Abstract
The style and iconography of two wellknown picture stones are reanalysed. The Hablingbo Havor II pic ture stone shows a motif that occurs frequently in Got landic art from the Vendel Period onwards: the“Water Dragon”. It is suggested that this relates to an ideo logical 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 Vi tastjärna myth from the 13thcentury 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 longstanding de bate 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 con servatively from the beginning of the 5th century AD to the middle of the 7th century AD.
Highlights
The style and iconography of two well-known picture stones are re-analysed
Most of the other Type A stones show “Style I” artwork, it is very easy to detect how Hablingbo Havor II and När Smiss III differ from the earlier picture stones
A quick review of the literature on Style II, which was originally designed to categorize metal artefacts recovered throughout the “Germanic” culture area, reveals that in Sweden this style is associated with the Vendel period
Summary
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 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. Did Lindqvist insist that Type A stones dated from AD 400 to 600, and not to AD 700? A further investigation of previous interpretations of the picture stones, and an historical analysis of how Lindqvist came to his conclusions, allows for a better understanding of his rationale
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