CONVINCING SOURCES OF EVIDENCE FOR THE USE OF CREDIT among medieval societies in northern Europe are typically limited or only indirectly available, and even written sources provide little detail of pledged objects or means of payment. Nevertheless, a number of artefacts found mainly in proto-urban trade centres can be more or less directly linked to credit systems or, at least, to overarching currency areas and the social concepts attached to them. In addition to tally sticks, these are standardised ingots and a weight-related money system based on silver. These items can be understood not only as part of an economic system, but also as part of a social interaction by which a routine was established and trustworthiness was communicated. Security was an essential requirement for credit transactions and trade; in addition to documenting transactions, eyewitnesses were utilised as a means of validating exchanges. Some public spaces where these activities took place, however, remain largely unknown to us from written and pictorial sources but archaeology can identify them and reveal their configuration. Focusing on medieval Northern Europe, this paper discusses the portable material sources of the credit economy and the social practices associated with them, and addresses the urban spaces that are linked to establishing creditworthiness and engaging in debt relations.
THIS STUDY EXAMINES THE DISCOVERY of an early 12th-century Crusader-period lion tooth found at Mi'ily & amacr;, an important administrative centre in the region of Acre. The tooth was recovered from a winery, constructed to service the elite residents of the associated castle. The tooth is perforated with a circular hole, possibly for use as a pendant or ornament, and appears to be the only worked lion bone of any period discovered in an archaeological context from the Middle East. Through critical examination of medieval Latin and Arabic texts and analysis of lion-derived place names in Palestine, this article demonstrates the presence of lions in the region during the Crusader period and later, and discusses human-lion interactions, particularly through elite hunting activities. The evidence suggests that the lion in question was hunted during the first half of the 12th century ad, and that the tooth was possibly granted to a leading figure either from Mi'ily & amacr; or with important connections to the centre.
SO-CALLED 'PICTISH SYMBOL STONES' are often set apart from other artistic and epigraphic traditions of northern Europe on the basis of their unique iconography; while Pictish monuments often share stylistic features with artefacts and illuminated manuscripts found elsewhere in Britain, these similarities have often been attributed to a peripheral Pictish imitation of core Insular art styles and motifs. This paper challenges this purported peripherality by demonstrating that Pictish art shares fundamental underlying principles of design with the rest of the Insular tradition, even when deployed to produce iconography particular to Pictland. We take up the ideas and method of Robert Stevick, whose body of work demonstrates that the design of much Insular art relies on the iteration of ratios, using compass and straightedge techniques to produce what he terms a 'coherent geometry'. We extend Stevick's analysis to Pictish sculpture, demonstrating the geometric coherence of four geographically dispersed and typologically distinct monuments. Our findings suggest that the Picts activity employed Insular techniques for the creation of novel and innovative works of art.
THIS PAPER PRESENTS THE FIRST LARGE-SCALE, high-resolution archaeological survey using ground penetrating radar to explore turf house settlements in Iceland. Twelve surveys were undertaken on sites across the island including at Keldur Farm where the radar located previously unidentified house platforms. This complex of buildings is located 80 m south of the current farmstead, and in close proximity to the Hekla volcano, buried beneath windblown sediment and volcanic ash. It is possible that these remains relate to a monastery, which is thought to have been founded by J & oacute;n Loftsson on his farm in the Middle ages. In addition to extrapolating an important phase in Keldur's historic development, the results from this study highlight the value of high-resolution geophysical methods in identifying and characterising previously unknown aspects of Iceland's archaeological landscape.
IN MARCH 2020, ARCHAEOLOGY SOUTH-EAST RECORDED what may be a rare example of a medieval wayside shrine, preserved in a railway cutting through St Catherine's Hill in Guildford, Surrey. The hill is a pronounced topographical feature on an early river crossing at the intersection between two early long-distance routes. Anciently known as 'The Hill of the Dragon', it is identified as a regional meeting place for two of the early folk territories of Surrey, which endured as a fair into the 20th century. The site is conceptualised here as the Christianisation of a persistent place, an ancient waypoint situated in a mythologised landscape of movement and assembly.
THIS PAPER COMPARES THE SOCIAL USE OF SPACE in late-medieval castles and warships. The main case studies used are the noble castle of Glimmingehus in present-day Sweden, built 1499 to 1505, and the royal warship Gribshunden, in use from the mid-1480s until its sinking in 1495; we also refer to the later and fully excavated warships Mary Rose and Vasa. Both castles and warships are examples of elite architecture, structures in which different social groups intermingled. They are also structures where all the basic functions were brought together in a single entity,. It is argued that castles and warships share common architectural features related to power, and that some functions and spatial uses were also quite similar. Conversely, at the same time, elements such as heating, light conditions and hygiene, show that the two entities were markedly different. The castle or warship was a private, secluded space where residents shared living conditions, but remained separated by physical and social barriers. Different categories of people probably experienced this in distinctive ways.
THIS PAPER EXAMINES THE USE AND CONTEXTS OF TWO DISTINCT GAME BOARDS and two distinct types of washing stones recovered from the castle site of Arsur (Apollonia-Arsuf, Israel). These artefacts are indicative of everyday leisure and routine activities at the administrative heart of the site, a fort of the Knights Hospitaller. The finds are described and their significance and cultural implications considered in the context of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and beyond. While the items undoubtedly relate to daily activity, one object was later utilised as a mould for projectile weapons; the tight chronological context of the find suggests that this reuse was a result of the challenging environment the site defenders experienced during the Mamluk siege in March-April 1265.
