Steinsland+1986 Giants+as+Recipients+of+Cult+in+the+Viking+Age

7/27/2019 Steinsland+1986 Giants+as+Recipients+of+Cult+in+the+Viking+Age

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GIANTS AS RECIPIENTS 0F CULT IN TH E VIKING AGE? 21315Giants as Recipients ofCult in theViking Age?Gro Steinsland

A bok at the research in the field of Norse religion will soonshow that scholars have made considerable efforts to grasp thenature of the giants. The giants have been understood as beingsconnected with death, situated in the underworld; as corpseeating demons; as enormous figures created by the human mm din mental states of ecstasy, intoxication, or in conditions ofextreme hunger. Usually they are interpreted as personificationsof the wild and impressive nature of western Norway and Iceland. And especially they are seen as the enemies of the gods.2On one point only has there been full agreement amongscholars within different fleids of research: it has been unanimously taken for granted that giants have never been connectedwith r itual in any form. Some examples illustrating this will bementioned below.Magnus Olsen s ta ted h is agreement with the dominatingtrend in the field of research in these words: On the otherhand one has to agree with Heusler stating that Kultus vonRiesinnen oder Riesen fr das nordische Heidentum nichtGlaubhaft bezeugt ist).~ Jan de Vries sums up the discussionin the following words: Es braucht kaum gesagt zu werden,dass in dieser Entwicklung nirgends f r einen Kult der Riesenein Platz zu finden ist.4 Anne Holtsmarks statement is equallycategorical: Men jo tnene har aldri kultus. D e har vt bekjempet, ikke dyrket The giants never got any sort of cult. Theyhave been combatted, not worshipped).5 Indeed, Holtsmarkmakes the lack of any ritual context a sign of definition ofgiants. Giants were traditionally confused with trolls and landvett ir, but: De skiller seg fra vettene i det at de aldri skal ha

offer The giants differ from the vettir in that they never receiveofferings).6In short, it is established as something like an accepted truththat the Norse jptnir never received offerings of any sort.Nevertheless we shall venture to question this accepted truthand take a new bok at the sources. As a matter of fact theEddaic poetry explicitly connects shrines with a being who isbeyond any doubt a giant, v iz . the giantess Skadi. Gm depictsOdinns visions of the homes of the gods, among which we alsofind a giants home described:

Prymheimr heit ir inn stier Piazi bis inn mtki iQtunn;enn n Sca byggvir,scir brr goa,fornar tptir fQur.7 Gm 11The dramatic circumstances that made Skadi the owner ofIr.rymheimr are, according to Snorri, caused by murder andreconciliation, which resulted in marriage between the daughterof the murdered giant and the vanir-god, Njordr.The incorporation of a giants home amongst the abodes ofthe gods is in itself remarkable. Au d it is even more remarkablethat the circumstances have not received much attention inscholarly research. The mythical dwel ling of a god has itscounterpart in the psysical shr ine. And in Ls Skadis shrines,her vok vangr, is mentioned. On this occasion Skadi is threatening the evildoer Loki in following words:fr minom vomoc v~ngom scolo~ kQld r koma. Ls 51

Vand vangr are common terms for sites where a cult takesplace. G. Turville-Petre is the only one to point out that thisrelationship is problematic: If Skadi, this shining bride of gods,was of giant race, it is surprising that she would be worshipped.8Early in the century attention was drawn to the figure ofSkadi from another field than that of history of religion, viz.from toponomy. Hjalmar Lindroth presented in 1914 and againin 1930 his views coneerning a group of names strongly repre


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214 WOR S AND OBJECTS GIANTS AS RECIPIENT5 OF CULT IN THE VIKING AGE? 215sented in the middie and south of Sweden and also in the southeast of Norway: names like Skadevi, Skedvi, Skee, Skjl etc.Lindroth postulated a first part Skedju-, gen. of Skedja, afem.form to masc. Skadi. This fem.form of the name is commonly linked to well-known terms of cult-places: v -hof or lundt.

