To understand the history of Gotland, the home of the Varangians, one must fully realize that Gotland was an independent Merchant Farmers’ Republic, and the hub of the Baltic Sea region, which from time immemorial had its relations mainly east and south. The Gotlandic history is misleading and difficult to understand if it is bundled with the Swedish history, which so far has been done. They both have their separate history. There are some deadlocks in Swedish history which have blocked the view for a broader perspective. I here think of the Roman sources about the Baltic Sea region. In the 1600s when Sweden was a super- power they had to give it a story that matched its position in the world and when they in the Roman sources found peoples and places that started with an ‘S’ they immediately concluded that it must be ‘Svear’ and the ‘Scandinavian peninsula’. The Roman name for the Scandinavian peninsula was, however, still in the 500s THULE. This historical picture was created by Johannes Magnus, and continued by Olof Rudbeck in ‘Atlantica’. Still today many writers without thought are copying these old delusions that the Roman writers would have written about some mighty Svear at the beginning of our era. Let us look at the archaeological evidences and take such a simple example as the 7500 Roman coins from Tacitus time and there about, denarius, found in present day Sweden. 6500 of these are from Gotland. Only 80 are from the Lake Mälar area. Or take the quantity of bronze bowls from the Capuan factory outside Naples found on Gotland. How can Swedish scholars with this quantity of finds on Gotland from the Roman Imperial time pretend that Gotland did not exist? Tacitus wrote about Suionum Civitate. He accordingly tells about the people who lived in Mare Suebicum (the Baltic Sea), i.e. the Gotlanders, who already then had reached a high cultural level and had trade relations all over Europe, including the Roman Empire. He continues: “Upon the Suiones, border the people Sitones; and agreeing with them in all other things, differ from them in one, that here the sovereignty is exercised by a woman. So notoriously do they degenerate not only from a state of liberty, but even below a state of bondage. Here end the territories of the Suevians.” The Sithones lived in the Lake Mälar area and are what we later call Svear. From the archaeological findings we can accordingly establish that trade relations between Gotland and the Roman Empire were intense. No Svea kingdom as such existed yet at that time. Tacitus says that the people in the Lake Mälar area were ruled by a woman. Still in the Beowulf epos, probably written down in the 700s, the people in the Lake Mälar area are not known as Svear but as Skilfings. It is quite clear that historical observations can not only be based on name similarities, but one must first look at the map, the archaeological finds and the chronological development and only secondarily try to match the names that different peoples have had in different areas at different times, and when these names first appear in written sources. The early history is a piece of myth, oral tradition and fragmentary records. From all this can suddenly emerge a pattern, the outline of a process that may not be scientifically inviolable, which it never really can be. Yet it is nearer the truth than you could ever reach with ‘scientific accuracy’. If you take the Guta Saga, written down about 1220, and the Beowulf Epos, written down in the 700s, as serious as Snorri Sturluson’s ‘Nordiska kungasagor’, written down about 1220, has been honored - i.e. as evidence in lack of better sources, there will open up a new, breathtaking perspective regarding Gotlandic, Swedish and Scandinavian history during the Roman time of the emperors and the Migration Period. Yes also that of Europe. Already in the Bronze Age and early Iron Age there are signs of Gotlandic trading Emporiums on the east coast of the Baltic Sea and all the way to the river Volga. Trade, especially amber trade, experiences in the Bronze Age a large bloom. The Gotlanders seem to have controlled the amber trade with trading Emporiums in the Vistula area. The extensive trade relations convey influences from outside. From southern cultural centers, Egypt, Crete, Mycenae, spiritual impulses stretched their effects also to the Baltic Sea region and Gotland. The immigration of the Herul Royal family (Svear) to the Lake Mälar area in the early 500s, when they bring a new ruling dynasty and a new religion to the area (what we today know as the Ynglinga dynasty and the Æsir religion), is mentioned in several sources. Their entrance on the stage changes the situation in the Baltic Sea region. The wars between the Skilfings (Svear) and the Gotlanders are mentioned in the Beowulf epos. The Guta Saga tells that the Gotlanders always kept the victory and their right: “Many kings fought against Gutland while it was heathen; the Gotlanders, however, always held the victory and constantly protected their rights. Later the Gotlanders sent a large number of messengers to ‘suiarikis’ (Svear), but none of them could make peace before Avair Strabain of Alva parish. He made the first peace with the ‘suja kunung’ (king of the Svear).” The Trade Treaty between the Gotlanders and the Svear, probably from second half of the 500s, means that the Gotlanders could freely trade on the new kingdom in the Lake Mälar area and its conquered lands east of the Baltic Sea. There were large Gotlandic trading Emporiums, i. a. in Grobina (Latvia) ca 650-850 CE, an area at that time conquered by the Svear. Helgö and Birka would be trading places with large Gotlandic influence. E.g., writes Adam of Bremen in his story, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, that “Birka is a Gotlandic (Gothia) town located in the middle of the country of the Sveoner.” A new way of burial appears in the Lake Mälar area in the 500s, as well as the introduction of the Roman calendar. If we accept that the Heruli settle in the Lake Mälar area at this time, as mentioned by Procopius, it explains a lot. Actually this in fact explains the rise of the Vendel era, which in the Lake Mälar area starts first half of the 500s and continues until the beginning of the Middle Ages. On Gotland it starts about 50 years earlier and is explained by the Gotlanders’ close contacts with Theoderic’s Gothic kingdom. The first writer to mention some people on the Scandinavian peninsula (THULE), except Tacitus Sitonens in the Lake Mälar area, is Prokopios who wrote in the 500s. With the discovery that the Beowulf epos is about the Gotlanders in combination with the Heruls immigration to the Lake Mälar area we have been able to shed new light on the Gotlandic history. Indeed the history of the whole Baltic Sea region has come in a whole new light. We now have a link between the Beowulf epos, Guta Saga and the archaeological finds from the 400s and 500s. Roman gold coins known as solidi have been found on the three Baltic Sea islands: Bornholm, 150, Öland 298, Gotland 270 + 47 on the market place Helgö in Mälaren. The latter have been intended as raw material and are according to the researchers most likely derived from Gotland. It is obvious here to see Helgö and then Birka as Gotlandic trading venues, as implied by the archaeological sources. Gotland’s importance for trade and culture in the Baltic Sea region during the first millennium can also be illustrated by the coin finds. From the 500s until the 1000s the Gotlanders have, according to Swedish researchers, been considered to rarely be mentioned in ancient sources. They are, however, well known in Arabic and Byzantine sources as al-Rus’ and Varangian merchants. The word Varangian was used by Arabs, Greeks and Kievan Rus’ for the merchants from the island in the Baltic Sea region (the Gotlanders). It probably came from the old Norse word ‘vár’, which means ‘union through promise’, and was used by a group of men to keep them together in an association, and under oath observe certain obligations to support each other in good faith and to share the resulting profits. It was a common word, when trading adventures were undertaken by Gotlandic tradesmen on the Russian rivers. They closed a business contract with each other and pledged to defend each other. Another meaning of the word was for the Gotlanders who acted as mercenary soldiers to the rulers of Khazaria, Miklagarðr (Constantinople) and Garðaríki (Kievan Rus’). The Gotlandic Varangian Guard was an elite unit of the Byzantine army formed under emperor Basil II in 988. .

