Danish Bronze Age dresses

Danish Bronze Age, Egtved girl, Skrydstrup, lunula, gorget, Borum, Herodotos,

In my younger days it was a little equivoque to publish the picture of the "Goddess with Snakes" from Crete. Much worse it was in the twenties when they found the Egtved Girl in Denmark. The establishment shoved the same Victorian attitude as the Swedish archbishop that condemned short skirts and recommended long trousers for women ... in the later suggestion he was before his time.

On the right picture the Danish archaeologist S. Nancke Krogh and some women have reconstructed the dressing that have been found in seven Danish Bronze Age mounds. Maybe the Minoan goddess inspired them to this picture? However I am sceptic to the exposed upper body. When I came back to Denmark after ten years abroad I freeze like a little dog the first summer ... with clothes on! Even if there were more woods in Denmark during Bronze Age I doubt that the women left their breast bare.

The Minoan figurine shows no doubt a goddess, since we see the snakes and the big cat on her head. The cut of the skirt is the same we see in Mesopotamian seals 2300 to 2000 BC, which is five to seven hundred years earlier than the Minoan style. The exposed breasts are a ritual pose showing the "nursing aspect" of the goddess and it was common even in Middle East and much earlier on Malta.

We see that the Bronze Age Girls were not "allowed" to wear skirt in the twenties. But it was allowed to show the bronze weapons and other "mighty" things. Writing the history have always been about national pride even when it is about a time with no nations. History becomes easily politics and we have to search for the truth. They usually write about the noble class that always carries the culture. Do not think this is objective history we can generalise for all inhabitants at the time. The following pictures are chosen to show the variety of dresses and outfits found in big Danish mounds.

The Danish Bronze Age begins about 1700 BC and last to 500 BC. The big mounds with oak cists from 1500 to 1300 BC has given us valuable finds belonging to the upper class. Earlier archaeologists wanted to see big chieftains enslaving people to run their farms and business. In my younger days they set the Age of Mounds to 1300 - 1100 BC, but as we see dating have been very relative in archaeology. Scandinavia above Denmark and Skaane is often 100 to 200 years later in culture. In inland Scandinavia we see a period with agriculture about 1300 to 1100 BC.

My doubts build on all facts we have. From later times we know about the Scandinavian society that they lived in a Ritual Age until about 500 AD. The swords of the buried men are often unused and their clothes show more likely a herd than a warrior. It seems the mounds are to few to have been common fashion among people.

My conclusion can only be that they buried their priests and priestesses with their insignia and what they owned in life. In a way they buried time or an epoch. Since this age was manifold we have not a single explanation to anything.

She was a young woman age 20 - 25 in short shirt and skirt made by twisted strings. The Egtved Girl got summer flowers in her grave. She is well-preserved and has become the figure-head of older Danish Bronze. And very item in the grave is analysed with all kinds of methods

She is not the only but more frequent is the "curtain" type made of small bronze pipes … see next picture. There are around 30 finds and it reminds of the Stone Age when they made them of bear claws and shells for instance. But all bronze adornments should be seen with the original polish and with sun glimmering in it.

Another is the woman from Aulby with her things. The small bronze pipes have been in her skirt. Her collar maybe for ritual purposes and out of the same kind as the lunula and the gorget being the special necklace of Inanna and it was symbolising the sowing field.

It seems that the short skirt was used by young women or in the summer. The Egtved Girl got summer flowers in her grave. The difference between married and unmarried seem to have been that the married cut her hair on the wedding. We know this from Greek and Indian rituals too.... See below Nordic priestesses at the Isle of Artemis.

The shield and the dagger are naturally symbolic and maybe a part of the image of some goddess. I call it the Isis-dagger since we see it in connection with Isis the millennium before Bronze Age. Later the dagger became a little knife in the woman dress in entire Scandinavia. We see the skilful handicraft in the other items and with the metals needles; pins and buckles became normal in the dress.

The Blondie from Skrydstup and her home ca 1350 BC

Can you see the tall 170 cm 18 year old Blondie with natural hair 60 cm and in her face the long eyelashes catch you and you are in love with Blondie from Skrydstrup, Vojens near Haderslev. Her dress is embroidered blouse and the peplos made in one piece and wrapped around her body. A needle or brooch at her shoulder and a woven belt keep it together.

She is one of two in Denmark with the coiffure Minoan style and the other at Hvilhaug, Mors north Jutland. The hair is drawn from to back to front and around. The hair net keeps it together with a ribbon around the head. She has big golden rings around her ears. Even without the ordinary neckcollar and maybe shield and short sword of shining bronze and other ritual adornments she looks like a priestess of the age.

We can add something from her neighbourhood the big more than 50 meter long house that surely could furnish the young lady and probably send her to Crete an maybe some of the temples of the age. Other sites tell about possible journeys to the south for instance the picture stones in the Kivik grave of same age. Then we have the 900 years younger Herodotos telling just about young ladies in pair coming to Delos with protecting followers.

The temple at Delos was founded ca 700 AD and does not fit in, but I suppose there have been temples for long at Crete. From Egypt we know that they did more than pray and offer gifts in the temples. Many temples were like "House of specialised wisdom" and that was needed so they could "sell" something like the Oracle at Delphi

From Herodotos we see that in his time there was not much known traffic. But from folk memory he tells that there Hyperboreans= the northermost northerners visited at least Delos "in the old days". But he also mentions "the Greek post line" as a method of sending goods/ gifts long way to Greece and maybe also in the other direction. That means also that NEWs travelled from Olympos to Scandinavia and our rock-carvings tell about numerous news and trade

Four Nordic priestesses in the temple of Artemis at Delos

Book IV 32 - 36

Of the Hyperboreans (northmost of the Nordic) nothing is said either by the Scythians or by any of the other dwellers in these regions, unless it be the Issedonians. But in my opinion, even the Issedonians are silent concerning them; otherwise the Scythians would have repeated their statements, as they do those concerning the one-eyed men. Hesiod, however, mentions them, and Homer also in the Epigoni, if that be really a work of his.

