The Cimbri were an ancient tribe in Europe. Ancient authors described them variously as a Celtic, Gaulish, Germanic, or even Cimmerian people. Several ancient sources indicate that they lived in Jutland, which in some classical texts was called the Cimbrian peninsula. There is no direct evidence for the language they spoke, though some scholars argue that it was a Germanic language, while others argue that it was Celtic.
Sutton Hoo is the site of two Anglo-Saxon cemeteries dating from the 6th to 7th centuries near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England. Archaeologists have been excavating the area since 1938, when an undisturbed ship burial containing a wealth of Anglo-Saxon artifacts was discovered. The site is important in establishing the history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia as well as illuminating the Anglo-Saxons during a period which lacks historical documentation.
Møn is an island in south-eastern Denmark. Until 1 January 2007, it was a municipality in its own right but it is now part of the municipality of Vordingborg, after merging with the former municipalities of Langebæk, Præstø, and Vordingborg. This has created a municipality with an area of 615 km2 (237 sq mi) and a total population of 46,307 (2005). It belongs to the Region Sjælland. Møn is one of Denmark's most popular destinations for tourists with its white chalk cliffs, countryside, sandy beaches and the market town of Stege. In June 2017, UNESCO designated Møn as Denmark's first biosphere reserve, consisting of "a series of islands and islets in the southern Baltic Sea, over approximately 45,118 hectares. Its landscapes include woodlands, grasslands, meadows, wetlands, coastal areas, ponds and steep hills."
Grave goods, in archaeology and anthropology, are items buried along with a body.
The Jastorf culture was an Iron Age material culture in what is now Germany, stretching north into Jutland, and east into Poland, spanning the 6th to 1st centuries BC, forming the southern part of the Pre-Roman Iron Age.
The strigil or stlengis is a tool for the cleansing of the body by scraping off dirt, perspiration, and oil that was applied before bathing in Ancient Greek and Roman cultures. In these cultures the strigil was primarily used by men, specifically male athletes; however, in Etruscan culture there is evidence of strigils being used by both sexes. The standard design is a curved blade with a handle, all of which is made of metal.
In Swedish prehistory, the Vendel Period appears between the Migration Period and the Viking Age. The name is taken from the rich boat inhumation cemetery at Vendel parish church, Uppland. Unlike the preceding and succeeding eras, the Vendel Period left very few precious metal artifacts or runic inscriptions. Instead, it is extremely rich in animal art on copper-alloy objects. It is also known for guldgubbar, tiny embossed gold foil images, and elaborate helmets with embossed decoration similar to the one found at Sutton Hoo in England.
Norse funerals, or the burial customs of Viking Age North Germanic Norsemen, are known both from archaeology and from historical accounts such as the Icelandic sagas and Old Norse poetry.
A drinking horn is the horn of a bovid used as a cup. Drinking horns are known from Classical Antiquity, especially the Balkans, and remained in use for ceremonial purposes throughout the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period in some parts of Europe, notably in Germanic Europe, and in the Caucasus. Drinking horns remain an important accessory in the culture of ritual toasting in Georgia in particular, where they are known by the local name of kantsi.
The archaeology of Northern Europe studies the prehistory of Scandinavia and the adjacent North European Plain, roughly corresponding to the territories of modern Sweden, Norway, Denmark, northern Germany, Poland and the Netherlands.
The Thorsberg moor near Süderbrarup in Anglia, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, is a peat bog in which the Angles deposited votive offerings for approximately four centuries. It is the location of important Roman Iron Age finds, including early Elder Futhark runic inscriptions such as the Thorsberg chape, a Roman helmet, a shield buckle, and an early example of socks. The finds are of similar importance as the contemporaneous finds from Illerup and Vimose in Denmark.
The Hochdorf Chieftain's Grave is a richly-furnished Celtic burial chamber near Hochdorf an der Enz in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, dating from 530 BC in the Hallstatt culture period. It was discovered in 1968 by an amateur archaeologist and excavated from 1978 to 1979 by the State Historical site office known as the Baden-Württemberg Landesdenkmalamt under the direction of German archeologist Jörg Biel with association from excavation technician Fritz Maurer. By then, the burial mound covering the grave, originally 6 m (20 ft) in height and about 60 m (200 ft) in diameter, had shrunk to about 1 m in height and was hardly discernible due to centuries of erosion and agricultural use.
