants and younger children (osteo-logically aged to under four years: McKinley, 1994). Härke identified thesame practice of children buried with arrowheads in his sample of inhu-mation graves and they are items that could either be interpreted as toysor as symbols of an aspired identity not achieved upon death (Härke, 1992a:156; Martin-Kilcher, 2000: 74–5). While this practice is rare for both crema-tion and inhumation graves, it does hint that weapons could form a part ofthe cremation rite.

Furthermore, the low frequency of sword hilts, scabbards and arrow-heads from Spong Hill need not be taken at face-value. By analogy withthe inhumation data, for every sword placed on early Anglo-Saxon funerarypyres, we should expect the disposal of around four shields and eight spears(Härke, 1990: 26). Although this must remain speculation, it is possible thatthe seven sword fragments from Spong Hill indirectly allude to the archae-ologically-invisible provision of more common weapon-types during theearlier stages of cremation rituals.

The presence of bone beads from cremation graves is a further strand ofindirect evidence that weapons could be placed on the pyre. While glassbeads correlate strongly with sexed female graves, bone beads are moreoften found with adult males (Figure 4b). One explanation for this patternis that they represent sword-beads rather than jewellery. These are beadsused to strap swords into their sheaths and are known throughout earlymedieval northern Europe and Scandinavia (Ellis Davidson, 1962; Evison,1967, 1975a: 309; Hills, 1977: 30, 222; Kinsley, 1989: 2; MacGregor and Bolick,

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1993: 1, 234). Large glass beads, usually regarded as spindle-whorls, neck-laces or amulets (Hills, 1977: 28, 214) may have also been sword-beads.These might be the only traces of weapons placed on the pyre but retrievedbefore the burial of the ashes.

The evidence above combines to suggest that weapons were placed onthe pyre but removed later. However, a final piece of indirect evidencesuggests that weapons could have a role in post-cremation rites. The delib-erate ‘holing’ of urns has not received detailed analysis, but those publishedinstances indicate the possibility that sharp tools or weapons may have beenresponsible for piercing the sides or bases of urns from either the outsideor inside (Kinsley, 1989: 12–13; Richards, 1987: 77).This ‘ritual killing’ seemsto have been restricted to a small percentage of urns in most cemeteriesbut the post-depositional fragmentation of pots may have obscured a morewidespread ritual practice (Richards, 1987: 77). Explanations for this ritualhave usually focused on the argument that it served to release the spiritheld in the urn (Lethbridge, 1951: 13), an interpretation that finds supportin ethnographic analogy (Parry, 1995). There are also parallels with Viking-period Scandinavian rituals of throwing spears into graves as a votive orsacrificial act of dedication (Nordberg, 2002; Price, 2002). While the role ofweapons in this practice cannot be proven, it may represent a use forweapons in burial rites as artefacts acting to transform the dead rather thanaccompanying them as ‘grave goods’.

In summary, we have the paradox of evidence that provides the expec-tation that the dead were dressed and accompanied with weapons on thepyre but the absence of numerous whole or fragmented weapons accom-panying cremation burials. We have also encountered the suggestion thatweapons may have been used to transform rather than to accompany thedead in the post-cremation rites. The range of evidence can be combinedto suggest that weapons were an integral part of cremation ceremonies butwere deliberately divorced from the post-cremation deposits and werecirculated and/or disposed of elsewhere.

If this was the case, what happened to the weapons that were not placedon the pyre? The Continental ‘Saxon’ cremation cemetery of Liebenauproduced evidence of pyre-sites with metalwork not present in the crema-tion burials (McKinley, 1994: 88–91). It was argued that these items werecollected and recycled among mourners, being either circulated asmementos or recycled into new artefacts. Indeed, perhaps smiths had a roleas ritual specialists during cremation rituals (see below). Alternately,weapons may have been displayed on the posts and ‘grave-houses’ increas-ingly identified at early Anglo-Saxon cremation cemeteries as at Apple-down in Sussex (Down and Welch, 1990: 25–33; 202–7) and Alton (Evison,1988: 35–6). It is even possible that weapons were disposed of in othersacred locations such as rivers (Härke, 2000: 389; Hines, 1997; Swanton,1973) or as votive deposits in prehistoric burial mounds (Semple, 2002). It

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is also possible that ‘cremated’ weapons were displayed as family heirloomsin the domestic setting as physical reminders of the dead. Inevitably withonly weapons from graves as our primary source of evidence and theirabsence from settlement contexts (Richards, 1992: 137), we are not in aposition to choose between these possibilities. Yet the ‘recycling’ ofweapons through cremation rituals may be a further mechanism for thecirculation and ritual exchange of weaponry in early medieval societies(Härke, 2000).

