Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae

“ It is true that there occur in Italy a number of bronze implements and weapons which are somewhat similar to our own, as for instance paalstabs, celts and spear-heads, but as these bronzes want the peculiar ornaments above described, they prove nothing more than that certain implements and weapons had the same form among different nations. It is besides a settled point that the Romans when they made war in Gaul and in Britain, had long been in possession of iron, and made use of weapons which were of a totally different form from the bronze weapons found in Denmark. ”

“ Now, we know that copper is found in the mines in a state of such comparative purity as to require very little smelting for the purpose of being brought into a state fit for use, while, on the other hand, iron in its rough state looks more like a stone than a metal, and, moreover, before it can be worked at all, must be subjected to a difficult process of smelting by means of a very powerful fire. If we look at the question only on this side, we are forced to conclude, that copper must have been found and employed before iron. ”

“ So important a change in the nature of the implements employed, as that from stone to metal, must naturally have exerted a very extensive influence on the mode of life, as well as on civilization in general. In the most ancient times the aborigines were compelled to follow hunting and fishing, and to construct their dwellings on the sea-coast, since with their imperfect implements they were scarcely able to pluck up the primeval forests by the roots and to engage in agriculture, a branch of industry to which the flat and fertile plains of Denmark are particularly adapted. ”

“ That those who lived during the age of bronze were not clad like the aborigines, chiefly in the skins of animals, we may conclude from the degree of civilization to which they had attained, and the rather because in the tombs of this period small pieces of woollen stuff are found, probably the remains of entire garments which have rotted away in the earth, and which are still woven in a very simple manner. Yet it is possible that these dresses were occasionally very neat and tasteful, for had they not been so the ornaments would not have produced suitable effect. ”

“ As our native land evinced a peculiar developement in the bronze-period, so during that of iron it yielded to that more modern civilization which, by degrees, diffused itself over Europe. Not only had civilization at length attained to such a point that all cutting instruments were made of iron, but at the same time a new taste had established itself in the North. ”

“ On the contrary, instead of the simple and uniform implements and ornaments of stone, bone, and amber, we meet suddenly with a number and variety of splendid weapons, implements, and jewels of bronze, and sometimes indeed with jewels of gold. The transition is so abrupt, that from the antiquities we are enabled to conclude, what in the following pages will be further developed, that the bronze-period must have commenced with the irruption of a new race of people, possessing a higher degree of cultivation than the early inhabitants. ”

“ If, without any reference to history, we should seek to determine which of the two metals, copper or iron, was first discovered and used for weapons and tools, we should very readily come to a conclusion in favour of that which is most easily recognised as a metal when in the earth. ”

“ The most ancient inhabitants, or as we may term them, the aborigines, would have made but little progress, had they attempted to fell a large and full-grown tree, with nothing more than so imperfect an instrument as the stone hatchet. ”

“ In ancient times no money was coined in Denmark. Trade consisted, it is true, in a great degree, of exchange, but there were many instances in which it was necessary to have a kind of circulating medium. Instead of coins, pieces of silver and gold were used, which were cut off either from rings or bars, and passed according to their weight. Most commonly they made use of ring-silver, or of pieces of many different broken rings. It was not till about the year 1000, that King Svend Tveskiæg, the father of the Dano-Anglish King Cnut began to coin money in Denmark. ”

“ As the coins afford us an insight into the relations of our forefathers towards the east, so they give us also important hints as to the connection of the North with the west of Europe. It is a fact, established beyond all doubt, that the inhabitants of the North carried on trade with the countries of the west; but at the close of paganism, this connection assumed more and more of a warlike character, and instead of peaceful merchants vast hordes of rude Vikings landed on their coasts. ”

“ A nearer examination of the weapons here mentioned would suffice to shew that the purity in the form and workmanship, which we so much admired in the bronze-period, had been supplanted, and had given place to a totally different taste. We no longer find anything corresponding to the splendid swords, battle-axes, bosses of shields, and lures. But this difference becomes more plain and obvious when we place before our eyes the trinkets and ornaments of the iron-period. ”

