Sound, Movement, and Emotion: An Historically-informed Performance at a Viking Burial Site

Abstract

Launched in 2014, the aim of the Funeralscapes project is to explore the interplay between landscape, music and emotion by conducting re-enactment fieldwork at pre-modern burial sites in Scotland. In 2014 re-creations of aspects of a Viking funeral at an archaeologically attested Viking burial site was conducted with adult and primary school aged community volunteers on the Isle of Eigg. The aim was to investigate how Viking Age funeral music and movement (such as processions) could have worked in their immediate environment, and what emotional responses the modern-day participants had to the landscape and music. Following a brief outline of the site and performance choices, this paper draws upon fieldwork and interviews conducted with the participants following the re-enactments. It particularly comments upon the dramatic performance of heritage as a method through which the past is taught and remembered.