■ WEAPONS AS MNEMONIC AGENTS IN SOCIAL ANDRITUAL LIFE

The next issue is the key one: why were weapons disassociated from theashes? To address this issue, we need to review the significance of weaponsfor early medieval communities. This is attempted by drawing uponevidence for the function, symbolism, materiality and multi-sensuality ofweapons from a range of written sources and archaeological evidence fromearly medieval northern Europe and Scandinavia. The data suggests thatweapons were important biographical objects exhibiting connections withancestors and the past.

Studies have highlighted the complexity and socially-embedded natureof male violence in early medieval societies. Violence took many formsincluding wars, feuds, duels, assassinations, sacrifices, executions as well ashunting (Halsall, 1989). As such, violence and the use of weapons was anintegral element of masculine personal identity and socio-political affilia-tion, particularly for elites (Ellis Davidson, 1989). Weapons may have alsohad specific roles in ritual practices such as the dances seemingly portrayedon high-status metalwork of the early seventh century (Ellis Davidson,1992: 41–5; Hawkes et al., 1965; Mattingly, 1948: 121). Weapons might havespecific roles in funerals, as illustrated in Ibn Fadlan’s tenth-century accountof a Viking ship-cremation. Weapons were placed with the dead chieftainon the ship, blades were also used in sacrificing animals and a slave girlwhile shields were clashed to conceal the slave-girl’s screams (Warmind,1995). There are also written references to the role of weapons in displayduring early medieval assemblies (Dickinson and Härke, 1992: 61–2; EllisDavidson, 1962: 172, 185; Mattingly, 1948: 111) and as a part of treasuriesand armouries that symbolized the status and genealogies of families andhouseholds (Raw, 1992: 168). Written sources allude to the important rolesof weapons in diplomatic and competitive gift-exchange (Härke, 2000; LeJan, 2000). We have already asserted the ritual role of weapons in symbol-izing identities in death rituals, but they may also have been important inother lifecycle rites such as initiation (Mattingly, 1948: 112). The ritual use

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of weapons could have been connected to the cult of particular deities suchas Wodan (Odin) (Ellis Davidson, 1992: 98–101; Nordberg, 2002). Weaponsare frequently associated with inheritance and legitimizing authoritythrough connections with the past in early medieval written sources andconsequently can be considered as a part of exchanges between the livingwith ancestors (Geary, 1994: 71). In all these ways, weapons became anintegral part of commemorating personal and group identities, constructingan idealized aesthetic of the warrior in life and death (Treherne, 1995;Whitley, 2002), and may have been even considered as extensions of theidealized social person in life and death (Bazelmans, 2000: 319–22, 329–37).

But how do we explain contexts in which weapon-use was limited orprohibited? There are hints that weapons were sometimes proscribed or‘out of place’ in sacred contexts. Concerning certain Continental Germanictribes in earlier centuries, Tacitus notes that ‘every iron object is lockedaway’ and fighting prohibited during religious festivals (Mattingly, 1948:135). From an English context, Bede recounts how the Northumbrian priestCoifi symbolically denounced his paganism and his priestly status bywearing arms and profaning the pagan shrine at Goodmanham by castinga spear into it (Sherley-Price, 1955: 130–1). Both accounts hint that weaponscould have symbolic significance because of their absence as well as theirpresence in ritual practices.