We are not going to enter into this toponomical discussion,but we ought to remind ourselves that this group of namesprobably bear witness to a time w he n the name of Skadi wasattached to cult-places. The toponyms seem to belong to oldagrarian areasYIn our context it is interesting to notice that diseussionsconeerning Skadi within toponomy totally avoided approachingthe question of giants. Lindroth drew the conclusion that Skadiwas an old goddess. An d all those who perceived the figure ofSkadi in toponomical material, have without further investigation t reated her as an old goddess, somewhat faded as timepassed on and at last reduced to an inhabitant of the world ofgiantsioThere is, however, notbing in the source material to justifythis conclusion. Indeed, the Edda poetry always presents Skadias a giantess. Her giant-nature is stressed, no t disregarded. Theliterary sources suggest that the question should be p ut in thisway: f a group of toponyms really contains the name of thegiantess Skadi combined with a term designating a cult-placeor shrine, then perhaps these sources bear witness to an old cultof giantesses?In myth Skadi is united to Njordr through marriage. Themyth has its paral le l in the hieros gamos-myth of Freyr andGerd, a mythic theme which forms the core of 5km.In 1909 Skm was analysed by Magnus Olsen, and his interpretation has become classical. According to his view, 5km exemplifies the Nordic versjon of the world-wide myth of father skyand mother earth. Freyr is se en as the old Norse sky-god andGerd as the goddess of agriculture. Their mythic marriage secures fertility and wealth and was ritually re-enacted everyspring.From ou r point of view it seems remarkable that Olsen andhis many fol lowers could without question treat Gerd as agoddess. No attention at all was paid to the fact that the woman

is, in fact, a giantess; bom, grown up and still an inhabitant ofJotunheimr. The theme ofgianthood is avoided both as a mythicand as a cultic problem; even as a religious problem at all.The avoidance of gianthood as a religious theme in differentways also applies to more recent analyses of the myth of Freyrand Gerd. It applies to Ursula Dronkes interpretation of 5kmof 1962, where the giant-nature of Gerd was seen as a symbolof uncleanness generally connected with women. Lotte Motz1981a) stresses the hieros gamos as an expression ofa strugglefor power. An d in many ways the religious perspective is alsolost in the structuralistic approaches of Lars Lnnroth of 1978and Stephan Mitchells of 1983. According to Lnnroth, Skmis an expression of tensions in medieval Icelandic society between the official view of marriage and an individual, eroticpassion. Gerd is a symbol of prohibited individual passion. Thesocial tension is resolved through the myth. The relationshipbetween the g od a nd the giantess is no t at all looked upon asa religious theme. Mitchells approach is also structuralistic,and like Lnnroth he understands the mythic coniliot as expressions of tensions in society. He does not, however, stressthe marriage motif as such, but regards the myth as a matrixfor resolving inherent conflicts between feuding groups in society. None of these later interpreters seems to be aware of thespecific religious mythic and/or cult iccontent of the lay.To disregard the strong emphasis laid on the jptunn motif inthe literary sources and to negleet the religious perspective inmyth, seems disquieting. The literary sources do no t try todisregard, bu t on the contrary underline the gigantic characterof Skadi and Gerd. Skadi is distinctly mentioned as a giantessin Gm Gm Il and in Ls she is explicitly connected with herfather the well-known giant Tiazi Ls 50-51). The marriagewith the vanir Njordr does not weaken her giant-nature. Instead,Snorri relates that the marriage never was a success, Skadi neverfelt comfortable in Noatun, nor Njordr in Thrymheimr. In away the conflict was resolved by a compromise: the couplechanged their dwelling place every ninth day.The Eddaic poetry and Snorris testimony demand that boththe jtunn character of the figures and the combination ofgiantesses and shrines are to be taken seriously.Ou r hypothesis concerning the possibility of a cult of giants


