This paper contains an analysis of the bronzed keys with bird motifs that were discovered during archaeological investigations between the years 1991 and 1997 at Kyrksundet, in the archipelago of southwestern Finland. Bronzed keys with bird motifs have never been found in Finland before, but similar keys have been found both in Birka and on Gotland, Sweden. The aim with this paper is firstly to analyse and compare the keys from Kyrksundet, Birka and Gotland, and their find contexts. Secondly, together with the results from the analysis, the following questions will be discussed; What is the meaning behind the bird motif, why can these keys be found at Kyrksundet, and who were the people that had these keys in their possession during the Viking Age. The symbolic aspect of the keys is a strong theme in this discussion, because the underlaying theory in this paper is that the keys most likely had both a worldly and a cosmological meaning. Earlier archaeological investigations mainly have associated these keys with the Nordic peoples and their eastern connections during the Viking Age. Reason behind this association is that the birds on the motif have been interpreted as falcons and the falcon has a relatively strong connection to the Rurik dynasty that ruled in Novgorod and Kiev. Whether the bird is a falcon or not, is however a question that will be discussed in this paper. The analysis performed in this paper, shows that the bird motif on the keys shares more similarities with a raven motif that was used on the British Isles than with the falcon motif that was used in Novgorod and Kiev. This paper will therefore include a suggestion for another perspective, where the keys might be connected to the Nordic peoples and their western connections.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-385903 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Winter, Jan-Robert |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Arkeologi |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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