"The aim of this thesis has been to investigate and interpret late Iron Age and Early Medieval traces of non-ferrous metalworking on the island Gotland, Sweden. Gotland was not, based on the archaeological record, an integrated part of the common Scandinavian culture. Instead a local, endemic cultural expression had developed; a seclusion which lasted for centuries despite the islands central position in the Baltic Sea. In the past, key elements for the understanding of local settlement- and burial practices as well as the local material culture were mainly recovered and reported by local farmers. A specific category of such finds – so-called ‘bronze slag’ is discussed and partly reinterpreted in the first study of this thesis. Two further studies treat different aspects of metalworking and metalworkers – one discusses common archaeological notions of Scandinavian workshops, production sites and metalworkers from a critical perspective while the other mainly focuses on the Gotlandic finds from metal-detector surveys carried out over the last 35 years. Based on where and to which extent, both from a quantitative and a qualitative point of view, these finds occur a hierarchical classification into four sub groups is presented – ordinary farm sites with traces of non-ferrous metalworking, workshop sites, potential workshop sites and last, extrovert harbour settlements. A fourth study presents an attempt to evaluate the usefulness of magnetometry in delimiting extant traces of high-temperature crafts, such as metalworking. The last study of the thesis presents an attempt to use trace elements analysis of skeletal lead in human bone to identify potential non-ferrous metalworkers. As the wearing of endemic Gotlandic jewellery appears to have been central in the manifestation of the local identity it is argued that the metalworking artisans played a crucial role in defining how this identity was signalled and displayed via the jewellery and dress-related metal objects. It is further suggested that these artisans might have played an important role in upholding the local economy before the advent of local minting."

To understand the history of Gotland, the home of the Varangians, one must fully realize that Gotland was an independent Merchant Farmers’ Republic, and the hub of the Baltic Sea region, which from time immemorial had its relations mainly east and south. The Gotlandic history is misleading and difficult to understand if it is bundled with the Swedish history, which so far has been done. They both have their separate history. There are some deadlocks in Swedish history which have blocked the view for a broader perspective. I here think of the Roman sources about the Baltic Sea region. In the 1600s when Sweden was a super- power they had to give it a story that matched its position in the world and when they in the Roman sources found peoples and places that started with an ‘S’ they immediately concluded that it must be ‘Svear’ and the ‘Scandinavian peninsula’. The Roman name for the Scandinavian peninsula was, however, still in the 500s THULE. This historical picture was created by Johannes Magnus, and continued by Olof Rudbeck in ‘Atlantica’. Still today many writers without thought are copying these old delusions that the Roman writers would have written about some mighty Svear at the beginning of our era. Let us look at the archaeological evidences and take such a simple example as the 7500 Roman coins from Tacitus time and there about, denarius, found in present day Sweden. 6500 of these are from Gotland. Only 80 are from the Lake Mälar area. Or take the quantity of bronze bowls from the Capuan factory outside Naples found on Gotland. How can Swedish scholars with this quantity of finds on Gotland from the Roman Imperial time pretend that Gotland did not exist? Tacitus wrote about Suionum Civitate. He accordingly tells about the people who lived in Mare Suebicum (the Baltic Sea), i.e. the Gotlanders, who already then had reached a high cultural level and had trade relations all over Europe, including the Roman Empire. He continues: “Upon the Suiones, border the people Sitones; and agreeing with them in all other things, differ from them in one, that here the sovereignty is exercised by a woman. So notoriously do they degenerate not only from a state of liberty, but even below a state of bondage. Here end the territories of the Suevians.” The Sithones lived in the Lake Mälar area and are what we later call Svear. From the archaeological findings we can accordingly establish that trade relations between Gotland and the Roman Empire were intense. No Svea kingdom as such existed yet at that time. Tacitus says that the people in the Lake Mälar area were ruled by a woman. Still in the Beowulf epos, probably written down in the 700s, the people in the Lake Mälar area are not known as Svear but as Skilfings. It is quite clear that historical observations can not only be based on name similarities, but one must first look at the map, the archaeological finds and the chronological development and only secondarily try to match the names that different peoples have had in different areas at different times, and when these names first appear in written sources. The early history is a piece of myth, oral tradition and fragmentary records. From all this can suddenly emerge a pattern, the outline of a process that may not be scientifically inviolable, which it never really can be. Yet it is nearer the truth than you could ever reach with ‘scientific accuracy’. If you take the Guta Saga, written down about 1220, and the Beowulf Epos, written down in the 700s, as serious as Snorri Sturluson’s ‘Nordiska kungasagor’, written down about 1220, has been honored - i.e. as evidence in lack of better sources, there will open up a new, breathtaking perspective regarding Gotlandic, Swedish and Scandinavian history during the Roman time of the emperors and the Migration Period. Yes also that of Europe. Already in the Bronze Age and early Iron Age there are signs of Gotlandic trading Emporiums on the east coast of the Baltic Sea and all the way to the river Volga. Trade, especially amber trade, experiences in the Bronze Age a large bloom. The Gotlanders seem to have controlled the amber trade with trading Emporiums in the Vistula area. The extensive trade relations convey influences from outside. From southern cultural centers, Egypt, Crete, Mycenae, spiritual impulses stretched their effects also to the Baltic Sea region and Gotland. The immigration of the Herul Royal family (Svear) to the Lake Mälar area in the early 500s, when they bring a new ruling dynasty and a new religion to the area (what we today know as the Ynglinga dynasty and the Æsir religion), is mentioned in several sources. Their entrance on the stage changes the situation in the Baltic Sea region. The wars between the Skilfings (Svear) and the Gotlanders are mentioned in the Beowulf epos. The Guta Saga tells that the Gotlanders always kept the victory and their right: “Many kings fought against Gutland while it was heathen; the Gotlanders, however, always held the victory and constantly protected their rights. Later the Gotlanders sent a large number of messengers to ‘suiarikis’ (Svear), but none of them could make peace before Avair Strabain of Alva parish. He made the first peace with the ‘suja kunung’ (king of the Svear).” The Trade Treaty between the Gotlanders and the Svear, probably from second half of the 500s, means that the Gotlanders could freely trade on the new kingdom in the Lake Mälar area and its conquered lands east of the Baltic Sea. There were large Gotlandic trading Emporiums, i. a. in Grobina (Latvia) ca 650-850 CE, an area at that time conquered by the Svear. Helgö and Birka would be trading places with large Gotlandic influence. E.g., writes Adam of Bremen in his story, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, that “Birka is a Gotlandic (Gothia) town located in the middle of the country of the Sveoner.” A new way of burial appears in the Lake Mälar area in the 500s, as well as the introduction of the Roman calendar. If we accept that the Heruli settle in the Lake Mälar area at this time, as mentioned by Procopius, it explains a lot. Actually this in fact explains the rise of the Vendel era, which in the Lake Mälar area starts first half of the 500s and continues until the beginning of the Middle Ages. On Gotland it starts about 50 years earlier and is explained by the Gotlanders’ close contacts with Theoderic’s Gothic kingdom. The first writer to mention some people on the Scandinavian peninsula (THULE), except Tacitus Sitonens in the Lake Mälar area, is Prokopios who wrote in the 500s. With the discovery that the Beowulf epos is about the Gotlanders in combination with the Heruls immigration to the Lake Mälar area we have been able to shed new light on the Gotlandic history. Indeed the history of the whole Baltic Sea region has come in a whole new light. We now have a link between the Beowulf epos, Guta Saga and the archaeological finds from the 400s and 500s. Roman gold coins known as solidi have been found on the three Baltic Sea islands: Bornholm, 150, Öland 298, Gotland 270 + 47 on the market place Helgö in Mälaren. The latter have been intended as raw material and are according to the researchers most likely derived from Gotland. It is obvious here to see Helgö and then Birka as Gotlandic trading venues, as implied by the archaeological sources. Gotland’s importance for trade and culture in the Baltic Sea region during the first millennium can also be illustrated by the coin finds. From the 500s until the 1000s the Gotlanders have, according to Swedish researchers, been considered to rarely be mentioned in ancient sources. They are, however, well known in Arabic and Byzantine sources as al-Rus’ and Varangian merchants. The word Varangian was used by Arabs, Greeks and Kievan Rus’ for the merchants from the island in the Baltic Sea region (the Gotlanders). It probably came from the old Norse word ‘vár’, which means ‘union through promise’, and was used by a group of men to keep them together in an association, and under oath observe certain obligations to support each other in good faith and to share the resulting profits. It was a common word, when trading adventures were undertaken by Gotlandic tradesmen on the Russian rivers. They closed a business contract with each other and pledged to defend each other. Another meaning of the word was for the Gotlanders who acted as mercenary soldiers to the rulers of Khazaria, Miklagarðr (Constantinople) and Garðaríki (Kievan Rus’). The Gotlandic Varangian Guard was an elite unit of the Byzantine army formed under emperor Basil II in 988. .