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216 WORDS AND OBJECTSis supported from another source: VQlsa~ttir, a missionarystory in Flateyarbk connected to St. Olav. The story of thehorses phallus called VQlsi, sancti fied by the housewife andworshipped by the household, is used by a Christian writer. Bu twithin the Christian frame, we can discern a unique testimonyof a heathen ritual. Especially the strophic parts of the storybetray an old layer. The main point in the analysis of the ritual,is the refrain: f riggi mprnir fietta bloet i, do mprnir accept thissacrifice.The interpretation of mprnir has caused a great deal of trouble. Linguistically there are two possibilities ofinterpretation:1) mprn, masc. sing., meaning sword, testi fied amongsword-hejtj in SnE.2) mirnir, fem.pl., meaning giantesses. This meaning is bestexempl if ied in the sources: Sn.E.Pulur; HaustlQng 6;Psdrpa; Sturl.saga I, 280.Most of the scholars who have been occupied with vp consider that linguistically the plural form is to be preferred. Still,this form has been rejected. This is the case with AndreasHeusler, who analysed the story in 1903; with M. Olsen in 1909,and their followers. What is the reason for their choice ofinterpretation? The answer is: the dogma that giants were neverthe object of any form af cultic ritual.Folke Strm exemplifies this dilemma in a very clear way. Heretains the plural form in his interpretation but translates mprnir

as disir, the collective of female powers of fertility.12Most scholars choose the former possibility: mrnir = masc.sing. meaning sword. According to the priapical appearanceof Freyr, they see the word as a metaphor of this god. Theritual performance described is then apprehended as an exampleof a sjlfr sjlfum offering, a gods offering of himself to himself.3Nevertheless, the fact remains that mprn is a term meaninggiantess. In HaustlQng 6 the giant Thiazi is mentioned marnarfair the father of mprn, and his daughter is Skadi.The ritual described in Vj obviously has the character of ahieros gamos; in one stanza brdkonur are mentioned. Thefigures who are asked to receive the phallus VQlsi, are mprnir,the giantesses. vp contains reminiscences of an old ritual performed for giantesses.

GIANT5 AS RECIPIENTS OF CULT IN THE VIKING AGE? 217We will now return to the hieros gamos of the go d and thegiantess. This problem concerns the subject of hieros gamos inNorse tradition in general. There is much unexplored materialin this field, and we will not go into the subject in all its aspects,but limit ourselves to poin ting out some of the facts that arerelevant to the present study.F. Strm has recently analysed one type of hieros gamos inNorse tradition, the one attached to the sacred kingdom.~Another group concerns sexual union between god and giantessin order to obtain a desirable object. This group contains severaldifferent types of hieros gamos:a ) Hieros gamos in o rd er to procreate vengeful sons. Odinnprocreated Vali by th e giantess Rind, he became the avenger ofBaldr; with Grid, Odinn procreated Vidar, his own eschatological avenger.b ) Hieros gamos between god and giantess as a means to gethold of a desirable object. Odinns relation with Gunnlod gives

access to the mead of Suttung.c ) Hieros gamos between the vanir god and the giantesses seemsto be of another sort. It seems to involve lasting relationships.A faet that is not explicit ly stated in relation to F rey r andGerd, bu t it seems l og ical to see the marriage between theirparents Njordr and Skadi as prototypic of the hieros gamos inSkm.)Matrimony was one of the most important institutions in theold Norse society. Marriage implied new ties between families.Circumstances concerning ownership and inheritance were significantly influenced. This social perspective is important whenwe seek the deeper meaning of the imagery of the myth. Thestructuralistic approach also stresses this point. Bu t the core ofthe myth expresses genuine religious concerns. The gods aredependent on the giants, a fact that in many ways is betrayedby the Eddaic mythology. Their alliances are both necessaryand fateful. The giants represent protological knowledge andare owners of important treasures, necessary for the gods. Atthe same time relations with the giantic powers t ur n out to bedisastrous. As time passes on the gods become m ore and m oredeeply i nvolved in alliances with the jtnir. Research in thisfield has aceentuated too much the opposition between godsand giants. Necessary relations and interactions seem to be


