Playground, Etnografiska museet

Today I visited Etnografiska museet in Stockholm with a friend. They have a new temporary exhibition called Playground which was about norms and about questioning them. I had been looking forward to it. I was at the museum only a couple of days before it opened and it looked promising. Therefore I have to admit that I was somewhat disappointed. Not that it was a bad exhibition per see. It was just that I had expected a little bit more.

So, what was good about it? I really liked that it explained what a norm is and how it is used in society both in the past and present. I liked how it showed that not everyone will be able to live up to the norms and that it is nothing wrong with that. I also enjoyed how it got you to question norms and asked you how privileged you are. It was also good that they had made signs telling about norms and norm breakers in their permanent exhibitions.

Despite all this I never got engaged in the exhibition for real. It was interesting, not least to read about HBTQ people in Vietnam and see the photos of the colour scheme of people's skin and everything. However, there were just so many longer texts. I would have loved to read people's stories and all that, but there were just so many of them. I think it would have been better if they had made shorter texts and refered to a website for more studies. Some of the interactive "tests" were also a little hard to understand.

The exhibition was not bad. I think I just had hoped it would be more. I love questioning norms and my own worldview! Maybe it was because I had read the opening sign (shown in the photo above) beforehand or maybe it was because I liked the Vodou exhibition they had a couple of years ago so much. I just got the feeling that the exhibition could have been so much more.

Johanne Hildebrandt - Estrid, Sagan om Valhalla

The fifth installment in the Sagan om Valhalla series is Estrid. I had the great honour of reading it in advance thanks to the author Johanne Hildebrandt.

Estrid is the daughter of Sigrid and Svend (Tveskæg) although everyone except for Sigrid think she is the daughter of Erik (Segersäll). She is also twin sister of Olof (Skötkonung) who will be king of the Swedes. Estrid gets kidnapped, and struggles to get back to her mother.

In the beginning of the book, Estrid belongs to the death goddess Hel (just like Freja eventually did in the first trilogy). I have sort of thought about having death as a theme for one of these entries about the series, because it is an over-arching, ever-present theme throughout all of the books. However, again there is a theme I thought more about as I was reading Estrid, so I will have to postpone it again. It seems fitting also, since Estrid is said to choose life over death as she converts to Christianity.

I somehow find Johanne Hildebrandt's depiction of the convertion in line with all the other supernatural things in the world she builds up and it certainly is quite imaginative. For real, however I think faith had extremely little to do with why people in Scandinavia became Christian. My MA thesis in Archaeology was about how the Christianisation can be shown in burials from the time ca AD 800-1200 in the Mälaren region in easternmost Sweden. (It is in Swedish, but can be found here if someone wants to read it, because much of my thoughts that I will write bellow is further developed there.)

To me the time period had much more to do with changing power structures and identities. It is the time of the centralisation of power, of town establishment and really also the time from which we get our first power figures that can be named and at least to some extent fleshed out from written sources. Traditionally this time period is often thought of as the time of the foundation of the Swedish (and Norwegian and Danish) nation states, but I will say that it is not. That concept was not made up until the 19th century (first and foremost to get the citizens's loyalty) and historical and archaeological research about the past was an important part of the creation of the concept.

So what did really happen then at the end of the time period those same scholars named the Viking Age? There are certainly a change towards a much more centralised power. The picture of this is also coloured by the 19th century and not least by the theory of the male conqueror (which I will probably have the opportunity to get back to in some entry later), but we can say that the power changed from being more localy based to more centralised.

