Fire, Water, Heaven and Earth. Ritual Practice and Cosmology in Ancient Scandinavia: An Indo-European Perspective

Translation: Alan Crozier. Archaeological excavations of prehistoric Scandinavian graves and ritual sites often reveal seemingly enigmatic and contradictory features. There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that such sites can be given a much broader interpretation than as solely burial grounds, in the sense of places for the deposition of the remains of the dead. Interpretation from a comparative Indo-European perspective allows a partly new approach to material which at first sight seems fragmentary and anonymous. The interpretations in this book proceed from cosmological beliefs occurring in various Indo-European traditions, where the world was believed to have been created when the gods dismembered the body of a primordial being. Just as all parts of existence arise from these body parts, everything will once again be broken up and return to its origin, subsequently to be put together again and given new life. Both sacrifices and funeral rituals are based on this cosmology. What seem like contradictory features in the archaeological record, for example, burnt offerings in relation to votive deposits in water or earth, and the relationship of the cremation ritual to the deposited bones, can be given a meaningful and coherent interpretation from this point of departure. The author discusses mortuary practices and votive customs in ancient Scandinavian tradition in a long-term perspective, with a comparative Indo-European approach. This is illustrated by a variety of archaeological sites, particularly some examples that have been excavated by Swedish contract archaeology in recent years, yielding a rich new body of material for interpretations of this problem field.