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218 WOR S ANn OB3ECTS GIANTS AS RECJPIENTS GP CULT IN TH E VIKING AGE? 219more adequate conceptions for the complex relations betweenthese two groups.Thor is usually depicted as the giant-fighter par excellence,his hammer is always lifted against Jotunheimr. Stil l , even thisgod makes utterances which reveal deep insight into the complexity of cosmology. He displays viewpoints which we todaywould ciassify as ecological. In Hblj 23 Thor utters the followingduring a verbal dispute with Odinn:mikil myndi t iQtnaef allir lifivr myndi mannaundir migari.

The km of giants would grow mighty if all of them were allowedto live. f so, there would be few people in Midgardr. Thorspreoccupation is the balance in cosmos, not the exterminationofone of two feuding groups. The harmonious relation betweenthe different groups must be secured. This deep insight is ascribed even to Thor, who is usually no t the first to be associatedwith wisdom.The traces of a cult of giants found in the literary sourcesprobably get their deepest meaning from a cosmological point ofview. The giants constitute groups of power which are extremelyimportant for the cosmic balance. They have to be fitted intothe whole. Aceordingly, they have to be taken care of ritually.It is only appropriate that the vanir-gods are given the taskof establishing lasting alliances with the world of the jptnir.Njordr is called a god of hostage in Ls 34. He has come fromoutside, he is the guarantee of peace and alliances among groupsof gods.Ou r next question is: what sort of cult has been paid to thegiants? V~ constituted an example of a fertility cult. The Eddicmyths of hieros gamos also indicate fertility rites of some sort.It seems reasonable to suppose that apotropaical r ituals directedtowards giants have also been important. In all cultures avertingrituals are known and performed in order to keep disastrouspowers within certain limits.Until now we have dealt with giant maidens; our r itual examples have all dealt with cultic rituals directed to females. Cer

tainly there are many different groups of jtnir bu t for thepresent we can state that the cult of female giants is mostdirectly suggested in the literary material. Further investigationwill probably uncover traces of rituals performed also for malegiants. In Sskm for example, Snorri tells in his novelistic mannerabout a travel in the lands of giants. Three gods, Odinn, Hnirand Loki are on their way through Utgardr.5 They becometired and hungry and want to prepare some food. Much effortis spent on trying to fry an ox. In the meantime an eagle iswatching from a tree. The gods do not succeed until they havepromised the eagle a part of the roast. The bird turns ou t to bethe giant Thiazi. In the end he steals the better part of the food.The story seems to be based upon knowledge of an old ritualof sacrifice. The story relates that beyond the limits of theblessed homes of gods and men, tribute is to be paid to thepowers who are the owners of the land. In the story of Sskmthe gods enter Utgardr, which is the land of giants, and accordingly they have to pay some fee in form of a sacrifice. One candiscuss whether the actual tribute is to be classified as offeringor sacrifice. Bu t the question is not of any importance here.)Have we really discovered something like a model? Fertilityrituals fo r beautiful giant maidens and meat-offerings for masculine giants? The model is no t that simple; another sort ofsource material wilI give further insight and add to the complexity of the cult of giants.The question concerning the cult of giants also has to bedirected towards archeological source material.Obviously the giants have important roles to p lay in figurativedecorations. The scaldic descriptions ofpieture-series on shieldsor walls is noteworthy. Every scene depicted by Pjlfr rvini in HaustlQng deals with relationships between gods andgiants. The same concerns Ulfr Uggasons Hsdrpa, the description of the wall-paintings oflfr Pi in Iceland. An important question is whether these representations had a decorativefunction only or whether they primarily represented a religiousmythic or cultic content. Obviously different sources demand different methods. Picture stones from the period following the introduction of Christianity, containing compoundChristian and heathen motifs, veil the tension in the heathenmmd. From a Christian point of view every heathen motif may


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220 WORD5 ANn OBJECTS GIANTS AS RECIPIENTS OF C UL T IN TH E VIKING AGE? 221be used as a symbol of evil, but sometimes heathen gods aregiven the function of forerunners of Christ. After all, the tensions between the heathen ereat ive and chaotic powers aremissed within the new context. Basically it is in pre-Christiansources that we can bok for the original function of the figurative art of the Iron Age in a fruitful way.

