Trefoil brooches are one of the most abundant types of Viking Age jewellery in Scandinavia. This thesis delves into the journey of one such brooch, known as 555783, discovered in Birka, Sweden. Through an archaeological object biography approach this thesis examines the brooch's construction, provenance, transportation, transformation, and deposition in an attempt to shed light on how this and other similar examples evolved in Scandinavian society compared to their cultural origins. Furthermore, this research aims to uncover broader patterns in the Viking Age Scandinavian society's contact with and adaptation of foreign material culture through the incorporation of comparative examples, in order to explore what this illustrates about the Scandinavian people in general. The conclusion reached is that 555783 was likely made in Frankia then transported to Scandinavia through unknown means. There it was modified from a mount on a sword belt with male, martial associations into a piece of fastening-jewellery associated with female costume and display. It was also determined that the adoption and adaption of foreign material culture was primarily a way of displaying foreign connections in a way better suited to their own aesthetic and material preferences. / En av de mest rikligt förekommande smyckestyperna från vikingatiden i Skandinavien är treflikiga spännen. Den här uppsatsen undersöker livshistorien av ett treflikigt spänne (555783) som upptäcktes i Birka. Genom ett arkeologiskt objektbiografiskt tillvägagångssätt undersöker denna uppsats spännet konstruktion, ursprung, förflyttning, förändring och deposition. Undersökningen illustrerar hur spänne 555783 och liknande exempel utvecklades i det skandinaviska samhället jämfört med i sin ursprungskultur. Vidare syftar denna uppsats till att belysa ett bredare mönster i vikingatida skandinavers kontakt med och anpassning av främmande materiell kultur. Uppsatsen besvarar detta genom jämförelse med andra liknande exempel. Slutsatsen ernådd är att spänne 555783 troligen har tillverkats i det Frankiska riket och sedan transporterats till Skandinavien på ett okänt sätt. Där modifierades den från ett beslag på ett svärdsbälte med manliga, krigiska associationer till ett smycke förknippat med kvinnlig uppvisning av status. Det fastställdes också att inlemmandet och modifieringen av främmande materiell kultur i första hand var ett sätt att visa utländska kopplingar som var anpassat till deras egna estetiska och materiella preferenser.

The Vendel period, Early Medieval or Merovingian period as it’s called in the rest of Europe, is a time full of wonderful artefacts. Many are those that have heard of the fantastic boat-graves in Vendel and Valsgärde in Sweden and the very similar Sutton Hoo in Great Britain, but what about Gotland? Most of the papers discussing this period focus only on the area around lake Mälaren but I want to contribute by placing Gotland and its artefacts in the center. This paper will focus on disc-on-bow brooches, the special kind of gilded buckles, inlaid with garnets or niello, that are found mostly in women graves from the Vendel period on Gotland and how they can be dated from the differences in shape and the ornamentation. The aim of this text is to by analysing the grave finds in several women graves on Gotland get an idea about the woman who wore the brooch and her social status. The discussion has a gender theme and will discuss the sometimes flawed theory that graves that contain jewellery always belongs to women and graves with weapons always belongs to men. This study shows that the button-on-bow brooches does not indicate any clear differences between women with brooches and those who does not have them, but other artefacts in the graves might.

The various surviving disc and composite brooches provide proof of the skill and craftsmanship of Anglo-Saxon metalsmiths. Surprisingly, no one has conducted a full geometrical analysis of these brooches to discover the design process preceding the casting and decoration. This thesis endeavors to rectify this through a geometrical investigation of the sophisticated geometrical planning principles used by Anglo-Saxon craftsmen in the creation of these elaborate brooches. Through the use of simple geometrical constructions, smiths were able to create works of great beauty and sophistication. Closer inspection reveals that Anglo-Saxon smiths produced all the composite disc brooches in this study using similar processes of planning. In order to plan out the compositions of each brooch, master smiths would only need a compass, a straightedge, and some material on which to write. Each brooch reveals the same kind of coherent geometry, sharing traits and patterns; with proportions tend to be governed by a series of modular association. Although the master smiths or designers of the composite brooches used simple tools to create the composition, the figures in this thesis were created using the Vectorworks CAD program. This significantly expedited the analytical process and allowed for exact measurements. Despite using the computer program to replicate the planning process, all the figures can be recreated with just a compass and straightedge. While a complete geometric study of all the composite disc brooches needs to be done, this study examines five of the best preserved and well-crafted of that type, ranging from some of the simplest to the most elaborate, as an introduction to the subject.