Iron Age Scandinavia was the Iron Age, as it unfolded in Scandinavia. It was preceded by the Nordic Bronze Age.
The contact between Germanic tribes and Romans can be divided into four aspects as defined by archaeologist Are Kolberg: the military, the trade, the gift, and the plunder aspect. All these aspects give probable answers as to how and why Roman objects got into Germanic hands, and why a vast amount of Roman objects still can be found as far north as Norway. It is noteworthy to understand how Roman objects brought elements of Roman culture with them, and how they to some extent shaped Germanic culture and identity.
The Tangendorf disc brooch is an Iron Age fibula from the 3rd century AD, which was dug up in 1930 from the sand of a Bronze Age tumulus near Tangendorf, Toppenstedt, Harburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. The front of the elaborately crafted garment fibula is decorated with a rear-facing four-legged animal, probably a dog or a deer. It is one of Harburg's most important finds from the period of the Roman Empire, and is in the permanent exhibition of the Archaeological Museum Hamburg in Harburg, Hamburg.
The Shorwell helmet is an Anglo-Saxon helmet from the early to mid-sixth century AD found near Shorwell on the Isle of Wight in southern England. It was one of the grave goods of a high-status Anglo-Saxon warrior, and was found with other objects such as a pattern-welded sword and hanging bowl. One of only six known Anglo-Saxon helmets, alongside those found at Benty Grange (1848), Sutton Hoo (1939), Coppergate (1982), Wollaston (1997), and Staffordshire (2009), it is the sole example to derive from the continental Frankish style rather than the contemporaneous Northern "crested helmets" used in England and Scandinavia.
The archaeological sites Randlev and Hesselbjerg refer to two closely related excavations done throughout the 20th century near the village of Randlev in the Odder Municipality of Denmark, three kilometers southeast of the town of Odder. Randlev is known primarily for its Romanesque church constructed sometime around 1100 A.D. Hesselbjerg refers to the large Viking-Age cemetery discovered on the Hesselbjerg family farm and the site Randlev refers to the nearby settlement from the same period. Although both Randlev and Hesselbjerg were contemporaneous and encompass a similar area, Hesselbjerg refers more specifically to the 104 graves discovered prior to the later excavation at the site Randlev, which pertains to the Viking Age settlement. The settlement consisted of a farm complex that was likely active during the ninth and tenth centuries; finds from the site such as silver hoards and elaborate jewelry indicate that the farm was likely prosperous, a conjecture which is supported by the extremely fertile land surrounding the area. Artifacts were found in the vicinity of the Hesselbjerg and Randlev sites as early as 1932 when a local farmer discovered a silver hoard, but serious excavations were not conducted until 1963. These excavations ended in 1970; however, Moesgård Museum returned to the site in 1997 and continued analysis until 2010.
The Horncastle boar's head is an early seventh-century Anglo-Saxon ornament depicting a boar that probably was once part of the crest of a helmet. It was discovered in 2002 by a metal detectorist searching in the town of Horncastle, Lincolnshire. It was reported as found treasure and acquired for £15,000 by the Lincoln City and County Museum—now Lincoln Museum—where it is on permanent display.
Early Germanic culture was the culture of the early Germanic peoples. The Germanic culture started to exist in the Jastorf culture located along the central part of the Elbe River in central Germany. From there it spread north to the ocean, east to the Vistula River, west to the Rhine River, and south to the Danube River. It came under significant external influence during the Migration Period, particularly from ancient Rome.
The Kemathen warrior was a Germanic chieftain and mercenary in the service of Rome who lived in the Limes foreland near the present-day German town of Kipfenberg and was honored in the Upper Bavarian district of Eichstätt. The individual grave, which was discovered in 1990, contained not only parts of the skeleton of the 30-year-old man, but also numerous grave goods that distinguish him as a Roman officer as well as a Barbarian chieftain. His skeleton and the grave finds, together with a faithful replica of the tomb, are in the Roman and Bavarian Museum in Kipfenberg.
