The Scandinavian countries have a great deal of rock art and, as we would expect in cultures historically focused on seafaring, much of it includes ships and other maritime themes. “The west coast of Sweden - has the largest concentration of Bronze Age rock carvings in Scandinavia; and Scandinavia has the largest number of Bronze Age rock carvings in Europe. The west coast of Sweden is home to around 1,500 recorded rock engraving sites, with more being discovered every year. – By far, the most dominant theme is human figures and ships, especially ships – 10,000 of which have (been) recorded. Rock carvings in the late Bronze Age, and even the early Iron Age, often depict conflict, power, and mobility.” (Wikipedia)
“The Nordic Bronze Age (also Northern Bronze Age, or Scandinavian Bronze Age) is a period of Scandinavian prehistory from c. 1750-500 BC.” (Wikipedia)
One interesting scene can be found at the Vitlycke Rock Art Site located at Tanum, Sweden. What appears to be the figure of a kneeling woman by the head of an elongated prone man with one leg intersecting the hull of a ship. We interpret the kneeling figure as a woman because of what appears to be long hair behind and the lack of a phallus in a panel where many male figures are portrayed and always with a prominent phallus.
In 2021, Salmivuori wrote “We see a woman kneeling at the head of a lying man. Perhaps he is dead, and she is mourning him, or he is wounded, and she is tending to him. That is a straightforward interpretation, but there are disturbing circumstances. Why has he no arms and an empty sheath? If she were mourning her warrior husband, these attributes would have been there. If she is tending to a wounded man, why is she above his head where he cannot see her? Her arms and tense bodyline indicate that she is doing something. And what are the two objects at her hips?” (Salmivuore 2021:1-2) This last question is very problematical as many of the online photographs of the scene do not show two objects at her hip. Instead they show it as a single inverted “U-shaped” object.
“We cannot exclude females participating in trade or war ventures, either as active agents or in more supporting roles. That may very well have been the case, but rock art gives us no indication in that direction. If we stick to rock art, we can see that women had essential roles in one sector, that of rituals. We have pictures of women seen as overseers of rites, actors, dancers, bringers of offerings, and the like. In later periods, women had these essential roles as seeresses overseeing magic rituals, so it is safe to assume that something similar is happening here. In a warrior society, where violence is never far away, there might be a need for magical powers and rituals as a release. That may very well have been a sector in which women played vital roles. It is not hard to imagine a nightly scene down on the shore by a rock panel with a seeress leading a ritual, with a torch in her hand, making the figures on the rock dance, and telling the young and nervous warriors-to-be stories of the past and what life has in store for them.” (Salmivuore 2021:2-3) I think this is taking it a little far. Not that everything he states here could not be true, it very well is. I just do not think that this applies to the figures we are discussing here. If a rite or ritual is involved in this composition I believe it would be a healing or grieving rite.
“Women may or may not have participated in violent actions abroad themselves, but there is a distinct possibility that they had such ritual tasks at home. There is a possible third interpretation: The lying man could be a prisoner from the defeated ship, indicated by the lack of arms and weapons, and the woman is torturing him, possibly crushing his head with the stones she has at her hips. Similar behavior is not unknown from other warriors societies. The purpose of the act and its record on the rock art panel could be to teach the young warriors a lesson, never surrender or give up, or this would be the fate that awaited them.” (Salmivuore 2021:3) Salmivuore here interprets the two objects that he sees at her hip as stones which I would imaging would have been portrayed as round or oblong objects. As we have seen most online photos show a single inverted “U-shaped” object by her hip so I think we can disregard this interpretation.
This leaves us with three more possible interpretations; the enactment of some ritual or rite, tending a wounded man (and the ritual or rite may have been seen as essential to the tending this wounded man), or grieving a dying or dead man. The way the kneeling figures arms are outstretched is disturbingly reminiscent of Picasso’s Guernica and we should be careful not to let that affect our analysis.
NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.
REFERENCES:
Salmivuori, Seppo, 2021, Female agency in Bronze Age Scandinavia as represented in rock art – rethinking the mourning woman in Vitlycke, Tanum, Academia Letters, Article 1161, https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1161.3
Wikipedia, Nordic Bronze Age, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Bronze_Age,
accessioned on 17 May 2022.
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