Now and then other people’s comments and/or behaviour reminds me that I look different and that my external features are connected to something beyond my Swedish identity. My black hair, dark brown eyes and my brownish skin color talk about something else. My appearance is connected to an identity, cultural identity and a country I have little knowledge of and a language I do not master. But still the way I look is a part of my heritage, a part of who I am and a part of me which I am proud of. It makes me wonder what actually makes up an identity and the power we all possess in deciding what or who another person is based on appearance. What do we become in the eyes of the beholder? Personal experiences from being Swedish, and adopted from another country, becomes the starting point for my investigation where the color of the skin leads to questions about norms, categorisations and the power of labelling another person. Living in the western world, my skin color automatically place me outside the norm. In a way that amazes me, that a single color can determine so much. As a jeweller maker in this degree project I make brooches. I use them as a method and as tools to both investigate the relationship between personal and social identity and to shed light on how structures in society and other peoples gazes push us into categories consciously and unconsciously. I use my objects as conversations pieces to reflect on history, present and future, from my perspective. There is always a beginning, but it is  in the middle of the process it all comes alive. This is where I explore material, techniques and methods and where the brooches are born. They all have a history and part of it is public. At first sight you see the surface. But the brooches are like our bodies, they also have an inside/backside which creates an intimate relationship with the wearer. The brooches are more than ornamented pins, I want them to raise awareness of diversity, different perspectives, care and their ability to communicate as they move through various places attached in different ways to the body. My degree project, Who I am and who you see, touches upon questions and emotions about belonging, inclusion and exclusion and the state of being in-between. What makes up an identity? What different parts make up a whole? Which layers are added and which are peeled off? All these questions triggers my curiosity and search for more knowledge about the human being and being human.

Sámi culture and resources have long been exploited by the Swedish state, church and government. The material culture that was collected during the late 19th and early 20th century, has many times lost their original meaning and context later on in museum collections. This is problematic and needs to change in order to prevent further damage to the Sámi material and immaterial culture. This study aims to analyse the Sámi silver brooches with Marian-symbols, that were found together with other types of silver artefacts at Passekårsa, Gällivare parish. By doing this type of analysis it allows for further and mor difficult discussions to be adressed and it also allows for the silver find in question to be further contextualized. We non-Sámi archaeologists, scientists and staff at museums need to talk about how we are interpreting, examining and portraying Sámi cultural heritage whether it concerns human remains, places of sacrifice or small silver brooches.

The concept or phenomenon od performativity occurs in different forms or terms in many humanity studies, especially in the second half of the 20th century. It interferes with linguistics, philosophy of thought, narratology, gender and cultural studies and even with epistemology and ethics. The notion of performativity appeared in philosophy and linguistics for the first time along with J. L. Austin's speech and perfomative acts. The first one describes the situation, the second one generates the situation. J. Derrida pointed out that the realization of speech acts and communication are not so obvious and depend on performance that maintains their status and identity. J. Derrida furthermore shows that performance does not only appear in the literary field; the law is for example performative in the sense that it sets itself up by a speech act. M. Foucault was interested of the role of performativity within a socially organized body and subjectivity. The performance of language and discourse is also essential in J. Butler's work which follows M. Foucault or J. Derrida and describes mechanisms for establishing gender subjectivity and physicality. She claims that the body is created simultaneously by the linguistic naming which it decribes. Butler writes up the process of gender differentiaton as...