The other major thing that happened  during this time period that we actually can say for certain happened: the Christian (Catholic) church was established with clergy, parish organisation and everything. This is really the aspect of the period which I find so interesting. There are actually great differences in what the different types of resources tell us about the Christianisation. Everyone who has gone to school in Sweden have to have heard the name of the German monk Ansgar. He is said to have been sent to Scandinavia as a missionary and there is a biography written by another German monk called Rimbert about him. This and the history of the Hamburg-Bremen archbishopric written by Adam of Bremen has been very influential on the research perspective of the Christianisation. The archaeological material from this period does not show a cut between the older and the newer traditions as clear as the written sources want. Instead the borders are fluid and there is no clear indication as to what is Christian or Pagan. The discussion, especially in the Contract archaeological sector, tends to end up in more or less stereotypical interpretations. The problem I think is that there seldom are any stereotypes in real life. It is easy to write about them and make life black and white, but the truth is that it really is not. Everything is put in the grey area in between the extremes and that is really what the archaeological material show us. As for who was Christian or Pagan, I think it was based on the social context. If one needed to be Christian, one was, and if one needed to be Pagan, one was. Knud den store (the great) is actually a very good example of this. He ruled as a Christian among the Englishmen and as a Pagan among the Danes. Sigrid Storråda is interesting in this aspect, because she seems to have been content in her Pagan faith. I wrote about her probably having a great political mind in my entry about Sigrid and this might seem to contradict it, but maybe it says more about what power she had. Maybe her power was so well-founded in society that she did not have to turn her coat depending of who she spoke with?

Olof's coin

The historical Olof Skötkonung is mostly famous for having been baptist by the English missionary Saint Sigfrid in Husaby in Västergötland, Sweden and for being the first to mint coins in Sweden with the help of English mint masters at the end of the 10th century. It is most likely that the name Skötkonung means Skattkonung (treasure king) and derives from his minting activities.

Because of the minting happening in my home town Sigtuna and the plot actually involving Olof, the choice for this entry's archaeological find was pretty easy. The text on the coin says OLOF REX SVEVORUM, which means Olof, king of the Swedes on the other side can be read SIDEI which has been interpreted as either a spelling variation of the name Sigtuna or an abbraviation of Situne Dei meaning God's Sigtuna.

Since I read it as a script directly from the author, the cover was borrowed from here and the picture of Olof Skötkonung's coin from here.

International Day of Archaeology

Apparently it is International Day of Archaeology today. I had absolutely no idea until I saw it around the Internet. I have to admit I have a lot of questions about this holiday. How did it come about? How are you supposed to celebrate it? Are you supposed to have cake?!

I have celebrated it by handing in a grad school application. I do not know if I have any chance at getting it, but I hope to at least get some response on my project plan this time. The picture to the right show some of the books I have been using.

As might have become evident by many of the entries in this blog, my greatest interests are Vikings, cultures and colonialism. So of course I am trying to mix them together into one research project, trying to discuss how the Vikings viewed the concept and how the research tradition being caught up in nationalism of the 19th century having applied to the period making it more of a Viking version of the 19th centry than anything.

Anna Lihammer - Medan mörkret faller

Today is my birthday and even though I have other things I really need to do, I spent all morning reading.

I have long thought about reading the mystery books by Anna Lihammer because people say that they are good and Medan mörkret faller (While the darkness falls) was elected best mystery debute of 2014. Beside, Anna is a colleague of mine, being a Swedish archaeologist and Medan mörkret faller is set in 1934.

The time setting in the 1930's made me draw lots of parallels to the books and TV series about the Honourable Phryne Fisher. Mostly the episode The Blood of Juana the Mad, because Lihammer's book is about somewhat the same themes and is also about a gruesome murders among medical staff in a university milieu.

The story is a reaction to Lihammer gaining the knowledge about skull collections in Sweden, but also the fact that in 1934 the Swedish parliament voted for a law about compulsory sterilization of people who weren't considered fit enough for "carrying on the Swedish race". The law remained in place until 1976.

I really enjoy this book and I think it is very evident that Lihammer is an archaeologist. She dwells into the time period, making it come alive just like in the books/TV series about Phryne Fisher.
She also talks about how human bodies (both alive and dead) are treated like objects. Of course this is something archaeology deals with all the time and which I think we need to discuss more than we do.

