Birka. V. The Filigree and Granulation Work of the Viking Period: An Analysis of the Material from Björko

This study encompasses 86 items of jewellery and other objects with decoration executed in filigree and granulation from Björkö, Adelsö parish, Uppland, where the town of Birka was situated from c. 800 to c. 975. 80 of these artefacts originate from 42 graves and the other six were recovered from Birka’s settlement site, the Black Earth area. The following artefact types are investigated in this disssertation: pendants (57), ear-ring (1), brooches (16), ball-headed pin (1), mounts (7) and sword (1). Both Nordic and foreign products are included in this material. 13 of the foreign products come from the Slavonic countries and five originate from western Europe. Most of the Björkö graves with filigree- and granulation-ornamented objects can be dated to the Middle Viking Period. Only six belong to the Early Viking Period. The material also incorporates three items of jewellery from the periods preceding the Viking Age. The technique and decorative motifs of the investigated objects from Birka form a close link between these objects and the earliest traditions of the European jeweller. For this reason, an analysis of this jewellery provides us with an excellent opportunity of studying the conservatism of the craft and the jewellers’ dependence on the work of their predecessors. Jewellery with spiral ornament is particularly instructive in this respect. All the motifs and combinations of motifs on jewellery of this kind can be traced back to the Continental art of the Merovingian Period which, in its turn, inherited them from even earlier cultures. The dissertation consists of three parts. Technical problems are surveyed in the first section. The second section contains a description of the material and a discussion both of groups of artefacts and individual objects. The material from Birka is discussed against the background of the European filigree and granulation work of the Viking Period in the third section.