Foreword To understand the history of the Gotlandic Merchant Republic and its Medie- val Churches, one must fully realize that Gotland was an independent Merchant Republic, the hub of the Baltic Sea region, which from time immemorial had its relations mainly east and south and controlled trade on the Russian rivers from time to time. Already 800- 500 BCE Gotlandic merchants had a large trading emporium in Achmulova on the Volga. The Gotlandic history is misleading and dif cult to understand if it is bundled with the Swedish history, that so far has been done. They both have their se- parate history. We know that the Varangians, by Arabic writers in the 800s called al- Rus’, were merchants from the island in the Baltic Sea region, who came rowing on the Russian rivers. From there comes later the name Russia. The Byzantine Patriarch Photius, in a circular letter in 867, calls the Gotlandic merchants Rhos and informs the Oriental patriarchs and bishops that, after the Bulgars turned to Christ in 864, the Rhos followed suit so zealously that he found it prudent to send to their land a bishop. Sven Ekbo (1981) convincingly connects the word al-Rus’ to Old Norse ro∂r meaning ‘expedition of rowing ships’. On the Russian rivers in the 800s there were rowing Gotlandic merchants, Varangians, who the Arabic writers accordingly called al-Rus’. In the Baltic Sea there were no Vikings, only Varangians. The Gotlandic Merchant Farmers’ counted their birth position and their social class socially higher than burghers and peasants of other nations. The diffe- rence can obviously be explained, that they were aware, that they had a higher form of freedom, namely to be free from land lords and liability to taxation. The Gotlandic society before the 1600s was considered to be an ‘ethnie’, a group with a perceived common origin, language and history. The governor of Tobolsk, Siberia’s capital, Count Matjev Gagarin (1711-1719) was considered to be of Varangian origin and higher than Tsar Peter who was just a Romanov. Bibliography you nd in the books: ”Gotland the Pearl of the Baltic Sea Center of commerce and culture in the Baltic Sea region for over 2000 years” ISBN:978-91-87481-05-5 ”The Gotlandic Merchant Republic and its Medieval Churches” ISBN:978-91-87481-49-9 (701 pages 1400 photos) Burs February 20th 2017 Tore Gannholm

Around the year 700 travelling Radhanites (later known as Jewish merchants) from Khazaria had founded Kiev (Turkish for “beach settlement”) at the Dnieper River. The place was during the 700s and 800s an outpost for the Khazar Kha- ganate. As Kiev became an important station on the trade route for the Gotlandic mer- chants on their way from the Baltic Sea to Miklagarðr (Istanbul), the Varangians took Kiev from the Khazarians in 882 and appointed one of their own, Oleg, as ruler. Archaeological excavations show that a line of strong-holds was esta- blished in the Kiev area along the Dnjepr in the last two decades of the 800s. Tax collection was probably a motivation for establishing these strongholds. From Arabic sources we know that one of the al-Rus’ trade routes ended in Miklagarðr where they sold furs and swords. Garðaríki (Kievan Rus’) was after that ruled by a resident Varangian nobility, that became the nucleus of the Kievan Rus’ polity, whose ‘Golden Age’ was from late 800s to mid 1200s, when it disintegrated after the Mongol invasion. (1237– 1240). They are referred to as Kievan Rus’ and Garðaríki.