“ That our bronze antiquities were brought by the Romans, who by their conquests in Gaul and Britain during the first centuries after the birth of Christ occasioned a complete revolution in the civilization of the north-west of Europe, is altogether incredible. ”

“ In tombs therefore which decidedly belong to the bronze-period, we occasionally meet with wedges and axes, knives and axes, but most frequently hammers, all of stone, which must have been used at a much later period. A great number of them are very carefully wrought, and also bear evident marks of having been bored through with round metal cylinders. But although implements of stone and bronze were at a certain period used together; yet it is an established fact that a period first prevailed during which stone alone was used for implements and weapons ”

“ The hilts in some cases are of wood, and have been fastened to the handle with nails; in others they are of bronze melted and spread over a nucleus of clay, the reason of which in all probability is that metal was then very precious. In some few specimens the handles are covered with plates of gold, or wound round with gold wire. It is not superfluous to observe that these handles are always very small, a fact which tends to prove that the men who used these swords were but of moderate stature and by no means so gigantic as many have represented the ancient inhabitants of Denmark to have been. ”

“ At first the beech was unable to grow here. The earth was covered with oaks, of that species termed the winter oak, which differs from the now prevailing species, the summer oak; these were succeeded by groves of alders, until all was so prepared and developed that the light and beautiful beech spread its crowns over the whole country.
That Denmark in its primeval times, before it possessed its present vegetation, had passed through these four periods, is clearly proved from the ancient peat bogs, in which are found stems of trees of each distinct period lying like beds one over the other. ”

“ If we form a clear conception of what is meant by being unacquainted with implements of metal, and being compelled to make use of simple and very imperfect instruments of stone, such as have been described; and if we remember, at the same time, that Denmark was at the period referred to, a rude uncultivated and woody country, it is easy to perceive, that the aborigines could scarcely have paid any particular attention to agriculture. ”

“ If on the other hand we reflect that the bronzes here described with their peculiar spiral ornaments occur within certain limits of the North, it certainly may not be altogether improbable that we must look for their manufacture at home, or within such limits. Hitherto they have been met with in the greatest number in Denmark and the neighbouring province of Mecklenburg, but they have about the same northerly limit as the stone objects, while they occur but singly in the provinces immediately beyond the ancient Danish land of Schonen, and scarcely at all in the north of Sweden, or in Norway. ”

“ Since in Denmark itself, neither copper nor tin occurs, so that these metals, being introduced from other countries, were, of necessity, expensive, the poorer classes continued for a long series of years to make use of stone as their material; but it also appears that the richer, at all events in the earlier periods, in addition to their bronze implements, still used others of stone, particularly such as would have required a large quantity of metal for their formation. ”

“ His successor Knut the Great it was who first established Christianity, and with it more gentle manners in Denmark. To so warlike a people as the heathenish Danes, and in so troubled a time, when no man could feel safe from the attacks of strangers, and all were consequently obliged to be constantly prepared for conflict, good weapons were naturally of extraordinary importance. ”

“ At the same time we do not find the gold altogether unalloyed. It was used with a portion of silver, fused with it, by which a metal has been produced to which the name of electrum has been given. Objects of pure silver alone, which, it is known, have never been discovered in barrows together with remains from the bronze-period, also occur in this period, although they are by no means so general in Denmark as articles of gold. ”

“ All these weapons and ornaments of bronze which we have here considered, when first discovered are usually covered with a greenish rust. On the rust being removed, the bronze is found to be so beautiful a metal that it might easily be mistaken for gold, did we not know that gold never rusts, however long it may be buried in the earth. Gold, however, as appears from our previous remarks on the inlaying of swords, helmets, and buttons, was by no means unknown at this time [15] . ”

