The deposition of animals in graves was an essential aspect of burial practice in Scandinavia during the Vendel Period and Viking Age (550–1050 AD). While this rite occurs in many different regions, it is most clearly observed in the boat-graves from the famous cemeteries in Swedish Uppland, such as Vendel and Valsgärde, as well as in a number of high-status cremation graves. Former studies have tended to interpret faunal remains from burial contexts as food offerings, diplomatic gifts or simply as sacrifices. These explanations place an emphasis on the importance of the human dead and imply that grave assemblages mainly served to accompany the deceased as a provision for the afterlife, or to illustrate power, status and identity among the living. The master’s thesis presented here, comprises an analysis of animal depositions from both cremation and inhumation burials in Uppland. By applying the theory of agency, this study focuses on grave assemblages and human-animal relationships as a means of understanding burial practices. Instead of only paying attention to the type of bones and the animal species, it is equally important to consider the condition of the bones, their placement inside the grave and the placement of artefacts ascribed to certain animals in relation to the human dead. This is not only essential to decoding human-animal relationships as evident in burial practices, but also to understanding the many different processes that culminated in the deposition of animal bones in graves.

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The objects discovered in Tomb 79 at the necropolis of Salamis, Cyprus have garnered much attention since their discovery. The material from this tomb, however, needs an in-depth, object-by-object analysis that will lead to a greater understanding of the burial as a whole. In my thesis, I offer a detailed case study of a single item, an ivory-covered wooden chair—so-called Throne Γ—as exemplifying an approach to this analysis. Based on the excavation team’s exacting reconstruction, the chair is four-legged with armrests and a slightly curved backrest. Ivory overlays the entirety of the chair except on a few sections of the backrest where the wood shows through. Here as well, both figural and geometric designs decorate the ivory, and the top bar was originally overlaid with gold. As a whole, Throne Γ would have appeared as a solid ivory object, embellished with wood and gold, and was likely draped with textiles. In this study, I analyze Throne Γ as an agent of identity. To do so, I follow the example of other scholars such as Irene Winter and Marian Feldman and employ the theory of object agency, addressing Throne Γ as an affective entity. When placed in a social context—i.e., when involved in human interaction—such agentive objects actively influence their surroundings. In this case, I analyze how Throne Γ affected the individual in whose tomb it was buried. I argue that through its various affective “mechanisms”—its nature as a luxury object, the value of its ivory material, its sensory qualities (including luminosity, texture, and fragrance), its iconography, and its ritual function—Throne Γ projected a king-like identity upon the deceased individual from Tomb 79. His actual political and social power during his lifetime, however, may have been less than that suggested by the mechanisms of the chair. The inclusion of Throne Γ in the burial was therefore a conscious choice and the identity the chair projected deliberate. It was meant to agentively mark, and thus legitimize, the deceased as a politically-able, diplomatically-savvy, and divinely-touched figure in the early days of monarchy on Cyprus. / text

The Puritan attitude toward death in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century New England was ambivalent and contained both terror at the possibility of eternal damnation and hope for deliverance. The joyful theme of the migratio ad Dominum resonated with the Saints only at times when they were convinced divine grace was actively working in their lives, but when they saw they were backsliding, the horror of death prevailed. Puritan anxiety about death was caused by tensions inherent in the doctrine of predestination, which implied man's dependence on God's inscrutability, and in the doctrine of assurance, which implied that self-doubt was more desirable than full assurance of salvation. What complicated any verification of the presence of grace was man's endless potential for self-deception. Memento mori gave urgency to the Puritan work ethic and the effective use of time. The anxiety about one's destiny began in early childhood when death and its ensuing horrors for the depraved were used as a means of religious instruction to provoke spiritual precocity and conversion. This early immersion into the discourse about death has been erroneously interpreted as a proof of the non-existence of childhood in Puritan New England. Deathbed scenes depicted in Puritan spiritual biographies were designed as examples...