This dissertation deals with the long-term dynamics and fluctuations of settlements on Gotland for the period from AD 200 up until early modern times. The settlement structure on Gotland is most often described as very stable and consisting of solitary farms, established in the Iron Age. A contrasting view is presented by analyses of a vast source material from different periods. The source material consists of both physical remains, noted in the Swedish national Archaeological Sites Information System, FMIS and large scale historical maps, as well as other written sources. For the first studied period, the locations of some 2 000 houses are known, since they were constructed with sturdy stone walls and are thus preserved. The source material for the following periods is scarcer, but some hundred Viking Age sites are identified, mainly by the find places of silver hoards. By retrogressive analyses of historical maps, from the decades around the year 1700, and other written sources, later periods are analysed. All available data are gathered in geodatabases, which enables both generalised and detailed spatial and statistical analyses. The results of the analyses show a more varied picture, with great fluctuations in the number of farms; the existence of villages is also clearly indicated in a large part of the settlements. The villages are centred on kinship and the lack of strong royal power or landed gentry meant they were not fixed in cadastres, as fiscal units, as villages were on the Swedish mainland. Two peaks, followed by major dips, were identified in the number of settlements and thus in the population. The first peak occurred during the late Roman Iron Age/Migration period, which was followed by a reduction in the Vendel period of possibly up to 30-50%. After this, a recovery started in the Viking Age, which culminated during the heydays of Gotland in the High Middle Ages, with population numbers most probably not surpassed until late in history. This upward trend was broken by the diminishing trade of Gotland, the Medieval agrarian crisis, The Danish invasion and later events. All this resulted in a decline, probably as great as after the Migration period.

English: In about AD 1140, the island of Gotland initiated what was to become one of the most influential coinages of the medieval Baltic Sea area. This was part of a strategy to meet the impact and pressure from the world outside in a period characterised by large-scale political and ideological changes. In this situation, old and new networks were important to maintain autonomy from those aiming for dominance over the island. The coins, with an independent weight standard and an iconography inspired by NW German and Frisian coins, were one way of attracting partners to the island’s main harbour, where its inhabitants could maintain control and trading peace. Coins incorporate in them the dimensions of object, text and picture. A historical archaeology of coins needs not only focus on large-scale perspectives and formal power, but must also give weight to the archaeological context, the life biography of the coins and the social negotiations behind their production and use. Thus intention and reality, symbolism and social practice may be studied to find openings to the stories behind the objects. The different dimensions of the coins together with historical sources give away plenty of information on several levels: about the networks, ideological framework, artisanship and changing loyalties of this time and area.

There are many preconceptions regarding the Northern warriors of the Viking Age. Whether fierce men plundering and pillaging Western Europe or axebearing soldiers in the Emperor’s guard in Byzantium, their reputation as skilled warriors preceded them wherever they went. To what did the Northerners owe their success, and what were their characteristics in terms of skills and organization? This paper deals with Viking Age warriors and the brotherhoods or warrior bands that partly created the foundation for their achievements.

To understand the history of Gotland, the home of the Varangians, one must fully realize that Gotland was an independent Merchant Farmers’ Republic, and the hub of the Baltic Sea region, which from time immemorial had its relations mainly east and south. The Gotlandic history is misleading and difficult to understand if it is bundled with the Swedish history, which so far has been done. They both have their separate history. There are some deadlocks in Swedish history which have blocked the view for a broader perspective. I here think of the Roman sources about the Baltic Sea region. In the 1600s when Sweden was a super- power they had to give it a story that matched its position in the world and when they in the Roman sources found peoples and places that started with an ‘S’ they immediately concluded that it must be ‘Svear’ and the ‘Scandinavian peninsula’. The Roman name for the Scandinavian peninsula was, however, still in the 500s THULE. This historical picture was created by Johannes Magnus, and continued by Olof Rudbeck in ‘Atlantica’. Still today many writers without thought are copying these old delusions that the Roman writers would have written about some mighty Svear at the beginning of our era. Let us look at the archaeological evidences and take such a simple example as the 7500 Roman coins from Tacitus time and there about, denarius, found in present day Sweden. 6500 of these are from Gotland. Only 80 are from the Lake Mälar area. Or take the quantity of bronze bowls from the Capuan factory outside Naples found on Gotland. How can Swedish scholars with this quantity of finds on Gotland from the Roman Imperial time pretend that Gotland did not exist? Tacitus wrote about Suionum Civitate. He accordingly tells about the people who lived in Mare Suebicum (the Baltic Sea), i.e. the Gotlanders, who already then had reached a high cultural level and had trade relations all over Europe, including the Roman Empire. He continues: “Upon the Suiones, border the people Sitones; and agreeing with them in all other things, differ from them in one, that here the sovereignty is exercised by a woman. So notoriously do they degenerate not only from a state of liberty, but even below a state of bondage. Here end the territories of the Suevians.” The Sithones lived in the Lake Mälar area and are what we later call Svear. From the archaeological findings we can accordingly establish that trade relations between Gotland and the Roman Empire were intense. No Svea kingdom as such existed yet at that time. Tacitus says that the people in the Lake Mälar area were ruled by a woman. Still in the Beowulf epos, probably written down in the 700s, the people in the Lake Mälar area are not known as Svear but as Skilfings. It is quite clear that historical observations can not only be based on name similarities, but one must first look at the map, the archaeological finds and the chronological development and only secondarily try to match the names that different peoples have had in different areas at different times, and when these names first appear in written sources. The early history is a piece of myth, oral tradition and fragmentary records. From all this can suddenly emerge a pattern, the outline of a process that may not be scientifically inviolable, which it never really can be. Yet it is nearer the truth than you could ever reach with ‘scientific accuracy’. If you take the Guta Saga, written down about 1220, and the Beowulf Epos, written down in the 700s, as serious as Snorri Sturluson’s ‘Nordiska kungasagor’, written down about 1220, has been honored - i.e. as evidence in lack of better sources, there will open up a new, breathtaking perspective regarding Gotlandic, Swedish and Scandinavian history during the Roman time of the emperors and the Migration Period. Yes also that of Europe. Already in the Bronze Age and early Iron Age there are signs of Gotlandic trading Emporiums on the east coast of the Baltic Sea and all the way to the river Volga. Trade, especially amber trade, experiences in the Bronze Age a large bloom. The Gotlanders seem to have controlled the amber trade with trading Emporiums in the Vistula area. The extensive trade relations convey influences from outside. From southern cultural centers, Egypt, Crete, Mycenae, spiritual impulses stretched their effects also to the Baltic Sea region and Gotland. The immigration of the Herul Royal family (Svear) to the Lake Mälar area in the early 500s, when they bring a new ruling dynasty and a new religion to the area (what we today know as the Ynglinga dynasty and the Æsir religion), is mentioned in several sources. Their entrance on the stage changes the situation in the Baltic Sea region. The wars between the Skilfings (Svear) and the Gotlanders are mentioned in the Beowulf epos. The Guta Saga tells that the Gotlanders always kept the victory and their right: “Many kings fought against Gutland while it was heathen; the Gotlanders, however, always held the victory and constantly protected their rights. Later the Gotlanders sent a large number of messengers to ‘suiarikis’ (Svear), but none of them could make peace before Avair Strabain of Alva parish. He made the first peace with the ‘suja kunung’ (king of the Svear).” The Trade Treaty between the Gotlanders and the Svear, probably from second half of the 500s, means that the Gotlanders could freely trade on the new kingdom in the Lake Mälar area and its conquered lands east of the Baltic Sea. There were large Gotlandic trading Emporiums, i. a. in Grobina (Latvia) ca 650-850 CE, an area at that time conquered by the Svear. Helgö and Birka would be trading places with large Gotlandic influence. E.g., writes Adam of Bremen in his story, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, that “Birka is a Gotlandic (Gothia) town located in the middle of the country of the Sveoner.” A new way of burial appears in the Lake Mälar area in the 500s, as well as the introduction of the Roman calendar. If we accept that the Heruli settle in the Lake Mälar area at this time, as mentioned by Procopius, it explains a lot. Actually this in fact explains the rise of the Vendel era, which in the Lake Mälar area starts first half of the 500s and continues until the beginning of the Middle Ages. On Gotland it starts about 50 years earlier and is explained by the Gotlanders’ close contacts with Theoderic’s Gothic kingdom. The first writer to mention some people on the Scandinavian peninsula (THULE), except Tacitus Sitonens in the Lake Mälar area, is Prokopios who wrote in the 500s. With the discovery that the Beowulf epos is about the Gotlanders in combination with the Heruls immigration to the Lake Mälar area we have been able to shed new light on the Gotlandic history. Indeed the history of the whole Baltic Sea region has come in a whole new light. We now have a link between the Beowulf epos, Guta Saga and the archaeological finds from the 400s and 500s. Roman gold coins known as solidi have been found on the three Baltic Sea islands: Bornholm, 150, Öland 298, Gotland 270 + 47 on the market place Helgö in Mälaren. The latter have been intended as raw material and are according to the researchers most likely derived from Gotland. It is obvious here to see Helgö and then Birka as Gotlandic trading venues, as implied by the archaeological sources. Gotland’s importance for trade and culture in the Baltic Sea region during the first millennium can also be illustrated by the coin finds. From the 500s until the 1000s the Gotlanders have, according to Swedish researchers, been considered to rarely be mentioned in ancient sources. They are, however, well known in Arabic and Byzantine sources as al-Rus’ and Varangian merchants. The word Varangian was used by Arabs, Greeks and Kievan Rus’ for the merchants from the island in the Baltic Sea region (the Gotlanders). It probably came from the old Norse word ‘vár’, which means ‘union through promise’, and was used by a group of men to keep them together in an association, and under oath observe certain obligations to support each other in good faith and to share the resulting profits. It was a common word, when trading adventures were undertaken by Gotlandic tradesmen on the Russian rivers. They closed a business contract with each other and pledged to defend each other. Another meaning of the word was for the Gotlanders who acted as mercenary soldiers to the rulers of Khazaria, Miklagarðr (Constantinople) and Garðaríki (Kievan Rus’). The Gotlandic Varangian Guard was an elite unit of the Byzantine army formed under emperor Basil II in 988. .

