A Viking Period sword from Skäckerfjällen with a decorated antler grip 
Holm, Olof
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A Viking Period Sword from Skäckerfjällen with a 
Decorated Antler Grip
Swords with decorated grips made of antler seem
to have been rare in Viking Period Scandinavia.
In his comprehensive and very valuable 2014
monograph Viking Swords,Fedir Androshchuk lists
only one sword found in present-day Sweden with
a preserved antler grip (cat. no Jä 12). This is a
type V sword from an inhumation grave excavated
in the early 20th century at Rösta in Ås parish,
Jämtland (SHM 12426: male grave IV; Kjell-
mark 1905, fig. 21). The grip (meðalkafli in Old
Norse sources) seems usually to have been made
of wood, which may have been wrapped with
leather, linen or woolen ribbons (Androshchuk
2014, p. 104, cat. nos Go 87, 166, Gä 20, 37, Sk 4,
7, Sö 5, Up 33, 51, 57, 109, 111–3, 116–8, 241–2, Vs
10, Ög 1; see also Arbman 1940, p. 157, 160, 305;
1943, pl. 2:2). There are also decorated copper
alloy grips and grips wound with silver or gold
wire (Marek 2005, p. 22; Androshchuk 2014, p.
104).
Only one antler sword grip, then. However,
when working through the museum collections
of Viking Period grave finds from Jämtland in
The Swedish History Museum in Stockholm, I
discovered another one: a previously unidentified
decorated antler grip belonging to a probably some-
what earlier type M sword (SHM 33463). This
sword is from a cremation grave, and so only small
fragments of the grip survive. They are neverthe-
less enough to reconstruct parts of one plate of
the grip (figs 1–2). In Androshchuk’s study (2014,
cat. no Jä 6), these fragments are misidentified as
“fragments of comb (and comb case?)”, while
they are described as “comb case or fitting?” (kam -
fodral eller beslag?) in the museum catalogue.
The grip has originally consisted of two plates,
fastened together around the tang of the sword
with several iron rivets along each side, in the
same manner as the grip of the aforementioned
type V sword. Johnny Karlsson of the Osteoar-
chaeological Research Laboratory in Stockholm
identifies the material as reindeer antler (pers.
comm., July 2015).
Sword type M belongs to the Middle Viking
Period (Androshchuk 2014, p. 171). The decora-
tion on the grip consists of interlace on a cross-
hatched background. It resembles the decoration
on combs of Kristina Ambrosiani’s (1981, p. 37,
289Korta meddelanden
Fornvännen 110 (2015)
Fig. 1. Fragments of an antler grip
plate from a type M sword found
in Skäckerfjällen in Kall parish,
Jämtland. SHM 33463. The sword
itself is on loan to Jämtland
County Museum, and so a substi-
tute is shown here (based on
Gollwitzer 2001, pl. 19:1, with
kind permission). Length of grip
c. 8.8 cm.
Fig. 2. The back sides of
the same fragments.
Korta meddelanden 286-290_Layout 1  2015-11-25  16:42  Sida 289
65) type A3, common in Scandinavia during the
same period. The same kind of decoration is also
known from coeval skis (Huggert 2012, p. 169–
171) and from later objects, for example an antler
spoon and a birch lid found in Trondheim and
dated to the 11–12th centuries (Roesdahl 1992, cat.
nos 570–571; see also Holmqvist 1934; Zachris-
son 1976, p. 45).
The cremation grave containing this sword
was found by chance on flat ground by a reindeer
herder in the mountains between Jämtland and
Nord-Trøndelag in 1989. The sword itself was
retrieved by the herder, while the antler frag-
ments were found by Anders Hansson during
subsequent excavation in 1992 (excavation report
in Jämtland County Museum and ATA; short
version in Hansson 1994, p. 6, 10). The site is near
the tarn Burvattnet in a valley in Skäckerfjällen
(Skjækerfjella) Mountains, 650 m above sea level
and less than 1 km east of the present Norwegian-
Swedish border (Raä Kall 382:1; cf. map in Hans-
son 1994, fig. 1). This is far from the time’s farm-
ing districts and not near any historically known
route between Nord-Trøndelag and Jämtland
either. The people behind this burial thus proba-
bly belonged to a nomadic or semi-nomadic group
living in the area (cf. Welinder 2008, p. 101, 107).
Altogether five Viking Period swords have been
retrieved from expertly excavated graves within
the present borders of Jämtland (Androshchuk
2014, cat. nos Jä 5, 6, 9 [a type V sword, whose
correct inventory number should be JLM 29751],
12 and JLM 29952 [a type F sword from a grave
excavated in 2009, not observed by Androshchuk]).
As I have shown, at least two of these swords have
had grips made of antler. This suggests that in Jämt -
land, antler sword grips were not all that rare.
References
Ambrosiani, K., 1981. Viking Age Combs, Comb Making
and Comb Makers in the Light of Finds from Birka and
Ribe. Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis. Stock-
holm Studies in Archaeology 2. Stockholm.
Androshchuk, F., 2014. Viking Swords. Swords and Social
Aspects of Weaponry in Viking Age Societies. Swedish
History Museum, Studies 23. Stockholm.
Arbman, H., 1940. Birka, I: Die Gräber. Text. Stock-
holm.
– 1943. Birka, I: Die Gräber. Tafeln. Stockholm.
Gollwitzer, M., 2001. Besiedlung und Wirtschaft der zen-
tralskandinavischen Gebirgsregion während der Eisen-
zeit. Universitätsforschungen zur prähistorischen
Archäologie 76. Bonn.
Hansson, A., 1994. Jämtländska fjällgravar. Fornvän-
nen 89.
Holmqvist, W., 1934. On the Origin of the Lapp Rib-
bon Ornament. Acta Archaeologica 5. Copenhagen.
Huggert, A., 2012. Skidspetsen från Stormyran i Byg -
de träsk – ålder utifrån kol-14-datering och orna-
mentik. Arkeologi i norr 13. Umeå.
Kjellmark, K., 1905. Ett graffält från den yngre
järnåldern i Ås i Jämtland. Ymer 25. Stockholm.
Marek, L., 2005. Early Medieval Swords from Central and
Eastern Europe. Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis
2713. Wrocĺaw.
Roesdahl, E. (ed.) 1992. Viking og Hvidekrist. Norden og
Europa 800–1200. København.
Welinder, S., 2008. Jämtarna och samerna kom först.
Östersund.
Zachrisson, I. 1976. Lapps and Scandinavians. Archaeo-
logical Finds from Northern Sweden. Early Norrland
10. Stockholm.
Olof Holm
Riksdagsbiblioteket
SE–100 12 Stockholm
olof.holm@riksdagen.se
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