Les fibules de l’oppidum de Bibracte sont l’objet de ce travail. D’ordinaire, les fibules sont classifiées et analysées par types, mais cela pose des problèmes méthodologiques. Pour les éviter, je développe une nouvelle méthode pour construire une chronologie en général et pour dater les fibules de Bibracte en particulier. Je me fonde sur l’approche théorique de John Collis (2009) et j’adopte ainsi le concept d’horizon chronologique, qui n’a donc pas de fin et se concentre sur des caractéristiques spécifiques à la place des types. La chronologie de fibules pour le site de Bibracte se fonde sur 122 fibules stratifiées de cinq fouilles du site, datées par les autres catégories de trouvailles comme la céramique. Cette chronologie se divise en huit horizons de fibules définis par une première occurrence de 130 caractéristiques de fibules et huit combinaisons des caractéristiques. Sur cette base il est possible de dater une fibule de manière transparente et vérifiable objectivement. La datation d’une fibule peut être estimée automatiquement sur la base de données numériques ci-jointe. Cette méthode est transférable à d’autres sites et catégories de trouvailles. La chronologie des fibules de Bibracte développée dans ce mémoire de thèse permet d’observer le développement de l’occupation de Bibracte, la durée de l’utilisation de la nécropole associée et le développement de la fabrication des fibules. / This work is about the brooches from the oppidum Bibracte. Commonly brooches are classified and chronologically interpreted as types. However, inherent methodological issues are evident, in particular for today’s chronological system of the late iron age. To overcome these issues, I consider a theoretical approach by John Collis (2009), and develop a new method to construct chronologies in general and to date the brooches of Bibracte in particular. Thereby I primarily use the concept of a chronological horizon, that has only a beginning but never ends, and rather focus on brooch attributes than on types. Based on the aforementioned, I construct an alternative brooch chronology using 122 stratified brooches from five excavations in Bibracte, whose stratigraphies are dated absolute in time by ceramic finds. The herein constructed chronology consists of eight brooch horizons, that are defined by the first appearance of 130 individual brooch attributes and of eight attribute combinations. The brooch chronology obtained in this manner allows to date any brooch or fragment of a brooch replicable and inter-subjectively verifiable for future work; the brooches can be dated automatically by means of the enclosed database. Moreover, the method presented is transferable to other archaeological sites and materials. On the basis of the alternative brooch chronology of Bibracte, various results about the settlement activity of the oppidum, the utilization period of the associated cemetery and the development of the brooch production in Bibracte are obtained. / Gegenstand dieser Arbeit sind die Fibeln aus dem Oppidum Bibracte. Für gewöhnlich werden Fibeln nach Typen klassifiziert und chronologisch ausgewertet. Dies birgt jedoch methodische Probleme, die u. a. im derzeitigen Chronologiesystem der späten Eisenzeit begründet sind. Um diese Probleme zu vermeiden, entwickle ich auf der Basis eines theoretischen Ansatzes von John Collis (2009) eine neue Methode zur Konstruktion von Chronologien im Allgemeinen und zur Datierung der Fibeln von Bibracte im Besonderen. Grundlegend sind hierfür das Konzept eines chronologischen Horizontes, der nur einen Beginn hat, jedoch kein Ende, sowie die Konzentration auf Merkmale anstatt auf Typen. In diesem Sinne konstruiere ich anhand von 122 stratifizierten Fibeln aus fünf Grabungen in Bibracte, deren Stratigrafien mithilfe der Keramik absolut datiert sind, eine alternative Fibelchronologie. Diese besteht aus acht Fibelhorizonten, die durch das jeweils erste Auftreten von 130 einzelnen Fibelmerkmalen und von acht Merkmalskombinationen definiert werden. Die auf diese Weise konstruierte Fibelchronologie ermöglicht es zukünftig, Fibeln und Fibelfragmente transparent und intersubjektiv überprüfbar zu datieren sowie die Datierung mithilfe der beiliegenden Datenbank automatisch zu berechnen. Diese Methode ist auch auf andere Fundorte und Fundkategorien übertragbar. Auf der Basis der alternativen Fibelchronologie von Bibracte werden darüber hinaus u. a. Ergebnisse zur Besiedlungsgeschichte des Oppidum erzielt, zur Belegungszeit des zugehörigen Gräberfeldes und zur Entwicklung der Fibelherstellung in Bibracte.