Husby in Glanshammar: cloisonné production, Viking Period silver deposition and memorialisation

Abstract

Abstract This paper returns to Husby in Glanshammar, Sweden, where an important manorial settlement of the mid-to-late 1st millennium AD was excavated in the 1990s for a highway project. A recent intensive and comprehensive metal detector survey of the site’s surviving parts has secured additional finds that cast a new light on the manor and its afterlife. Fine copper alloy casting was amply demonstrated by the 1990s excavations. Now a die for the making of waffled gold foil has been added to this assemblage. Waffled foils formed part of gold-and-garnet cloisonné work, one of the most exclusive decorative techniques of the era. Hacksilver and coins from around AD 900 were found scattered over the old foundation of the torn-down mead-hall, apparently forming a first phase of memorialisation that continued from about AD 1100 onward with a small Christian cemetery next to the foundation. These single coins go back at least half a century before the start of silver hoarding in the region. The silver found at Husby shows clear signs of having been used as bullion in economic transactions, with a high degree of fragmentation and many test marks.