Det var inte första gången någon reagerade på hans utseende, det hände ofta och det var inte alltid negativt. Men intresset brukade inte så tydligt göra honom till ett samlingsvärt objekt, uppmätt och liksom klart för sortering (Not for the first time, did someone react to his appearance, it happend often and not always in a negative way. But the interest seldom so obviously made him into a collectable, measured and ready to be sorted.)

~ Anna Lihammer, Medan mörkret faller

The book also reminded me of an episode of History Cold Case. It also dealt with human bodies as collectables and study objects and discovered a story about a child who probably was killed because of human bodies being coveted for the study of medicine. It is a terrible, dark side to the more recent past of Sweden and many other Western countries. Evil done in the name of science. One might wonder how people can become so cold blooded, but I do not think it is so strange somehow. It all has to do with who you define as human.

Den nya tiden. Den moderna tiden. Han undrade hur många av besökarna som skulle passa in där. Och vad som skulle hända med dem som inte gjorde det, för visioner brukade förr eller senare leda till att de som inte kunde uppfylla dem sorterades bort. Ju storslagnare visioner, desto hårdare sortering.  (The new time. The modern time. He wondered how many of the visitors would fit in there. And what would happen to the ones who did not, because visions sooner or later used to led to the ones who could not fulfill them being sorted out. Greater visions led to harder sorting)

~ Anna Lihammer, Medan mörkret faller

The Swedish law of compulsory sterilization is actually one expression of this sorting, scientific racism another and Lihammer builds up the book plot surrounding this question of who are defined as humans. It is dark and gruesome and really horrible. A dark past that is poking on the present still.

My Heroines: Rory Gilmore

Today's birthday girl is Lorelai "Rory" Gilmore (Alexis Bledel). She was born 4:03 AM on October 8 1984 and is the daughter of Lorelai Gilmore and Christopher Hayden and together with her mother the main character of the TV series Gilmore Girls and one of my biggest Heroines!

Rory is very close to her mother. Lorelai was only 16 when she had her and the two of them are therefore often more friends than mother and daughter. She often has a much more difficult relationship with her father. Christopher has never rejected his daughter, but Lorelai has spent most of the time raising Rory alone. Later on, Christopher gets to try single parenting himself, when his partner Sherry abandons him and their baby girl Georgia, called Gigi (A nickname also being a tribute to the series itself - GG.).

Rory and her mother Lorelai

Rory is kind, clever and in the beginning of the series, her biggest dream is to go to Harvard and study journalism and political science. To achieve her goals, she gets into Chilton Academy. It costs a small fortune and Lorelai at last goes to her estranged parents, asking for a loan. They demand a weekly dinner with their daughter and granddaughter.

Rory lives in the small town Stars Hollow where everyone knows each other. When asked about her lack of social activities, she tells the principal of Chilton that living in Stars Hollow itself is kind of a social activity. She is much beloved, by the other townspeople and in the first few seasons quite sheltered.

She graduates from Chilton at the end of season 3 and decides, after a lot of thinking and pro-/con-list writing to go to Yale, her grandfather's alma mater, where other aspects of life than books and studying, sort of starts to sip into her world in a way they have not done before.

Rory is a very special character to me. Not only because she was born only two days before me (My date of birth is October 10 1984.), but because she was the first fictional character I could really relate to. Just like me Rory is sort of nerdy and takes a great interest in school and learning. she is very smart and proud of that.  And the greatest thing about it is that neither the other characters nor the show itself looks down upon her because of it. Because she had Rory so early, Lorelai did not get to go to college, but it is evident that she still reads a lot and no one beats either Gilmore Girls in knowledge about pop-culture.

Rory and Jess

Neither of the Gilmore girls are dependent on men either. They have men in their life from time to time and also goes through some heartache, but they are still independent character with their own lives and free will both in and out of relationship with men.

Another reason why I connected on a quite deeply level with Rory has to do with her relationship to books. We both read just about everything we come over and things she did (like bringing many different types of non-school-related-books to school just because she does not know which one she wants to read during lunch or bring books to parties no matter that there will not likely be any down-time) I thought I was the only one doing.


Gifs from Tumblr. Pictures from here, here, here and here.