In an artiele on prehistorie art in 1931 Haakon Scheteligstated that the figurative art ofthe Iron Age is no t to be lookedupon as private and decorative only:Jernalderens billedkunst var utelukkende sakrale billeder,som hadde en dyp og hellig mening fo r den hedenske tanke-gang. Av billedenes anvendelse kan det ogs sluttes at detjente til vern og beskyttelse The pictorial art of the IronAge is fundamentally sacred, the pictures had a deep andholy meaning and they were made for protection).16I will concentrate on one example. One of the three pictorialstones constituting the monument of Hynnestad, Skne, in thesouth of Sweden, shows a single, female figure. She is riding ona beast like a wolf, uses snakes for reins, and has herselfa tonguelike a snake. The woman has been interpreted as Hyrrokkin thegiantess who, aceording to Snorri, was called for when nobodyelse was able to push the boat with the dead Baldr into the sea.7The woman turns out to be an extremely important person; as

a matter of fact her function is absolutely necessary in thefuneral r itual. Probably this is an element that has hitherhobeen somewhat overlooked. According to Monica Rydbeck,who published her dissertation in 1936 on pictorial stones fromSkne, the Hyrrokin-stone must be of pre-Christian origin.8Accordingly it belongs to the heathen funeral tradition. Obviously the very ac t of raising the stone-monument is to be classified as a ritual. The picture on the s tone indicates that the ritualonce performed was of apotropaic character. According to theBaldrmyth, this giantess would probably heip the dead to s ta rthis journey to the other world.

f the giants were such important figures in critical situationsas the myths indicate, it is not surprising at all that they weredealt with ritually. After all, it would be more remarkable ifNorse tradition should miss any ritual dealing with powers on

whom the whole of existence finally depended. The giants areas necessary to the world as the gods arei9Notes

1. The group of mythical beings which in modern Engl ish is called Jptnir)giants, consists of different beings: jptunn p1. jprnir), frurs, gygr a femalenoun), r is i , bergris i, troll. In this study we will not deal with the interrelatjons of the different kinds,2. Jan de Vries sums up the discussion in Altgermanisc/,e Religionsgeschichte1:241 pp. Recently Lotte Motz has dealt with the problem of giants inseveral papers, see Lotte Motz 1981; l~82. According to her view, thegiants represent powers oltier than the Norse gods of the Eddaic mythology;tbey are reminiscences of the gods of the original inhabitants of the NorthMotz 1982).

3. Magnus Olsen 1917:655.4. Jan de Vries 1970, B.I: 243 pp.5. Anne Holtsmark in I. A. Munch 1967:78.6. Op.cit.7. References to Edda are to Gustav Neckel ed.) Edda. Die Lieder des Codex

Regius, rev, ed. Hans Kuhn, Heidelberg 1962.8. E. 0. G. Turville-Petre 1977:165.9. Hjalmar Lindroth 1930.

