Museum Guide

Usually we say that don't use websites as high-value sources, but that referring to tertiary sources written by non experts. In this case, you get to see primary sources, the actual objects!

This means you get to do your OWN analysis! This is very exciting, but can feel intimidating. There are some big advantages to looking for your own patterns in the data. Below, I am listing SOME possible things you can do with the museum information:

•Frequency/commonality/how unusual is this item?

•At least within this context

•What did the common man have/wear/own? ORDINARY objects.

•Variations on the ONE pretty one you usually see

•Associated items in the grave/context

•Size of the object

•Tool marks and wear (sometimes) •Where found on the person (sometimes)

•Leads back to OTHER research (e.g. what is the societal value of these things? What were these used for?)

A great many of us spend lots of time looking at extant items from the Viking ages that are laid out in the many books published by large museums to showcase the very best of their Viking Age collection. While filled with awesome things these books are generally only the very fanciest of items and most of the museums have much broader collections that include not only fancy things but also a wide spectrum of everyday life items. While not as beautiful these items can be very instructive, and yield great insight to, the workings of life for average people in the Viking Age. The trick is getting the chance to look at this broader collection. If you do not happen to be lucky enough to live in, or often visit, the great cities of Scandinavia the websites of the larger museums do contain resources to search their collections. These collection searches can be tricky to find so I have compiled a list of the ones I use. I will add to it as I figure out new ones.

Swedish Museum of National Antiquities

Collection search at: http://mis.historiska.se/mis/sok/sok.asp?sakord=nål&rd_max=323&rd_min=322&typ=fotografi&searchmode=&qmode=&qtype=bild&sort=ASC&orderby=upptagning.namn&sm=0_6&pagesize=6

Yes it is in Swedish, but that is part of the fun. With a little time and some patience it is really easy to use. This is my favorite museum site.

There are LOTS more details on this site at the bottom of this page, and very soon we'll have a more detailed guide (and maybe a video!)

http://mis.historiska.se/mis/sok/sok.asp?sakord=nål&rd_max=323&rd_min=322&typ=fotografi&searchmode=&qmode=&qtype=bild&sort=ASC&orderby=upptagning.namn&sm=0_6&pagesize=6

The site is in Swedish, but we'll manage. So, there are several sections.

Vad

Var

Nar

The top one, vad, is WHAT you are looking for.

Nar is WHEN the finds are from.

They all have drop down menus, or definition menus that you can go to, to choose categories.

Nar is pretty simple, just set it to "vikingatid" (both from and to)

Now let's go back up to the top.

The top one is Sakord, which is the things. Like, if you want a knife, select "kniv". If you want a bead, select "parla". This one can take some experimenting with. Apron pins are....something about spannbuckla? Anyway, you'll have fun with this part, grin.

The next one is Typ. This is the subset of whatever you picked under Sakord. If there are no subsets, this will be blank. If you didn't pick anything under Sakord, it will be totally full of really random words.

I'm unclear a little about Del, it appears to be combinations of stuff? meh.

Material is what it is made of. So you could pick "parla" above, and then "glas" here so you can get all the glass beads.

Go down to the bottom and click the "SOK" button (that's search)

So, now you have found a cool thing, so let's find some more information!

Sometimes you get just a picture, and you have to click on this link to get the info; Visa information om bilden.

Now you should be on a page with the photo on the left side, and a table of information on the right side. Super cool, eh? It tells you where it was found, what it is made of, etc! I'll let you have fun figuring out all the categories, but one of them leads you to a new set of information, so let's talk about that.

The important category in this case is Undernummer. This gives the grave number where whatever it is was found. Some don't have one if they were found someplace else, but most of the finds do have a grave number. It can be very important to figure out what all was found together. So, let's go find all the stuff from that grave! I copy the grave number, and open a new tab or window. Go back to the first search page, but this time notice that there are several tabs next to each other. You want the one that says "Foremal".

Now put your grave number under the "Undernummer", and click the "SOK" button. These are all the finds from that grave! Hooray!

Here are some useful words, translated to English

There are lots of other museam websites, but some are more useful than others. I'm listing them below, some I have limited instructions on, others are not something I have explored.

British Museum

Collection search at : http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database.aspx

I find this search hard to use but it is worth looking at as the collection is so extensive.

Museums in Norway

Photo search at : http://www.unimus.no/foto/#

http://tumuseum.tumblr.com/post/92660766819/womens-jewelry-silver-amulet-9-10-cc-slavs

National Museums Scotland

http://www.nms.ac.uk/explore/collection-search-results/?item_id=369390

http://en.natmus.dk/digital-collections/

http://getty.edu/art/collection/

http://www.yorkarchaeology.co.uk/resources/picture-library/picture-library-2/

https://www.cmog.org/research/library/search-library