Open AccessEncultured Rocks - Encounter with a Ritual World of the Bronze Age
Author(s) -
Katherine Hauptman Wahlgren
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
current swedish archaeology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.256
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 2002-3901
pISSN - 1102-7355
DOI - 10.37718/csa.1998.07
Subject(s) - carving , bronze age , hoard , rock art , geology , archaeology , meaning (existential) , character (mathematics) , transformative learning , art , ancient history , history , philosophy , geometry , sociology , pedagogy , mathematics , epistemology
There is an intriguing rock-carving place at Flyhov in the province of Västergötland, southern Sweden. The carved images appear on a series of flat rocks in connection to a number of pointed oval hollows, that are linked to each other in rows suggestive of boats joined together stem by stem. It is argued that the hollowed-out boats in the rock made this a significant place for rock-carvings. Certain phenomena of nature were ritually important during the Bronze Age, and some elements like rock and water may have had a transformative character. Metaphoric understanding of images is used to inspire interpretations of the meaning of the Bronze Age rock-carvings.