Sea Raiders in Nordic Bronze Age Rock Art
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Published 2021-08-29
The world famous ancient petroglyphs in Sweden, dating to the Nordic Bronze Age, portray a world of sword-wielding warriors and their ships. But these figures - holding aloft axes and spears and shields - are usually said to be carrying out rituals, not warfare.
Is that true? Are there any scenes of violence here amongst the thousands of weapon-bearers?
If this is about ritual then what were the rituals for?
And what can all this tell us about the lives of these seaborne Nordic warriors who lived 3500 years ago?
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Video Sources
Warfare in Bronze Age Society - Christian Horn & Kristian Kristiansen ➜ amzn.to/3z6ZtBN
Warriors and Weapons in Bronze Age Europe - Anthony Harding ➜ amzn.to/383sToE
Elevated Rock Art: Towards a maritime understanding of Bronze Age rock art in northern Bohuslän, Sweden - Johan Ling ➜ amzn.to/2WAffqd
Rock Art and Seascapes in Uppland Johan Ling ➜ amzn.to/3mFB4jd
Researchers papers by Andreas Toreld ➜ independent.academia.edu/AndreasToreld
The rock art even in this one region is so complex it defies a single explanation. The truth is there is a huge amount going on, there are so many interpretations that I didn't have time to touch on.
For one thing there is the obvious tumescence of many of the warriors. This is partly what leads researchers to conclude these are fertility rites and shows these figures are not engaging in combat - unless we are to believe they did so in a state of undress and arousal. Which is possible of course. However, this could also be interpreted as a sign of masculinity. These are not boys or old men but men in the prime of their virility. It is a sign of their strength and power.
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Chapters
00:00 Prehistoric Rock Art
03:10 Depictions of Warfare
05:30 The Nordic Bronze Age
06:18 Real Life Violence
07:58 Bronze Age War Canoes
09:45 Rituals for Maritime Warriors
12:00 Were they like Vikings?
15:37 Chiefs and Kings
All Comments (21)
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If you enjoy my videos please consider supporting the channel: Patreon ➜ www.patreon.com/dandavisauthor My books ➜ amzn.to/3xngwz5
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I'm sure the Nordic Bronze Age culture was far more advanced than most people think. They were excellent ship builders and had an extensive trading network with all of Europe. Only they didn't live in large settlements of stone houses and because of that not much is preserved.
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They seem to be armed with more than just spears, swords and axes.
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Swords being sheathed makes sense even in warfare scenes. Experts in archeology are not usually warfare experts, so this isn't surprising. But swords, generally speaking, were always secondary weapons. Spears & polearms or missile weapons were usually the primary weapons. Swords do tend to get the most hype & prestige, especially in modern times, but they were a sidearm weapon for when weapons or formations broke.
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Nordic Bronze Age is honestly the most intriguing time period to me, it is so mysterious and hints at such greatness and complexity, yet so little has remained due to the wet, dynamic and corrosive nature of the region.
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Similar boat scenes from the Bronze Age are even found deep inland in Finland, like the Pyhänpää rock art in Kuhmoinen. As a local oddity, there are a lot of moose scenes, even a moose/boat hybrd carrying men.
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It's the silliest thing that even in Scandinavia, the Viking Age officially begins and ends with events in the British Isles. It's like one day in 793 they up and went to Lindisfarne with this brand new concept of murder and pillaging - not to mention their recent invention: the viking ship. Then, in 1066, they completely stopped all that and became backward landlubbers.
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"Why do we go on raids dad?" "Because we have always gone on raids."
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I like the somewhat romanticised notion that the maritime trading/raiding/fishing lifestyle these people probably engaged in was very similar to that of their not too distant ancestors on the steppes. The seas simply replacing the open steppe and the horse and chariot by their ships. Theres a sort of poetry in the perenniality of their way of life.
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Very well researched. Fascinating to compare the crew size with settlement size. I wasn't aware of this theory
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The last bit about connecting warriors, canoes, social structure and production structure was brilliant.
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They look like they're 'armed' with a little something extra. ☺️
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All those cave art in different parts of the world at various times show how ancient people longed for preserving their views and life events. It's totally amazing.
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there's a boat, there are men with swords, some women and children, there's the chief with his antler helmet, and right around the chief's midsection, you can see that he has a third leg. If the ship stalls and the chief falls he might inadvertently doom his crew by putting a hole through the hull.
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I checked with my ancestors and we agree that this was very good! rock carvings are very beautiful, when you are looking at these works of art you can literally feel how you travel back in time. Greetings from Sweden!
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I would venture to say that even most classical paintings don't often depict someone performing the killing blow. Rather brandishing a weapon over their head or or going towards another to imply an action. In my limited experience, when they do show a killing blow it's typically an assassination as you typically wouldn't brandish a weapon before you try to secretly kill someone.
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I'd say there's no surprise in the peoples of Scandinavia having maritime traditions. The geography here really encourages it! So many islands, so much coastline, plenty of rivers & lakes too. Travelling by boat/ship must have been a thing since any travel at all become something anyone did here.
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"Ritualistic" or "ceremonial" are basically archeological codewords for "I haven't got a f*cking clue". Imagine if thousands years from now, someone found an iPhone among rubbles of long-dead human civilization, and similarily mistook it for some ceremonial object of ritualistic importance.
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I'm Swedish and I love to go and visit random runestones and stone carvings etc.
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If it was Bronze age, it wasn't Scandinavian Rock but Swedish Metal.
