Danish Bronze Age

the Danish Bronze Age (dated by Montelius between -1800 and -500) starts tardily, Scandinavia not having the raw materials which owed imported beings of British Isles (tin) and of the Alps (copper), certainly exchanged against Ambre or other goods (furs, skins, animals and slaves). Testimonys of this culture are found until in Estonia.

This civilization is generally looked like the original culture of the Germains. It marks the transition between the era from twisted ceramics and the proto-Germanic culture from the Age from iron. The language of the people resulting from this culture is called Proto-Germanic.

Economy

Even if the Scandinavian people did not know the Bronze Age that enough late compared to the rest of Europe, the Scandinavian sites offer beautiful well preserved specimens of objects in Laine, Bois and metals (bronzes and gold) imported Central Europe. During this period, the Scandinavia knew its first technical revolution after the age of the stone. The Scandinavians adapted Celtic and Mediterranean symbolism to create a specific art. Among the possible sources of inspiration of this Scandinavian art, one quoted the Civilization mycénienne, the Culture of Villanova, the Phéniciens and the old Egypt. This foreign influence could be diffused by the trade of the Ambre, because the jewels found in the tombs mycéniennes came from the the Baltic. Several petroglyphs depict boats, and the megalithic alignments in the shape of boats also testify to the importance of navigation for these people. The shape of the boats represented was sometimes brought closer to the ships of the Mediterranean of the time.

The Scandinavian bronziers create original types: swords with encrusted handles, shields decorated with spirals, helmets with horns, razors, boxes of belts, buttons, fibules with eyeglasses, Lur (large horns), testify to a perfect control of the foundry, especially of -800 with -450. Objects out of stone continue to be manufactured on the model of the objects of bronze.

The Scandinavians of this period practice the culture of wheat, the barley, millet (wood swing-plows preserved in the Tourbière S), and implement pastures. Towards -1000, the horse is domesticated. The culture of rye and the oats is spread.

Art and culture

Black wool clothing, female (short skirt with fringes and sweater or long parts tied with the size and falling down over the belt) and masculines (capeline made of an oval roll of material retained by a pin, péplum tight with the size by a belt, bonnets round, leather sandals with laces), were found almost intact in Tourbière S.

Many rupestral engravings of the Bronze Age ( hällristningar ) have summers found in Denmark, in the Holstein, in Sweden and Norway: they represent processions, warriors with the combat, plowmen, oarsmen on ships, empty tanks, traces of step, Cupule S dug in the rock.

Religion

One knows few things about the religion of the Scandinavians of the Bronze Age, for lack of written sources. But the many archaeological discoveries make it possible to outline contours of their belief, or at least those of certain tribes. Richest testimonys come us from the many inscriptions found on rocks through Northern Europe.

The majority of the researchers agree to say that the religion of the Bronze Age was organized around a ''' solar worship '''. The sun was supposed to be drawn through the sky on a tank drawn by a horse. The inscriptions of this period often represent a solar wheel (generally a Latin Croix in a circle) held up by a male character (with a protuberant Penis). However, if the sun were indisputably adored like a male figure during the Bronze Age, the later Scandinavian pagan beliefs will represent the sun like a goddess ( Sunna at the Vikings), and the word “Sun” is generally of female kind in the Germanic Langues (as in German). One is unaware of when this transition took place; the answer is undoubtedly that a mixture of cultures intervened meanwhile.

the Dioscures seem to have been the subject of a worship, which is reflected in the duality of many crowned objects: each time pertaining to worship artefacts were buried, one finds them per pair.
a goddess-mother was venerated everywhere (see Nerthus).

The sacrifices (animal, human) or the dedications (weapons, jewels) were related to the worship of water; they were practiced in small lakes or marshes and one found several objects in such places. Rites of the type Hieros gamos were current. Ritual objects as the lurs bronzes of it were devoted and were useful in ceremonies.

Perhaps the inscriptions engraved in the stone with the Bronze Age comprise the first representations of known gods of the Scandinavian Mythologie. A recurring figure of these engraved stones is a male character holding an object which resembles an axe or a hammer. Other male characters hold a lance: as one of engravings represents a private character of a hand, this character would be attached to Týr, which is associated with this weapon. Another character holding an arc could be a prefiguration of Ullr.

One finds echoes of these beliefs of the Age Bronze Age in the Germanic Mythologie and the Scandinavian Mythologie, for example Skinfaxi and Hrímfaxi, or Nerthus.

The burials of the Denmark are tumulus built on the crossing points where the body rests in a coffin dug in a tree trunk.

With, the use of the incineration spreads. The rites of burial evolve to the individual burial, in particular in stone sarcophagi (stenkistor). A worship returned to a solar divinity and to the gods of fertility-fruitfulness is attested in the representations of large the Pétroglyphe S (hällristningar). Certain tombs are particularly rich (very decorated weapons, jewels).

Climatic effects

It seems that a climatic transition which has occurred towards -2700 is at the origin of the Danish Bronze Age. A hot climate (comparable with that of the current Mediterranean) allowed a strong growth of the population and supported the output of the cultures: it is known for example that one cultivated the Raisin in Scandinavia at that time. But a change of climate between -850 and -760 and a cooling pronounced towards -650 (to which one attached the legend of the Fimbulwinter preceding Ragnarök) degraded the living conditions seriously.

It is probable that this climatic transition from VIIe century before our era pushed the Germanic tribes towards the south and the Central Europe. There were already at this time Scandinavian tribes in the east of Europe; one millenium later, many the Germanic tribes claiming Scandinavian origin (e.g. the Lombards, the Burgondes, the Goths and the Hérules) called Scandinavia (Scandza) the matrix of the people according to the chronicler Jordanès in its Getica ). The Scandinavian influence in Poméranie and in the north of Poland starting from -1300 even appears to have been so strong that these two areas are included in the culture of the Danish Bronze Age (Dabrowski 1989, p. 73).

The prosperous age of Danish bronze disappears towards -450, perhaps because of the subatlantic deterioration of the climate: the Scandinavian countries know a thousand-year-old decline then. Towards 700 a. J. Chr., however, a new civilization was to be born on these same grounds, that of the Vikings.

References

E. Demougeot, formation of Europe and invasions cruel , Paris: Montaigne editions, 1969-1974.
Oscar Montelius, Om tidsbestämning inom bronsåldern med särskilt avseende på Skandinavien (1885).
L. Musset, invasions: waves Germanic (1965), university Presses of France, Paris.
Dabrowski, J. Nordische Kreis Kulturen Polnischer Gebiete. (1989) Die Bronzezeit im Ostseegebiet. Ein Report/ratio der Kgl. Schwedischen Akademie der Literatur Geschichte und Alter unt Altertumsforschung über das Julita-Symposium 1986 . ED Ambrosiani, B. Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien. Konferenser 22. Stockholm.
I. Nordgren, Well Spring Off The Goths. Butt the Gothic Peoples in the Nordic Countries and one the Unintermitting (2004).
Kaliff, Anders. Gothic Connections. Contacts between eastern Scandinavia and the southern Baltic coast 1000 BC – 500 AD (2001).

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