Expansion eastward The trade agreement makes possible the Vendel era and Viking Age expeditions in the Baltic Sea region and opens the high-way to the East where the Gotlanders become known as al-Rus’ and Varangians. It seems that the Gotlanders were sufficiently strong soon after the wars in the 500s to establish trading Emporiums in the eastern Baltic coastal areas, such as Grobina (Seeburg?) in Courland (Latvia), Apuolé in Lithuania, Elbing (Truso) in West Prussia and Kaup at Wiskiauten (todays Mohovoe). Truso is probably the place over which the Gotlanders had their contacts with the Romans and later the Goths. The Courland stone ships suggest that there have been Gotlandic settlements even during the late Bronze Age. In Latvia at Grobina, just east of Liepeja, has been found three separate burial grounds near each other. One of these, according to the surveys by Professor Birger Nerman, in connection with the excavations undertaken by him in 1929-1930, had nearly a thousand tombs before it was damaged by gravel pit. The dead are cremated and have with them as grave goods weapons and women’s jewelry to the very distinct forms one only finds on Gotland. The Gotlandic archælogical relic forms from the Vendel era are so characteristic, that their identity can easily be determined in whatever environment in which they occur. Nerman believes that Paviken stage two is the prototype for Grobina. Even the Gotlandic tombs are similar in both locations. The remains of the ancient Gotlandic city facility at Grobina are similar in style to Sliesthorp (Haithabu) in Denmark and Birka in the Lake Mälar area and as mentioned stage two of Paviken on Gotland. In a semicircle around the old town area lie the three cemeteries and, like Birka, it has also had a stronghold as support point. In roughly the same area, not too far from where the Gotlandic settlements seem to have existed at the end of the Bronze Age, as shown by the Courland stone ships, there has accordingly been a large Gotlandic trading Emporium in the Vendel era beside a smaller Svea settlement. The archaeological material thus clearly shows that the Gotlanders and the Svear during the 600s-700s were in an expansion phase. The Baltic Sea coasts were their natural area of interest, but the Gotlanders also maintained close contacts with Western Europe, especially eastern England and Sutton Hoo. As memory of this time, living narratives remain obscurely left in Beowulf and the Icelandic Sagas with great deeds and strange personalities, Ingjald Illråde, Ivar Vidfamne, Harald Hildetand and Sigurd Ring. According to Bruno Ehrlich on the Prussian Viking Age trading centre Truso, ‘Der preuszisch- wikingische Handelsplatz Truso’: “The significance of the findings in Elbing is peculiar in that it demonstrates a migration of north Germanic people and more specifically Gotlanders already 150 years before it is expected that the real Viking Age began.”

Roma parish in the centre of Gotland, Sweden, was the point of assembly for the island’s highest political and judicial body – the Gutnal Thing. By scholarly tradition it has been attributed to the area around Roma Abbey, founded by the Cistercian order in the middle of the 12th century. Beginning in 1990, rich Viking Age finds have been recovered during metal-detector surveys in the field of Guldåkern, north of the Abbey. The composition of finds lacks parallels on the island and includes a very high number of weights. This paper compiles and discusses these weights in comparison with other Scandinavian finds and relates them to the site and the Gutnal Thing as a social and physical institution.

The article is a short summary of the author’s PhD thesis, analysing the late Viking Age cemetery of Kopparsvik on the Island of Gotland, Sweden. The cemetery of Kopparsvik has to be seen in close relation to an early emporium as predecessor of present-day Visby, and its evaluation and publication will give new insights into the establishment and function of an early trading community. Furthermore, many burials at Kopparsvik show unusual features namely, an astonishingly high number of prone burials and teeth modification, that demonstrate the consolidation of new social and religious ideologies at the threshold between the heathen Scandinavian Viking Age and the Christian European Middle Ages.