10. Jan de Vries 1970 II: 335 pp.II. Gro Steinsland a nd Kan Vogt 1981.12. Folke Strm 1954:2424.13. ke V. Strm 1975:145 pp.14. Folke Strm 1983.IS. SnE. Bragaroedur 2.16. Haakon Schetelig 1931:220.17. Gylf. 33.IS. Monica Rydbeck 1936:22 pp.19. After this paper was presented at Isegran; I became aware of Lotte Motzspaper: Gods and Demons of the Wilderness, Arkiv fr nordisk J?lologi 99,

1984 pp. 175-87. Here Motz stresses the viewpoint that the giants representolder gods of the Nordie inhabitants. According t o thi s view, the tensionsin Norse mythology must be due to a historical development. My view isthe opposite: the dramatic t ension in Norse cosmology presupposes bothgods and giants. The giants are dealt with nitually as chaotic powers assuch, not as reminiscences of older kinds of gods.List of abbreviations:Gm = GrimnismlGylf = Gylfaginning in SnE.Hrblj = Hrbardsljo5km = SkirnjsmSnE = Edda of Snorri Sturluson


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222 WORDS AND OBJECTSSskm Skaldskaparml in SnE.V~ = V~lsajttir 16ReferencesDronke, Ursula, 1962 Art and Tradition in Skirnismal, Eng ish o.nd MedievatSiudies, N. Davis and C. L. Wrenn eds.), London, pp. 250-68.Heusler Andreas 1903. Die Geschichte vom Vl si Zeitschrift des VereinsffirVolkskunde 13 Berlin.Holtsmark, Anne, 1968, in A. M un ch : Norrone gude- og heltesagn, Oslo,rev., ed., A. Holtsmark.Lindroth, Hjalmar, 1914. En nordisk gudagestalt i ny belysning genom ortnamnen, Antikvarisk Tidskqfl XX Stockholm.Lindroth, Hjalmar, 1930. SkeeSkvde-Skedevi, Gteborgs Universildtsrsskrjft 36, Gteborg, pp. 38-49.Lnnroth, Lars, 1977. Skirnisml och den fornislandska ktenskapsnormen,Opuscula Septentrionalia. Fesiskr~fl til Ole Widding 10.10.1977, Copenhagen,pp. 154-78.Mitchell, Stephan A., 1983. F Scirnis as Mytbological Model: fr i at kaupa,Arkivfr nordisk filologi 98, Lund, pp. 108-122.Motz, Lotte, 198 la. Gerdr, Maal og Minne, 3-4 Oslo pp. 121-36.Motz Lotte 98 b. Giantesses and their Names Frhmittelalterliche Studien,

15. Band, Jahrbuch des Instituts fr Frhmittelalterforschung der Universitt Mnster, Berl in, pp. 495-511.Motz, Lotte, 1982. Giants in Folklore and Mytho log i: A New Approach,Folklore Vol. 93:i , pp. 70-84.Olsen, Magnus, 1909. Fra gammelnorsk myte og kultus, Maal og Minne,Oslo, pp. 17-36.Olsen, Magnus, 1917. Norges Indskr fter med de dre Runer II Christiania.Rydbeck, Monica, 1936. Sknes Stenmsiarefdre 1200, Lund.Schetelig, Haakon, 1931. Billedfremstillinger i jernalderens kunst , NordiskKultur B.XXVII KUNST, ed. H. Sehetelig, Oslo, pp. 202-224.Strm, Folke, 1954. Diser, nornor, valkyrfor. Fruktbarhetskult och sakralt kungadme i Norden. Stockholm.Strm, Folke, 1983. Hieros gamos-motivet i Hallfredr Ottarssonsakonardrap a o ch den nordnorskajarlavrdigheten, Arkivfr nordisk filologi 98, Lund,pp. 67-79.Strm, ke V. 1975. Germanische Religion, in Germanische wid BaltiseheReligionen, Die Relig ion der Menschheit, B. 19 1 ed. Strm, . V. andBiezais, H., Stockholm.Turville-Petre, E. 0. G. 1977. Myth and Religion of Ihe Norlh, New York.Vries, Jan de, 1970. Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, I-Il Berlin.

