Draupnir's Sweat and Mardöll's Tears: An Archaeology of Jewellery, Gender and Identity in Viking Age Iceland

This book focuses on a social analysis of Viking jewellery from Iceland (870-1000 AD), an older data set stemming predominantly from burials. The author explores jewellery as a symbol and uses it to examine the social perceptions and cultural attitudes that adornment encompasses. Jewellery by its very nature and its association with dress and adornment encodes issues of social and cultural identity within any society. Identity is a multifaceted sentiment touching upon a diverse range of elements, including gender, status, religious belief and affiliation, group belonging and cultural affinity. While we cannot know all of the sentiments ancient Icelanders attached to their belongings, we do know they placed these assemblages on their dead to imbue and evoke statements of identity. Therefore, this data set has the potential to offer first-hand evidence of some of these aspects of identity.