“…At the National Museum of Finland's permanent exhibition between 1995 and 2016, the grave was used as evidence of female leaders in the past (Erä-Esko et al, 1995: 45). In popular discussions and contexts, for example history forums on the internet, international sword replica shops, and even in the controversial ‘Meet the Viking’ exhibition at the National Museum of Denmark (see Pentz et al, 2019; Sindbæk, 2019), the decorated bronze-hilted sword allegedly found in the Suontaka burial is presented as a female warrior's weapon. Figure 1.Location of the Häme (Tavastia) region in Finland, with Suontaka marked with a red dot.…”
In 1968, a weapon grave with brooches was found at Suontaka Vesitorninmäki, Hattula, Finland. Since then, the grave has been interpreted as evidence of powerful women, even female warriors and leaders in early medieval Finland. Others have denied the possibility of a woman buried with a sword and tried to explain it as a double burial. We present the first modern analysis of the grave, including an examination of its context, a soil sample analysis for microremains, and an aDNA analysis. Based on these analyses, we suggest a new interpretation: the Suontaka grave possibly belonged to an individual with sex-chromosomal aneuploidy XXY. The overall context of the grave indicates that it was a respected person whose gender identity may well have been non-binary.
“…At the National Museum of Finland's permanent exhibition between 1995 and 2016, the grave was used as evidence of female leaders in the past (Erä-Esko et al, 1995: 45). In popular discussions and contexts, for example history forums on the internet, international sword replica shops, and even in the controversial ‘Meet the Viking’ exhibition at the National Museum of Denmark (see Pentz et al, 2019; Sindbæk, 2019), the decorated bronze-hilted sword allegedly found in the Suontaka burial is presented as a female warrior's weapon. Figure 1.Location of the Häme (Tavastia) region in Finland, with Suontaka marked with a red dot.…”
In 1968, a weapon grave with brooches was found at Suontaka Vesitorninmäki, Hattula, Finland. Since then, the grave has been interpreted as evidence of powerful women, even female warriors and leaders in early medieval Finland. Others have denied the possibility of a woman buried with a sword and tried to explain it as a double burial. We present the first modern analysis of the grave, including an examination of its context, a soil sample analysis for microremains, and an aDNA analysis. Based on these analyses, we suggest a new interpretation: the Suontaka grave possibly belonged to an individual with sex-chromosomal aneuploidy XXY. The overall context of the grave indicates that it was a respected person whose gender identity may well have been non-binary.
“…Lyngvild's striking designs, his ability to engage the audience, and his deliberate challenges to the cultural establishment, were a success with the public. Yet the result of a rushed process and somewhat faltering communication left aims and frames unclear and caused mixed reactions (Sindbaek 2018;Pentz et al 2019). For the new permanent gallery, the museum has clearly aimed to steer a different course.…”
Within the space of a few months, new major exhibitions on the Viking Age have opened at two of Scandinavia's main museums: at the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm, and at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. Meanwhile, work is in progress in Oslo to bring together the famous ships formerly exhibited at the Viking Ship Museum with the general Viking Age collection of the Museum of Cultural History in a new dedicated 'Museum of the Viking Age' to be opened in 2026.The Viking Age, always the popular star of Scandinavian prehistory, thus continues to be an object offered to the public for adulation. So what do these new initiatives aim to achieve? Tourism is the surprisingly simple answer, as both museums have signalled. In this way, the exhibitions provide an insight into the adaptation which major museums have been moving towards over the 2010s in order to thrive in the age of populism, consumerism and privatization. The new exhibitions are thus a dry run for the heritage policies of the 2020s. The Viking Age is one of the world's most well-known and popular historical brands, and the major Scandinavian museums are bustling with fascinating objects and captivating stories to present. Is this enough for them to prosper? Will Vikings free museumsor turn them into captives?
“…Although this may come across as an abdication of responsibility on the part of the museum team, there is perhaps more to be said for what may have been a deliberate choice to create a depopulated vision of a Viking world. The JOR-VIK Viking Centre is still evoked as the first to attempt a museum-based reconstruction of Viking people in authentic surroundings, an enterprise in which it has been judged successful and which is presented as the justification for subsequent efforts by others to do the same (Pentz et al 2019); a closer look at JORVIK's 40 years of reconstructing, performing and displaying Vikings, however, reveals how its Vikings have always drawn fire (Tuckley 2020), which is perhaps only to be expected where an historical brand, in its popular iterations, has been so mired in confrontational and problematic representations of gender, race and violence.…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…It seems that for those who take an interest in these matters, there is something essentially unsatisfactory about what we might term 'public Vikings'. This may be behind the choice to avoid them altogether at the Swedish History Museum, or to revert to the safer option of celebrity Vikings such as Harald Bluetooth at the National Museum in Copenhagen (where the 2018 Meet the Vikings exhibition had taken daring steps to imagine and picture larger-than-life Viking characters by working with reenactors, tolerating or celebrating the anachronisms in the results; Pentz et al 2019). Wherever they occur, public Vikings seem caught somewhere between (at least) two irreconcilable and competing sets of demands.…”
Sindbaek's (2022) critique of the new exhibitions on the Viking Age at the Swedish History Museum and National Museum of Denmark starts and ends on a cautionary note, signalling a risk that museums face a 'perilous path' to a future as potential 'captives' of the Vikings. At first glance his warning might seem counterintuitive, coming as it does at a moment of triumph for Vikings in the public arena.Never before has there been such a range of accessible, popular entertainments on a Viking theme. Vikings have loomed large in new releases for the home entertainment scene during the pandemic years, whose lockdowns put Viking exhibitions beyond the reach of many. Most conspicuous, perhaps, are the lavish television serials (The Last Kingdom, Norsemen, Vikings) available for streaming in households worldwide. Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, which launched in autumn 2020, brought Vikings into one of the most successful videogame franchises of recent times. This year has seen the theatrical release of The Northman, whose promotional campaign posted outsize images of its bare-chested hero wherever it was screened. At the time of writing, the fourth in a series of Thor movies, spanning more than a decade, is in cinemas. This profusion of Viking-flavoured output from major studios and software houses proves just how marketable and commercially successful the Viking brand has been. What is more, a distinctive Viking style or aesthetic has entered the mainstream, moving beyond the sub-cultures (Viking metal, biker gangs, fantasy fiction) that have traditionally deployed its iconography. Themed pubs, axe-throwing cen-York Archaeological Trust
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