Bracteate
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A bracteate (from the Latin bractea, a thin piece of metal) is a flat, thin, single-sided gold coin produced in Northern Europe predominantly during the Migration Period of the Germanic Iron Age (in Sweden this includes the Vendel era), but the name is also used for later produced coins of silver produced in central Europe during the early Middle Ages. There are also described piece's from the Hun caucases and the Hunnic invasion of India, in the style of Gupta and Roman coinage.
Gold bracteates from the migration period
Gold bracteates commonly denote a certain type of jewelry, made mainly in the 5th to 7th century AD, represented by some spectacular gold specimens (a total of approximately 1,200 have survived). Pierced or fitted with an eye, most were intended to be worn suspended by a string around the neck, supposedly as an amulet (alu). The bracteates are believed to have started as one-sided copies of Roman coins but soon developed into jewelry. The native proto-Norse term, from the evidence of the Tjurkö Bracteate inscription, appears to have been walha-kurn, "Welsh (i.e. Roman) grain (for coin)".
The motifs are commonly those of Norse mythology and are believed to be Norse pagan icons for protection or divination. For this reason the bracteates are a target of iconographic studies by scholars interested in Norse belief systems. Several bracteates also feature runic inscriptions (a total of 133 inscriptions on bracteates are known, amounting to more than a third of the entire Elder Futhark corpus). The study of migration period bracteates are considered an interdisciplinary field of Germanic art, Norse art, numismatics, archaeology, iconography, Norse mythology and runology.
Typology
The typology for bracteates divides them into several letter-named categories, a system introduced in a 1855 treatise by the Danish numismatist Christian Jürgensen Thomsen named Om Guldbracteatene og Bracteaternes tidligeste Brug som Mynt and finally defined formally by the Swedish numismatist Oscar Montelius in his 1869 treatise Från jernåldern:
- A-bracteates (appr. 87 specimens): showing the face of a human, modeled after antique imperial coins
- B-bracteates (appr. 88 specimens): one to three human figures in standing, sitting or kneeling positions, often accompanied by animals
- C-bracteates (best represented, by appr. 400 specimens): showing a male's head above a quadruped, often interpreted as the Norse god Odin
- D-bracteates (appr. 336 specimens): showing several animals
- E-bracteates (appr. 280 specimens): showing an animal triskele under a circular feature
- F-bracteates (appr. 14 specimens): as a subgroup of the D-bracteates, showing an imaginary animal
- M-bracteates (appr. 17 specimens): imitations of Roman imperial bust-medallions
Corpus
The German Karl Hauck, archaeologist Morten Axboe and runologist Klaus Düwel have worked since the 1960s to create a complete corpus of the early Germanic bracteates from the migration period, complete with large scale photographs and drawings. This has been published in three volumes in German named Die Goldbrakteaten der Völkerwanderungszeit. Ikonographischer Katalog.
Early medieval bracteates
Silver bracteates are different from the migration period bracteates and were the main type of coin minted in German-speaking areas, with the exception of the Rhineland, beginning at around 1130 in Saxony and Thuringia and were taken out of circulation at about 1520. In some cantons of Switzerland, bracteate-like rappen, heller, and angster were produced during the 18th century.
Medieval silver bracteates may be large, but most are about 15 millimeters across and weigh about 1 gram.
Indian style bracteates
These coins were made by the invading Hunnic tribes as they entered India, from 635 ad they seen to have issued gold coins to the weight of half a gram to one gram in the style of Gupta and Roman coinage.Sources
- The most complete corpus of gold bracteates:
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- Hauck, K., 1970: Goldbrakteaten aus Sievern. Spätantike Amulett-Bilder der "Dania Saxonica" und die Sachsen-"Origo" bei Widukind von Corvey, München (Münstersche Mittelalter-Schriften 1).
- Starkey, K., 1999: Imagining an early Odin. Gold bracteates as visual evidence?, Scandinavian studies. The journal of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study 71-4 (1999), 373-392.
- Simek, R., 2003: Religion und Mythologie der Germanen, Darmstadt.
External Links
- [Era of the Great Migrations, 375 BC - 550 AD, Bracteate]
- [©Canterbury Archaeological Trust Ltd]
- [Hunnic bracteates]
- [Pfennig or bracteate, 0.89 g, silver, from Halberstadt, around 1200]
- [Gold Bracteates - Fake?]
- [Hoards from the Roman Iron Age – Early Viking Age]
- [Evidence of the Jutes BBC]
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