Cultural Identity within the Danelaw: A comparison of late Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian art styles within and outside the Danelaw

Principal investigator: Michelle Graabek
Level: Undergraduate

My aim is to harness the potential of Late Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian metalwork recorded on the Portable Antiquities Scheme, as a tool for understanding how cultural identity was expressed and negotiated within the territory of the Danelaw, during the latter 9th and 10th centuries AD. I will achieve this goal by addressing the three following key questions. How closely are the administrative boundaries of the Danelaw reflected in the distribution of metal artefacts displaying Scandinavian influence in form and decoration? What is the relationship, stylistic and quantitative, between metalwork of Scandinavian importation and material manufactured within the Danelaw under Scandinavian influence? And what can the above tell us about the role of different classes of ornamental metalwork, in the expression of cultural identity within and between different social segments of the Danelaw population?

Supervised by Gabor Thomas at Reading University

Audit data

• Created: 13 years ago
• Created by: Daniel Pett
• Updated: 13 years ago
• Updated by: Daniel Pett