■ DEATH AND THE METAPHORS AND MATERIALIT Y OFWEAPONS

To understand the mnemonic power of weapons further, we need toconsider their materiality in more detail. Weapons could act as materialmanifestations of the past, either by being involved in re-enactments ofmythological events, or by having long biographies. At least in a literarycontext, weapons can be gifts from the dead to the living, and therefore canbe embodiments of social relationships between past and present across thethreshold of death (Ellis Davidson, 1962: 162; Geary, 1994). Icelandic sagasalso attribute special qualities to weapons that have been re-made fromolder objects (Ellis Davidson, 1962: 162). By analogy, objects retrieved fromcremation pyres, as with objects taken from earlier burial mounds, mighthave been attributed a special significance in early medieval society. Suchobjects might be perceived as charged with ‘vitality’ having passed throughthe funeral fire and appropriate for circulation among the living to symbol-ize the incorporation of these qualities within the community (Bloch andParry, 1982; Herbert, 1993). An allusion to the idea that metal objectspassing through the cremation fire retain the power of regeneration can befound in Gylfaginning from the Prose Edda. The gold ring Draupnir was

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placed on the god Baldr’s funeral pyre by Odin, and on every subsequentninth night, eight gold rings of the same weight dropped from it (Faulkes,1987: 50).

Other material qualities of weapons may have promoted theirmnemonic significance. For instance, the skill and social context of weapon-making may have been afforded magical associations embodied in theshamanic qualities of the hero-smith Weland (Volund), a myth known fromAnglo-Saxon England (Larrington, 1996: 102–08, Webster, 1999; Gansum,2004; Hinton, 1998; 2000; Hedeager, 2001). We might speculate further stillby suggesting that cremation was seen as a similar, if distinct, technologi-cal process to the production of iron weapons. In the late medievalScandinavian poem, the Lay of Volund, the smith created jewellery fromhuman remains (Larrington, 1996). Moreover, some early medievalsources use numerous metaphors when referring to weapons and warriorsas ‘hot’, ‘burning’ and comparable to fire (Ellis Davidson, 1962: 132–3, 162).One reading of these literary associations is that just as there may be asimilitude between smiths and pre-Christian ritual specialists controllingcremation, equally forging weapons could have been perceived as anequivalent ritual process to cremation. Terje Gansum (2004) has recentlyproposed from experimental archaeological research that burnt bonecould have been used to carbonize bloomery iron to make the steel usedin early medieval weapon-making. If so, then weapons could have beenrecognized as embodying the products of cremation rituals (i.e. burntbones) and it is only a short step to speculate further whether metal-working and cremation rituals were technological processes connected incosmological terms as well as spatially and temporally. If such associationswere recognized in early Anglo-Saxon society, then weapons werepowerful mnemonic and symbolic objects appropriate for the pyre, butperhaps containing their own ancestral associations making them inappro-priate for the burial of the ashes.

The functionality of weapons could have also given weapons associationsthat were only relevant to certain stages of cremation rites. In earlymedieval sources, weapons are explicitly valued for their role in fighting(Ellis Davidson, 1962: 171). The symbolic importance of the sharpness ofweapons is articulated in the weapons themselves but also in the occasionaluse of whetstones in ritual contexts (Evison, 1975b; Reynolds, 1980; Timby,1993). Consequently, weapons, like the cremation fire itself, may have beendeemed appropriate violent agents acting to transform the dead during thepre-cremation and cremation rites, but inappropriate for the building of anew corporeal identity in the post-cremation rites in which the presence ofcombs and toilet implements suggests the focus was on the reconstitutionof a new ‘body’ for the deceased (Williams, 2003b).

The symbolic significance and mnemonic impact of weaponry could also

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have derived from the rich and complex colours and decorations appliedto early medieval weaponry (Hosler, 1995; Keates, 2002). Archaeologicaland historical evidence combines to suggest that shield boards and sheathsmay have been brightly coloured or richly decorated (Dickinson and Härke,1992; Mattingly, 1948: 106; 137). Equally sword-hilts could be adorned withanimal art and decorative fittings such as sword beads. The use of pattern-welded sword, spear and knife blades in early medieval Europe producedstriking effects of lustre, pattern and colour. These qualities may haveenhanced the impressive appearance of weapons as well as their connec-tion to the status and identity of those wielding them. For example, the‘serpentine’ and reflecting qualities of weapons are mentioned in the fifth-century writings of Sidonius Appolinaris (Theuws and Alkemade, 2000) andthe ‘gleaming’ and ‘shining’ nature of weaponry and armour is emphasizedin the later Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf (Bradley, 1982: 417, 449–50, 493).In some early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries the same use of pattern-welding forboth enhanced practical efficiency and visual impact has been found appliedto knives as well as spears and swords (Gilmour and Salter, in Malim andHines, 1998: 250–6; Lang and Ager, 1989). In combination, these patternsand objects may have been powerful visual statements of identity andpossibly held amuletic properties (Ellis Davidson, 1962: 182; HøilundNielsen, 1997b). Such associations may have even encouraged belief in themetaphorical and mnemonic ‘animacy’ of weapons when displayed andused in ritual contexts such as funerals.

