[gothic-l] The Battle of Illerup, Goths, Eruli

[Bertil Haggman]

>From the original homepage of the Illerup finds of weapon
this further indicates relations with the Goths and the Eruli
(see my short introductory review of _Odin in Azov_
(to be published on the list).

Gothically

Bertil Haggman


FINDS OF WEAPON OFFERINGS FROM ILLERUP ADAL

By Joergen Ilkjær

The river valley called Illerup Adal was drained in 1950, revealing large 
weapon finds from the Iron Age. Since then the site has been excavated 
during two periods, 1950-56 and 1975-85, and the past decade has 
seen the publication of eight of a planned series of 14 publications about 
the finds made.

The current consensus of opinion is that the Illerup finds are spoils of war 
offered to the gods. A local army appears to have defeated an invading 
force, whose weapons were then cast into the lake covering the site of the 
finds at that time. In excess of 15,000 weapons and pieces of equipment 
from the period 200-500 AD have been excavated, making it the most 
comprehensive find of its type anywhere in the world.

 RESEARCHERS PAST AND PRESENT

Not that Illerup Adal is the only site where such war spoils have been found; 
there are in fact 50 other sites throughout Denmark and southern Sweden. 
Some of these were excavated during the 19th century and have formed the 
starting point for all later attempts to interpret similar finds. Around 1940, two 
different theories were current regarding bog finds: one interpreted the finds 
as being offerings made of items gathered together after a successful military 
engagement; the other posited that the finds had been cast into the bogs over 
many years and as such represented small annual offerings of the local people's 
own equipment. Unfortunately, it was not possible to determine which of the 
theories was correct, as the early excavations were insufficiently well documented. 
It was not until new evidence was uncovered through the more recent excavations in 
Illerup Ådal that the question could finally be resolved.

 EXCAVATIONS AND FINDS

 A total of 15,000 weapons and pieces of military equipment were 
excavated from an area measuring 40,000 m2. It was often the case 
that bundles of items were found, these having originally been wrapped 
in some type of cloth. However, after 1,800 years the material has rotted 
away, and only the weapons and equipment remain.
 
 All told, four different offerings have been identified in Illerup Adal. This 
article, however, deals with the oldest and largest-scale offering, dating 
from the early years of the 3rd century. Much work has been involved in 
creating the following reconstruction of the course of events leading up 
to the offering.

A fleet of perhaps 50 ships and 1,000 men set sail from the west coast 
of the Scandinavian peninsula and made its way down through Kattegat 
to attack Jutland. The force landed on the east coast of Jutland, but was 
met by a well-organised army made up of forces from the entire region. 
The defensive action proved successful: the attackers were defeated, 
and their equipment and weapons were collected and destroyed. The 
remnants of the weapons and equipment were then thrown into the lake 
in Illerup Adal as an offering. It is not clear exactly where the battles in this 
campaign took place, but presumably not too far away from the lake.

Prior to the offering, items were deliberately spoilt. Swords were broken 
across and shields smashed. The round items are shield bosses, torn out 
of the wooden shields and then deformed by cuts and blows.
 
Part of the ceremony involved destroying the weapons and equipment. 
Next, the remnants were gathered into bundles, which were wrapped in 
various forms of cloth - military cloaks, for example. The bundles were then 
carried out onto the lake in boats and thrown overboard. These bundles 
have been found all over the bed of the lake, which was 250 meters wide 
and 400 meters long.

During the course of 18 years (spread over two periods), these ancient 
bundles and their contents of swords, spears, lances, shields, knives, 
combs, Roman silver coins, bridles, tools and much more were recovered 
one by one after having spent as much 1,800 years in the sediment of the 
lake. The finds were brought to the Moesgard Museum, preserved, described, 
sorted, and then compared with similar material from as far afield as the 
Black Sea, Scotland, Africa and the Arctic.

The Illerup finds are exceptional, because of both their sheer quantity and their 
condition. The alkaline nature of the soil has preserved iron so well that two 
hundred Roman swords, for example, could be used today had they not been 
ceremoniously broken and bent prior to being cast into the lake.

PIECING TOGETHER THE JIGSAW

 The excavation teams found more than one thousand fragments of deliberately 
destroyed weapons which it has been possible to match up. If, for example, 
fragments from the same sword have been found in two different bundles, it 
is concluded that these were offered on the same occasion.
 
One of the most important questions (i.e. whether the weapons were offered 
on one particular occasion or whether they constitute a series of small, annual 
offerings) could now be solved by piecing together the fragments of the destroyed 
items. If, for example, parts of a broken sword could be found in two or more different 
bundles, then clearly these bundles must have been part of the same sacrificial 
ceremony. Researchers have now succeeded in putting together more than a 
thousand fragments, and consequently it is now known that in excess of twelve 
thousand items were cast into the lake on one particular occasion at the beginning 
of the 3rd century AD.

It is now also clear that the Illerup find is made up of the material from four different 
offerings in exactly the same place but with as much as a hundred years between 
each ceremony. It seems clear, therefore, that it was the local population that carried 
out the ceremonies. But who was the enemy?

Light has been shed on this question by studying the personal property of the attacking 
warriors. 150 tinder boxes and combs from the oldest Illerup ceremony show that the 
attacking forces had sailed from the west coast of the Scandinavian peninsula, i.e. 
from modern-day Norway and the adjoining regions of western Sweden

After years of research it is now possible, in the light of the finds from Illerup Adal, to 
reconstruct harness and other equipment for horses and the equipment used and worn 
by the warriors of the time. In the longer term, it will be possible to create a detailed 
picture of the defeated army whose equipment made up the offering.
 
AN ARMY OF THE ROMAN IRON AGE

The sacrifices appear to have consisted of all of the army's equipment and, even 
though we have only excavated 40 per cent of the oldest site, it is nevertheless 
now possible to begin to describe the makeup of this army and in the process 
gain an impression of the political structure that led to its being assembled in 
the first place.

A red-painted shield with a boss crafted in silver and gold; this splendid item of 
equipment was the property of the commander of an enemy army. Runic inscriptions 
name several such persons.
 
 These masks of gold-plated silver were crafted in Scandinavia, and prove that as 
early as 200 AD smiths were able to use embossed foil techniques, gold plating, 
and soldering.
 
Work on the shields has shown that there were three levels in the army's hierarchy: 
a top tier, represented by five shields whose bosses are fashioned of gold and 
silver; a tier of about 40 with shields with bronze bosses; and a level of around 300 
who had shields with iron bosses. Comparisons with other finds from the same 
period confirm this division. The size of the attacking force means that it must have 
been put together from a significantly large geographic area, which makes it likely 
that it was formed as the result of a military alliance. The existence of such an alliance 
must in turn reflect the political conditions prevalent on the Scandinavian peninsula 
during this period.

As already mentioned, Illerup is not an isolated phenomenon, in that we know of similar 
offerings made from the same period in all the areas boundering on Kattegat. The 
offering of spoils of war tells us of historical events not mentioned in written sources.










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