The earlier Gotlandic picture stones are mostly connected with the Iberian peninsula and southern France. The Ibero-Celts are the most likely bearers of the pictorial agenda that is introduced on Gotland for the earlier picture stones. In the Iberian peninsula, the Vadenienses, an old Ibero-Celtic people have left very special gravestones, decorated with blades of ivy, corn ears and specially designed horses. It was a people of fighters and horsemen, who to every horse had two warriors, one to ride and the other to fight on foot to help protect the horse and knight. Their most common form of grave decoration during the pre-Christian Roman period is exactly of the same character as the early stones on Gotland. They contain a lot of signs that could be understood as sun and moon. The moon is often made as bulls horns. This whole style is unique for the Iberian peninsula and depends probably on Celtic influence among the Romans. The Gotlandic picture stones correspond with the pre-Christian stones from 100-300 CE. The Vadenienses worked within the Roman legions, and were also mercenaries fighting for whoever made it worth while. Their fighting techniques have been reported by Roman soldiers who observed it among their German enemies. At other occasions they have also witnessed it with the eastern Goths in the time of Attila. They lived on the Asturian plateau and in the mountains and further on in northern Italy, Austria and Bohemia. They were a travelling people. They might have met the people from Gotland in the Bohemian area (see Marcomannic influence age 81). We today know of about 570 Gotlandic picture stones, dated roughly to the period 200-1100. Peter Manneke has shown roots of picture stones that date back to the 1st century in certain cemeteries. According to Peter Manneke:“The consummate mastery of the stone material from the 300s and 400s in the form of perfect curbed stone circles of dressed sand-and limestone, and technical high-image blocks within these circles presupposes partly unknown, earlier stages on Gotland and partly the fact that the craft as such, came to Gotland from outside. These early stages can be found on Gotland. The idea to use cut stone as a material for edge- and picture stones and the necessary technical skills came probably from the south and if so, mainly from the vast Roman Empire with its perfect architecture in stone, with whom Gotland had intensive trade and other relations. The idea for the older image blocks and its imagery, with its compass-drawn geometric ornaments, their burdensome ship and its fabulous animals that sometimes have rear-facing heads, probably stems from several areas in the south and southeast. The findings on the grave-fields, burial forms, etc. indicate that the stones date back to the first century. In the Duero valley in Spain/Portugal e.g. is a picture stone from the first century, showing among other things, two swivel wheels (which is prevalent on the Gotlandic picture stones) and a rosette ornament resembling the basic shape of the Gotlandic highly developed spoke graves with intricate stone circles outside the cairns, especially those at Duckarve in Linde and Barshaldar in Grötlingbo. The picture stones from the Duero area are from the days when Roman bronzes and silver coins began to appear on Gotland. On Gotland these offshoots of different cultures and design worlds met Celtic, Germanic, Roman and that from the Goths.”

The Gotlandic Chronicle or Guta Saga The Guta Saga (note 3), as the preface to Guta Lagh, is the popular name of the Gotlandic Chronicle. It deals with the earliest history of Gotland, how the Gotlanders saw it when it was written down in the beginning of the1200s. Guta Saga and Guta Lagh are written in the Gotlandic language, ‘Gutniska’, clearly distinct from other Nordic languages and is very close to the Gothic language. It lacks any counterpart on the Swedish mainland. Gotland, from distant times and even well into modern times, was an independent Merchant Farmers’ Republic with its own history and its own distinctive culture. Gotland’s own form world developed early. Gotland was the center for the rich Baltic Sea culture. Guta Saga is also a literary masterpiece, which according to Adolf Schück shows that the Gotlanders early had reached an advanced stage in the narrative arts. An interesting linguistic difference between Gotlandic and Swedish is the Swedish word ‘arv’, inherit, that in Gotlandic is called ‘lutum, liautr’.

The Gotlandic merchants, according to Arab and Greek sources, were called al-Rus’ and Varangians. Exerpt from Gotland the Pearl of the Baltic Sea, Center of commerce and culture in the Baltic Sea region for over 2000 years. Stavgard förlag 2013. ISBN: 978-91-87481-05-5

Artifacts of female dress such as brooches and pendants have long been objects of interest to scholars of late Iron Age /early medieval Scandinavia. They figure in dating and tracing stylistic developments, and their presence is often (controversially) used to help assign gender to burials. There are three types of pendants which constitute a type of feminine adornment unique to Viking Age Gotland: the so-called tongue, sieve, and ladle pendants. The purpose of this paper is to examine these pendant types and the possible symbolic and magical functions behind their forms and manner of use, and how these functions intersected with the ideologies mapped onto female bodies in Old Norse culture(s). The pendants’ appearance as fixed and incomplete sets is analyzed, and the designs of the “tongue”, “sieve” and “ladle” are located within the wider field of Iron Age iconography - particularly in association with the depiction of idealized gender roles. In conclusion a hypothesis as to why these particular amulets were used exclusively by wealthy Viking women is presented; that the tongue, sieve, and ladle pendants signaled and were involved in the construction of a particular type of elite female identity linked to specifically feminine forms of embodied power and prestige within late Iron Age society.

First churches on Gotland The upper Christian social group did apparently still not have sufficient means to self-enforce that a Gotlandic Church is accepted. However, there are Byzantine-Christian motives in the tomb finds from this period such as necklaces and painted eggs of clay found in graves on Gotland, on Helgö and on Björkö from the second half of the 800s. After the general acceptance of Christianity, a church was built in Atlingbo. It was the first in the middle third. Then a third was built in Fardhem in the southernmost third. From those, churches spread everywhere in Gotland, since men built themselves churches for greater convenience. Both the events described by the final decision, that the Church would remain, are apparently linked to one time and one place, namely Visby. If we dare connect it to the Patriarc Photius’ circular letter of 867, the Kulstäde incident should have taken place in the 870s, and the church in Vi built in 897, as Strelow sets the founding of Visby to that year. The decision can thus be compared with the later Icelandic Althing decision of the year 1000, when Christianity was officially introduced in Iceland. The seafaring Arab al-Tartûschî visited Hedeby, Visby, about the year 973 and says that there were a few Christians and a small church. He should have recognized this for he came nearest from Christian countries. Did al-Tartûschî see Botair’s church? What al-Tartûschî means by big city seems to indicate that he calls a monastery, Fulda, in the Frankish country, for a large city. Fulda consisted of several houses and was walled, fenced. He describes Hedeby as a large but poor city in the world ocean’s outer edge. He took particular note of the good supply of drinking water, the women’s free status and that a number of the inhabitants were Christian. One of the reasons why Visby grew was the good supply of drinking water.