While composite items constructed from many materials, early medievalweapons are universally forged with blades of iron. In early Anglo-Saxoncremations, the melted remains of glass and bronze and the colour of thecremated bone suggests an efficient technology in which high temperatures(up to 1200 �C could be reached, but this was not hot enough to melt ironimplements placed on the pyre; McKinley, 1994: 84). Consequently,although weapons might fragment and change colour and texture throughthe heat of cremation, their form would remain largely intact.This apparentresistance to the cremation ran counter to the clear aim of the ritual tech-nology to fragment and transform bodies and artefacts (Williams, 2004).Therefore, weapons may have been seen as inappropriate in the post-cremation rite because their materiality made them too closely connectedto memories of the social person prior to cremation. The exclusive resist-ance of iron to dramatic change in the funeral fire may have led to beliefsin the special, animated and supernatural qualities of iron over othersubstances, and weapon blades as ‘animated’ or ‘dangerous’ after crema-tion. This range of associations combines to suggest that weapons had apowerful agency to affect and direct the way that memories of the deadwere constructed and reproduced in early medieval society (Gell, 1998;Hallam and Hockey, 2001: 101–27).

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■ CONCLUSION

Weapons, knives and iron buckles were items with specific biographies,material qualities, functions and forms that promoted the enduring memoryof the deceased and social relations with mourners. They had a particularsignificance in marking the identities of adult males in the inhumation riteof the later fifth and sixth centuries AD. However, the cremation ritefocused on the selective remembering and forgetting of the social personthrough the dissolution of the body by cremation followed by the re-building of social identity through the placing of ashes within an urn withobjects used to emphasize the presence of skin and hair. Weapons could

Figure 5 An interpretation of the different ritual sequences accompanyingearly Anglo-Saxon cremation and inhumation rites (incorporating imagesredrawn after Boyle et al., 1995; Timby, 1993 and images reproduced by thekind permission of Sam Glasswell, Heinrich Härke and Jackie McKinley/WessexArchaeology)

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participate in the unfolding transformation of the dead through thefunerary sequence and were appropriate for breaking the ‘second bodies’of the dead formed by pots, artefacts and cremated remains in selectfunerals by ‘holing’ pots (Williams, 2003b, 2004). However, weapons weredeemed inappropriate for the reconstitution of the dead into a newcorporeal form, perhaps deemed as holding a powerful, even dangerous,mnemonic agency inappropriate for the transformation and reconstitutionof an ancestral identity for the dead in the post-cremation rite bereft ofexplicit martial and masculine associations.

In turn, these differences may reveal contrasting ways in which inhuma-tion and cremation operated in early Anglo-Saxon England. Whereas inhu-mation rites created memories by ‘scene-making’ with weapons in whichpersonhood was represented in idealized form, cremation rites createdmemories through the display and subsequent transformation, fragmenta-tion and redistribution of bodies and artefacts (Figure 5). This underpinsthe role of cremation as not only a mortuary technology of transformation,but a process in which the social person was reconfigured as their identitychanged from corpse to ashes and from deceased to ancestor. For crema-tion to have been effective as a technology of remembrance, certain arte-facts such as combs and toilet implements were useful ingredients, whereasweapons were better kept ‘at arm’s length’.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Yannis Hamilakis, Heinrich Härke, Andy Jones, Martin Rundkvist,Elizabeth Williams and the anonymous referees for commenting on earlier draftsof the article. All errors remain the author’s responsibility.

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HOWARD WILLIAMS completed his doctoral thesis at the Universityof Reading, examining the cremation rites of early Anglo-Saxon England.He has held positions as lecturer in medieval archaeology at TrinityCollege, Carmarthen (1999–2002) and Cardiff University (2002–2003) andis currently lecturer in archaeology at the University of Exeter. Hisresearch interests include early medieval archaeology and mortuaryarchaeology. He has published widely on these topics, including a co-edited volume of World Archaeology (1998, vol. 30(1), The Past in the Past)and a recently edited volume entitled Archaeologies of Remembrance:Death and Memory in Past Societies (2003, Kluwer/Plenum).[email: [email protected]]

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