Soapstone is a remarkable rock. While it is soft and very workable, it is also durable and heat-resistant, and with a high heat-storage capacity. These properties have been recognised and valued around the world since prehistoric times, and soapstone has been used for a multitude of purposes, ranging from everyday household utensils to prestigious monuments and buildings. This book addresses soapstone use in Norway and the North Atlantic region, including Greenland. Although the majority of the papers deal with the Iron Age and Middle Ages, the book spans the Mesolithic to the early modern era. It deals with themes related to quarries, products and associated people and institutions in a broad context. Recent years have seen a revival of basic archaeological and geological research into the procurement and use of stone resources. With its authors drawn from the fields of archaeology, geosciences and traditional crafts, the anthology relects cross-disciplinary work born of this revival.
Author(s): Gitte Hansen, Per Storemyr (eds.)
Series: UBAS. University of Bergen Archaeological Series, 9
Publisher: University of Bergen
Year: 2017
Language: English
Pages: 408
City: Bergen
Preface 5
A Versatile Resource – The Procurement and Use of Soapstone in Norway and The North Atlantic Region / Gitte Hansen and Per Storemyr 9
Soapstone Quarrying, a Stoneworker’s Approach / Eva Stavsøien 29
Soapstone in Northern Norway: Archaeological and Geological Evidence, Quarry and Artifact Survey Results / Stephen Wickler, Ingvar Lindahl and Lars Petter Nilsson 41
Multi-ethnic Involvement? Production and Use of Soapstone in Northern Norway / Laura Bunse 59
Mesolithic Soapstone Line-sinkers in Western Norway: Chronology, Acquisition, Distribution, Function and Decoration / Knut Andreas Bergsvik 73
The Sandbekkdalen Quarry, Kvikne: A Window into Early Iron Age Soapstone Exploitation in Norway / Tor Grenne, Bodil Østerås and Lars F. Stenvik 93
Reconstructing a Medieval Underground Soapstone Quarry: Bakkaunet in Trondheim in an International Perspective / Per Storemyr and Tom Heldal 107
Trade and Hierarchy: The Viking Age Soapstone Vessel Production and Trade of Agder, Norway / Torbjørn Preus Schou 133
Slipsteinberget Soapstone Vessel Quarry. Home Production or Professional Craft? / Bodil Østerås 153
Bakestones – Production and Trade in the Middle Ages / Irene Baug 165
From Numeric Data to Cultural History – A Typological and Chronological Analysis of Soapstone Vessels from the Medieval Bryggen Wharf in Bergen, Norway / Hilde Vangstad 185
The Soapstone of Norse Greenland / Mogens Skaaning Høegsberg 207
From Homeland to Home; Using Soapstone to Map Migration and Settlement in the North Atlantic / Amanda Forster and Richard Jones 225
Soapstone Vessels from Town and Country in Viking Age and Early Medieval Western Norway. A Study of Provenance / Gitte Hansen, Øystein J. Jansen and Tom Heldal 249
From Soapstone Quarries to Churches: Control, Ownership and Transport Along the Helgeland Coast in North Norway / Birgitta Berglund, Tom Heldal and Tor Grenne 329
The Building Stones from the Vanished Medieval Church at Onarheim, Tysnes, Hordaland County in Western Norway: Provenancing Chlorite Schist and Soapstone / Øystein J. Jansen and Tom Heldal 359
Cistercian Soapstone. Production and Delivery of Building Material from Lyse Abbey to Bergen in the 13th century / Alf Tore Hommedal 391
List of Authors 405
