Warrior ideologies in first-millennium AD Europe: new light on monumental warrior stelae from Scotland

Derek Hamilton,James O'Driscoll,Gordon Noble,Juliette Mitchell,Nicholas Evans,Mark Hall

doi:10.15184/aqy.2019.214

Derek Hamilton, James O'Driscoll + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2019.214

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Abstract

Highlights

Prehistoric and medieval burials accompanied by weapons have been documented since the nineteenth century (e.g. Härke 1990: 22; Treherne 1995: 105; Pedersen 2014: 15)
The ideals reflected in these texts indicate that, as in Anglo-Saxon England, the brave and successful warrior was accorded high social and ideological status in Ireland and northern Britain, the scarcity, relative to that farther south, of graves with weaponry demonstrates that this ideology was materialised in different and regionally specific ways
Tulloch stone and its peers are striking materialisations of a martial ideology expressed in stone

Summary

Introduction

Prehistoric and medieval burials accompanied by weapons have been documented since the nineteenth century (e.g. Härke 1990: 22; Treherne 1995: 105; Pedersen 2014: 15). The ideals reflected in these texts indicate that, as in Anglo-Saxon England, the brave and successful warrior was accorded high social and ideological status in Ireland and northern Britain, the scarcity, relative to that farther south, of graves with weaponry demonstrates that this ideology was materialised in different and regionally specific ways It is against the scant burial and textual records from northern Britain that we can set the recent discovery of a carved, weapon-bearing figure from eastern Scotland (Figures 1–2). Positioned on the upper part of the upright stone, the 1.10m-tall human figure is naked and depicted walking to the left, holding a spear, and with distinctive hair or a head accoutrement that is reminiscent of the Tulloch carving. While there are examples of axe-wielding figures, including Rhynie (stone 7), Mail and Papil, Shetland, Golspie, Sutherland, and Glamis, Angus, these again differ from the spear-bearing figures, and perhaps signal yet another kind of status or societal role for these figures (Fraser 2008: 54, 98, 130–33; see discussion in Hall 2013: 104; Noble et al 2013: 1147, 2019)

Discussion

Conclusions