“ With regard to the objects from the iron-period the circumstances are wholly reversed. The swords and other weapons characteristic of that period, the oval clasps for the breast, the mosaic beads, &c., are so common in Sweden and Norway, that traces of them are discovered in nearly every barrow which has been examined there; on the contrary, in Denmark (with the exception of Bornholm, which in an antiquarian point of view is connected with Sweden) they occur but very rarely indeed, when compared with the objects of stone and bronze. ”

“ At length attention was directed to the fact that even at the present day, in several of the islands of the South seas and in other parts, there exist races of savages who, without knowing the use of metals, employ implements of stone which have the same shape and adaptation as those which are discovered in the earth in such quantities in Denmark, and further, it was shewn in what manner those savages made use of such simple and apparently such useless implements. ”

“ They did not commonly possess a knowledge of copper, of iron, or of any metals: they formed all their implements and weapons of wood, of the bones of animals, or of stone. As stone is not subject to be destroyed by being deposited in the earth, numerous instruments have been preserved to our own time, from which we can form some idea of the degree of civilization attained by the inhabitants of our native land at that period. ”

“ Proofs that they actually followed such a mode of life are afforded by the implements for fishing and hunting, formed of stone and bone, which are constantly discovered in the earth. Among the weapons of the chase the arrow-heads are particularly distinguished. They are often of flint, a few inches long, and sometimes triangular or flat, sometimes heart-shaped, which last as a rule are formed with such care that the sides are very finely notched. One peculiar kind of arrows consists of small pieces of bone, in which splinters of flint are inserted. ”

“ Lastly, we must not lose sight of this fact, that the weapons and instruments of stone which are found in the north, in Japan, in America, the South Sea Islands and elsewhere, have for the most part such an extraordinary resemblance to one another in point of form, that one might almost suppose the whole of them to have been the production of the same maker. ”

“ The knives, both those used for domestic purposes and those employed in works of labour, are of flint, two edged and with a broad blade, and frequently have handles hollowed out of the stone itself.
Not unfrequently these handles are adorned with regular ornaments; at other times, they are less carefully formed, as if they had been destined to be enveloped or inserted in wood. These knives are usually from three to twelve inches in length. They are scarcely ever polished, probably because the edge is so thin that in most cases it would have broken to pieces in polishing. ”

“ They believed that those heroes alone who fell in the field, would go to Odin the god of the brave, or enter into Valhalla, the abode of the blessed. Here they should pass their time in joy and delight. ”

“ At Bornholm, where many Cufic coins are found, and at Gothland it is said the travellers to Russia assembled for their journey. Gothland, judging from the innumerable Cufic coins which have been dug up there, together with silver articles, and Anglo-Saxon and German coins of the tenth and eleventh centuries, must have been even in the heathen period, the most important place in the North for its commercial intercourse with the east by way of Russia, as well as with Germany and England. ”

“ The inhabitants now no longer found sufficient space on the coasts, and having extirpated the forests in the interior of the country, partly by fire, partly by the axe, they spread themselves over the whole land, and at the same time laid the foundation for an agriculture, which up to the present day is one of the principal industrial resources of Denmark. ”

“ In considering the various antiquities of the bronze-period, our attention cannot but be struck by the manner in which they are wrought, and the very considerable degree of skill displayed in their construction. The greater part of the objects are cast, but the casting is neither rude nor common. In this point of view a very remarkable battle-axe of bronze requires particular mention. It is sixteen inches in length, and is ten inches broad at the edge. ”

“ It must excite our astonishment that any uncivilized people should be capable of producing such well-finished instruments of stone. The arrow-heads figured above are so admirably formed, that at the present day, with all the advantage of our modern tools of metal, we could scarcely equal, certainly could not surpass them; even into the handles of the knives very neatly executed ornaments are introduced ”

“ Hitherto no inscriptions or traces of characters have been discovered in the antiquities of the bronze-period, although judging from their skill in working metals, it would not be unreasonable to suppose that the people, at all events, towards the close of that period, may have understood the art of writing. ”