But the persons who have by far the most to say on this subject are the Delians. They declare that certain offerings, packed in wheaten straw, were brought from the country of the Hyperboreans into Scythia, and that the Scythians received them and passed them on to their neighbours upon the west, who continued to pass them on until at last they reached the Adriatic. From hence they were sent southward, and when they came to Greece, were received first of all by the Dodonaeans.

Thence they descended to the Maliac Gulf, from which they were carried across into Euboea, where the people handed them on from city to city, till they came at length to Carystus. The Carystians took them over to Tenos, without stopping at Andros; and the Tenians brought them finally to Delos. Such, according to their own account, was the road by which the offerings reached the Delians.

Two damsels, they say, named Hyperoche and Laodice, brought the first offerings from the Hyperboreans; and with them the Hyperboreans sent five men to keep them from all harm by the way; these are the persons whom the Delians call "Perpherees," and to whom great honours are paid at Delos.

Afterwards the Hyperboreans, when they found that their messengers did not return, thinking it would be a grievous thing always to be liable to lose the envoys they should send, adopted the following plan:- they wrapped their offerings in the wheaten straw, and bearing them to their borders, charged their neighbours to send them forward from one nation to another, which was done accordingly, and in this way the offerings reached Delos.

I myself know of a practice like this, which obtains with the women of Thrace and Paeonia. They in their sacrifices to the queenly Artemis bring wheaten straw always with their offerings. Of my own knowledge I can testify that this is so.

The damsels sent by the Hyperboreans died in Delos; and in their honour all the Delian girls and youths are wont to cut off their hair. The girls, before their marriage-day, cut off a curl, and twining it round a distaff, lay it upon the grave of the strangers. This grave is on the left as one enters the precinct of Artemis, and has an olive-tree growing on it. The youths wind some of their hair round a kind of grass, and, like the girls, place it upon the tomb. Such are the honours paid to these damsels by the Delians.

They add that, once before, there came to Delos by the same road as Hyperoche and Laodice, two other virgins from the Hyperboreans, whose names were Arge and Opis. Hyperoche and Laodice came to bring to Ilithyia the offering which they had laid upon themselves, in acknowledgment of their quick labours; but Arge and Opis came at the same time as the gods of Delos,' and are honoured by the Delians in a different way.

For the Delian women make collections in these maidens' names, and invoke them in the hymn which Olen, a Lycian, composed for them; and the rest of the islanders, and even the Ionians, have been taught by the Delians to do the like. This Olen, who came from Lycia, made the other old hymns also which are sung in Delos.

The Delians add that the ashes from the thigh-bones burnt upon the altar are scattered over the tomb of Opis and Arge. Their tomb lies behind the temple of Artemis, facing the east, near the banqueting-hall of the Ceians. Thus much then, and no more, concerning the Hyperboreans.

As for the tale of Abaris, who is said to have been a Hyperborean, and to have gone with his arrow all round the world without once eating, I shall pass it by in silence. Thus much, however, is clear: if there are Hyperboreans, there must also be Hypernotians.

For my part, I cannot but laugh when I see numbers of persons drawing maps of the world without having any reason to guide them; making, as they do, the ocean-stream to run all round the earth, and the earth itself to be an exact circle, as if described by a pair of compasses, with Europe and Asia just of the same size. The truth in this matter I will now proceed to explain in a very few words, making it clear what the real size of each region is, and what shape should be given them.

Once we are in Greece the goddess is of course Artemis. (Diana is a Roman goddess and not quite the same as Artemis).

Hyberboreans were described as the people living north-most and north of all known people. A rich background must have supplied a suite with the two girls and five followers. A qualified guess is then that they came from the south-east part of Scandinavia. From about 1400 BC? we have the finest big example in the Kivik grave. There we see several elements that must have come from Greece. I guess he or she was a trader bartering with the Aegean sphere. They have also learnt some craftsmanship especially in Greece.

Delos was the birthplace of Apollo, the Sun and Artemis, the New Moon told in the tales we have. According to the sentence: " but Arge and Opis came at the same time as the gods of Delos ..." this should be about 700 BC when the temples to Apollo and Artemis were build. It can have been earlier and naturally these deities are much elder than that. But the tales follows the normal patterns that if not the deities were foreign so were the helpers and servants.

Hyperoche and Laodice came to bring offerings to Ilithyia that was the goddess of birth giving. That tells us that the Greek pantheon was known even in north. Further we can search for elements in the Nordic culture we can associate with southern myths. Artemis was also known as the goddess of wilderness and fields.

We have some place names on the theme "field-ing" but she was known in several names as the new moon. Locks of hair have been found in Danish bogs and we can suggest that was up to the Artemis custom. Or maybe it was to her sister the Morning Star symbolised with a a star was known as Eostre until Christianity brought Maria.

We should not be too serious about the Greek myths. In Scandinavia they usually tell the myth in one way and it was so and so. If you change the story they tell you are wrong. But when a Greek like Kerenyi tells tales he gives variant from the different landscapes in Greece. So be prepared for many variants.