The style and iconography of two well-known picture stones are re-analysed. The Hablingbo Havor II picture stone shows a motif that occurs frequently in Gotlandic art from the Vendel Period onwards: the “Water Dragon”. It is suggested that this relates to an ideological connection between the dragon and the sea, where the sea is the dragon that ferries ships to distant shores. This is reflected not only in picture stones, but in Viking Age art in general. The iconography of När Smiss III (the “Snake Witch”) has been interpreted in a variety of ways, but special consideration is given to Peel’s (1999) suggestion that it relates closely to the Vitastjärna myth from the 13th-century Guta Saga. The artistic style of the zoomorphs on both stones (Style II) is typically dated to the Vendel Period. It is suggested that Sune Lindqvist’s insistence that the stones date from before AD 600 comes from a long-standing debate with Nils Åberg over the date and context of the east mound at Uppsala, and by association, the date of the artistic style found on Hablingbo Havor II and När Smiss III. This debate has been resolved in favour of Åberg’s interpretation. These two picture stones rep- resent an artistic tradition that should be dated conservatively from the beginning of the 5th century AD to the middle of the 7th century AD.

The presentation was given at the Medieval Archaeology Seminar at the Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford on 25 January 2016. In this talk I present some of the preliminary results of research of the archaeological contexts of Viking Age silver hoards in Northern and Central Europe. I am undertaking this for a DPhil thesis now in progress. The text presents the emerging method of determining the possible reasons for deposition and non-retrieval of hoards using the information on a presence or absence of a container cross-referenced with the weight of silver, supplemented by the archaeological and soil chemistry data, and by written sources. The discussion is based on regional case-studies of three of the biggest hoard concentrations in the Baltic Zone, Gotland, Pomerania and Svealand.

The inflow of Islamic dirhams into the Baltic Sea zone in the 9th and 10th century has often been described as a watershed in the economic development of Northern Europe. There are reasons to believe that silver gained significance in calculated exchange relations in this transitional period. However in which ways silver was imbued with value is not clear. One interesting question to be investigated is how the medium silver became accepted as substance and as a means of payment and on which “paths” the validation of silver followed already existing concepts of value. In this paper this issue will be addressed by examining aspects of shape and ornamentation of some of the earliest silver ring types on Gotland. It is argued that the recurring pattern of spiral rings and bracelets with hourglass shaped pattern imitate snakes in different ways which links them with aspects of hoarding and wealth.

Finally, it can be said that the significance of picture stones throughout the centuries has undoubtedly been multifunctional and changing – as territorial marking, a memorial, preserver of oral tradition, burial site and religiously charged artefact. The picture stones have played a key role in the Gotlandic society in the late Iron Age and early Medieval Period, they were a focal point for social and ideological communication between the people of their time.

How can human sensuous experiences through sight, sound, taste, smell and touch be studied in past worlds? In which ways may such a bodily perspective affect our interpretations? In this volume, the authors explore a wide range of topics, such as the materialisation and symbolism of colour, the sensuous dimensions of commensality, and cultural constructions con- cerning pain and odour. The articles comprise examples from various regions and time periods from Scandinavian Iron Age burial rites and classical Maya monumental art to issues of death and burial in eighteenth-century Sweden.

This text is not by me but by Samuel Edquist. It is a good read for those who want to study Gotland's history. It's a chapter from the book 'Islands of identity' published by Södertörns högskola, 2015. 418 pages. Serie: Södertörn Academic Studies, 1650-433X ; 59. ISBN 978-91-86069-98-8. "Gotland, Åland, Saaremaa, Hiiumaa and Bornholm are five island regions in the Baltic Sea which constitute, or have until recently constituted, provinces or counties of their own." Read about it and download: here:https://bibl.sh.se/skriftserier/hogskolans_skriftserier/Islands_of_Identity/diva2_784146.aspx

Rundkvist, Martin. 2011. Mead-halls of the Eastern Geats. Elite Settlements and Political Geography AD 375-1000 in Östergötland, Sweden. Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien (KVHAA), Handlingar, Antikvariska serien 49. Stockholm 2011. 165 pp. ISBN 978-91-7402-405-0. The Swedish province of Östergötland has long been recognised as one of the 1st millennium's political hot spots. Splendid single finds, though never before surveyed comprehensively, offer a rough idea of where elite settlements might be sought. But not one of the ostentatious manorial buildings where the era's elite lived has been identified in the field. This book aims at beginning to remedy this regional absence of mead-halls, being an investigation of the internal political geography of Östergötland during the period AD 375-1000. Good candidate sites are identified in nine out of c. 155 parishes. Apparently they were occupied only rather briefly by magnates, and there is little sign of continuity anywhere. Key words Archaeology, Early Medieval, Sweden, Östergötland, Viking, elite, political geography

This paper reflects on and summarises the current state of research on early medieval (750-1100 AD) metal workshops in Scandinavia by way of examples from workshops and metalworking sites recovered via archaeological excavations and surveys over the last 30 years. A critique is presented of a number of features which occur perennially in Scandinavian archaeometallurgical presentations, such as the tendency to overemphasise the importance of written accounts and the common habit of over-interpreting archaeometallurgical finds.

Possession! This ambiguous word, capturing at the same time our material belongings, our dominion over them, and the inverted power they exercise over us. [...] The nature of the object is an essential part of how it may be owned and possessed, and thus used and parted from, and its specific material qualities are essential parts of the object’s nature. There are several things to indicate that perceptions appreciating life histories and individual qualities, and literally or metaphorically perceiving objects as animated, were present in a Viking-Age Scandinavian context, and I will here give a few examples to sustain this suggestion. The idea of animated objects may be reflected in the ornamentation of the many Viking-Age artefacts which are shaped like animals or human masks (Androshchuk 2014:202; cf. Pearce 2013). Another example is the type name ‘knarr’ (cf. OE cnearr), used for a category of Viking ships, which refers to the sound created by the moving ship due to its particular construction (Svenska Akademiens Ordbok, entry ‘knorr’). The idea of animated objects also results through three types of textual sources: the personal names of objects, referred to in the sagas and medieval poetry, the way some of these objects are described as behaving, and statements attributed to or inscribed on certain artefacts themselves [...]. Judging from Old Norse mythology and poetry, there are specific ideas behind what could, and should, be named: natural but culturally apprehended features like rivers, lakes and hills; culturally defined spaces like dwelling places and regions; domesticated animals, in mythology particularly if they have special functions or capacities; and certain types of objects. These are objects which are involved in special relations with humans and gods, often functioning as personal attributes, in the manner of Odin’s spear Gungnir or Freyr’s ship Skíðblaðnir. Named objects are objects with certain qualities that make them appear as animated or purposeful [...] Things of Quality may be possessed or even owned, but it is characteristic that they at heart belong to a larger context than the single individual. They belong to a social play of gender roles, display and prestige, bond-binding and transcendental communication. Their beauty, value and special moments oblige us to treat them well and to pass them on. Things of Quality are admirable and desirable because of their capacities: force-resistant, swift, magical, beautiful, valuable. Yet they tend to remain just out of our reach or, if we should get hold of them, they cannot be trusted to stay and obey. Unrequited desire creates the feeling of unquiet and restless want that we call ‘to be possessed’ and therefore they ultimately may own us as much as we may ever own them. Since only humans have feelings, our feelings for Things are not likely to ever be returned and entirely satisfied, no more than was Gollum’s yearning for his Precious ring.