Bog Corpses and Germania,Ch. 12Folke StrmIn the twelfth chapter of Gerniania Tacitus gives a descriptionof Germanic eriminal law. Of crimes that lead to capital punishment he gives the following account:

Licet apud concilium accusare quoque et discrimen capitisintendere. Distinctio poenarum ex delicto. Proditores et transfugas arboribus suspendunt; ignavos et imbelles et corporeinfames caeno ac palude, iniecta insuper crate, mergunt. iversitas supplicii illuc respicit, tamquam scetera ostendi oporteat, dum puniuntur, flagitia abscondi. Before the assemblyone is atso allowed to make aceusations and bring capitalcharges. Punishments vary according to the type of crime.Traitors and deserters are hanged from trees; the cowardly,the unmanly, and those who have defiled their bodies aresubmerged in m ud dy quagmires and covered with wickerwork. The differences in punishment are intended to ref lectthe idea that crimes should be shown up by punishment inpublic but abominations concealed.)A considerable number of scholars, Germanin commentators,archaeologists and others have associated Tacitus informationabout the category of criminats whose deeds were categorized

as abominations and who were punished by being submergedin quagmires, with the well-known finds of so-called bog corpses. The documentation of bog-corpse finds goes back to 1640,but real research on the subject began in the latter half of thenineteenth century. The primus motor and pioneer in the fieldwas Johanna Mestorf, custodian and, from 1891, director ofMuseum vaterlndischer Altertmer at Kiel, whose work had


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Instituttet for Words and Objectssammenlignendekulturforskning The Institute forComparative Research Towards a Dialoguein Human Culture, Between Archaeology andOslo History ofReligionSerie B: SkrifterLXXIGro Steinsland ed.) Edited byWords and Objects:Towards a Dialogue Eetween Archaeology Gro Steinslandand History of Religion

UNIVERSITETET OSLO~HISTORISK INSTITUTT

NorwegianUniversity PressThe Institute forComparative Researchin Human Culture


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Contents

Preface. Rock Carvings and Graves: Spatial Relationships.Uif Berilisson

2. T he P ar t and the Whole: Reflections on Theory andMethods Applied to the Interpretation ofScandinavianRock Carvings.Ragnhild Bjerre Finnestad3. Die Berater des Schwedenknigs.

Nils Hallan4. Rock Drawings as Evidence of Religion: Some Principal Points of View.ke Hultkrantz5. Religion and Archaeology: Revelation o r E mpi ri ca lResearch?ystein Johansen6. Religion Expressed Through Bead Use: An EthnoArchaeological Study of Shilluk, Southern Sudan.Lise Johansen Kleppe7. Aspects of Neolithic Ritual Sites.

Mats P Maimer8. Searching for Female Deities in the Religious Manifestations of the Scandinavian Bronze Age.Gro Mandt9. Religion and Ecology: Motifs and Location ofHuntersRock Carvings in Eastern Norway.Egil Mikkeisen

10. Interpretation of South-Scandinavian Petroglyphs inthe History of Religion, Done by Archaeologists:

Norwegian University Press Iiniversitetsforlaget AS), 0608 Oslo 6Distributed world-wide excluding Scandinavia byOxford University Press WaILon Street, Oxford 0X2 6DPL ond on New Y or k T or on toD elh i B om ba y C alc ut ta M ad ra s K ar ac hiKuala Lumpur Singapore l-Iong Kong TokyoN airo bi D ar es S al aa m C ap e TownMelbourne Aucklandand associated companies inB ei ru t B er li n Ibadan Mexico City Nicosia Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning 1986All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in aretrieval system, or transmitted, i n a ny f or m o r by any means, eleetronie,meehanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permissionof Norwegian University Press Universitetsforlaget AS)Chs. 12 13 and 18 translated by Kirsten WilliamsCh. 7 translated by Per Chr. KarisenISBN 82-00-07751-9British Library Catalogning in Publication DataWords and objects: towards dialogue betweenarchaeology and history of religion. Institutefor comparative research in human culture series; 70)

I. NorthmenReligion 2. NorthmenAntiquitiesI. Steinsland, Gro III. SeriesI5BN 82-00-07751-9

Printed in Denmarkby J. Schmidt A/S, Vojens

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