The cross-cultural phenomenon of prone burials, which can be found on several cemeteries in Viking Age Scandinavia, is often regarded as a sign for so-called ‘deviant burials‘, indicating a pejorative and post-mortem humiliation, an exclusion of the dead, or an apotropaic rite to avert supernatural threats, based on some famous but single cases of decapitations in prone burials from Viking Age Scandinavia. The case study of the late Viking Age cemetery of Kopparsvik on the Island of Gotland, Sweden, offers a rather different perspective. Due to their disproportionately high number and the often carefully arranged interment of the deceased, the prone burials at Kopparsvik should not to be regarded as ‘deviant‘, but as a variation of the norm which in most cases seems to indicate a purposefully intended burial-rite with a presumably religious significance and conferring a special identity. According to archaeological as well as historical sources, a burial in prone position seems to indicate a special gesture of humility towards God. Based on these results, it seems necessary to reconsider the traditional interpretation of prone burials in Christian societies as well as our general understanding and utilization of the concept of ‘deviant burials‘.

The question underlying this investigation is whether Gotland’s Viking-Age Picture stones were the subject of workshops and schools. One way of approaching this is to examine whether the use of templates and cutting techniques might show interrelationships between craftsmen and on this basis discuss different craft traditions. This study will thus examine if and how templates or stencils were used on Gotland’s Viking-Age picture stones and what cutting techniques were applied when reproducing the sails on the picture-stone ships.

That Old Gutnish is a variant of Old Norse is unmistakeable. The first line of the medieval law text of Gotland–preserved in two manuscripts and comprising the bulk of the Old Gutnish corpus–is easily read by the Old Norse scholar: þitta ir fyrst upp haf .i. lagum orum: þet wir sculum naicca haiþnu oc iatta crisnu (‘This is the beginning of our law: that we shall deny heathendom and accept Christianity’) which in standardized Old West Norse (Old Icelandic) would read þetta er fyrst upphaf í lo˛gum várum: at vér skulum neka heiðni ok játta kristni. However, Old Gutnish displays a number of developments which vary from those of Old Icelandic, Old Swedish, and the other Old Norse variants. Alongside unique Gutnish innovations, the medieval insular language remains important for scholars of Old Norse because of the divergent participation in generally- accepted Common Norse sound changes, namely umlaut and breaking. This paper presents Old Gutnish from two vantage points: first, as an Old Norse variant with divergence in Common Norse umlaut and breaking; and second, as a unique language variety with its own history and development.

Guta saga ‘The history of the Gotlanders’, a short historiographic work written in Old Gutnish in the thirteenth century, hands down some of the major turning-points in the history of Gotland, starting with its legendary discovery and settlement. It also includes episodes, partly rooted in historical facts and circumstances and some of which are contemporary with the writing down of the Saga. The selection of the episodes – the first migration from the island, the compact with the Swedish king, the conversion and the relationships with representatives of secular and religious powers – and the strategies adopted by the author bear witness to the intention of building an identity. This representation is characterised by the insistence on the island’s autonomy from external forces, the ability of its inhabitants to deal with the authorities of the age and to successfully promote their interests. Guta saga’s background is an affluent society that derived its resources mainly from its role as a transit zone on the commercial routes that had connected East and West since the Viking Age and as a thriving marketplace well into the Late Middle Ages. The narrative strategies reveal the main facets of islandness and its function in the identity formation of the medieval Gotlandic community, which continue to be prominent even in our age. This portrait challenges and tends to contradict assumptions that establish a causal link between geographic features inherent in islandness and ideas of isolation and economic and commercial backwardness that such a condition would entail. The Saga shows that water is a boundary, but also, and above all, a medium for mobility which allows networks of connectivity and exchanges to be developed, including the importation of a new faith and integration into the Baltic arena. This medieval narrative proved vital in later times, also when new economic and political powers gained a foothold in the Baltic and Gotland itself lived through less successful phases. The gist and heritage of Guta saga have had a momentous impact, for instance, on the tourist industry which so often looks back at the Middle Ages. Indeed, this represents one of the island’s main assets today, just as trade was so essential in the past.

introduction When the existence of different socio-political areas and regional identities in the Baltic Sea region is discussed, one should remember that people did not live their lives in isolation. People, then as now, had social relations that stretched to other regions and societies. These could concern social contacts such as blood brotherhood and marriage alliances, or trade relations and tribute dealings, as well as relations based on common values (Burströ m 1991, 39; Callmer 1991). For the central Baltic Sea region and the Russian river valleys the archaeological material reveals evidence of the existence of diversified interaction. This is apparent not only through the raw material, partially manufactured items, and prestige objects that were mediated between different regions. It can also be seen through the jewellery and the personal belongings that are found far away from where they were manufactured or where the prototype existed. In the following study, the presence of Scandinavian groups in the Baltic Sea region and Russian area provides an example of the interaction that existed. As will be shown, some Scandinavians were involved in activities connected to trade. Since trust is vital for trade being conducted, this article also addresses how trust was created through material culture and how material culture could facilitate interaction between trading actors.

‘The Mythologized Past: Memory in Medieval and Early Modern Gotland’ asks how a relatively small, increasingly heterogeneous, insular community shapes its identity over time. It focuses on two key episodes in the history of medieval Gotland and how they are represented in the island’s history over time, from the thirteenth century through the seventeenth, focusing especially on Gotland’s conversion to Christianity and the mid fourteenth-century bubonic pandemic. By reference to various objects of memory, the essay explores and explains how Gotland’s ‘men of memory’ gave their versions of history, with their many references to the memorial landscape of the island, its churches, places, prominent families, and so on. Secondly, it discusses a different kind of memory, the empty set, that is, when there is, by accident or planning, no memory. An important example of this sort of empty set from Gotland comes from an incident connected to the great fourteenth-century pandemic, known as the Black Death (or digerdöden).