1. Home
  2. Issues
2020
No. Nr (13), Oral History - Emotions 2019
No. (12), Public History 2018
No. (11), Cultural History of Knowledge 2017
No. (10), Anthropology – Folklore – History 2016
No. (9), Cultural Heritage 2015
No. (8), Anthropology and History 2014
No. 1 (6), Semiotics of History No. 2 (7), History and Gender 2013
No. 1 (4), On Representation No. 2 (5), Genealogies of Culture 2012
No. 2 (3), Readings of the Past No. 1 (2), Anthropology / history of the Contemporary World 2011
No. 1-2 (1), Preliminaries
ISSN 2084–1418
The paper edition of the Anthropology of History Yearbook is the definitive version

2014, No. 1 (6), Semiotics of History

Andrzej P. Kowalski
Germanic taboo: the presence of jewellery and the absence of weapons in Gothic burials

PDF version
Keywords: Goths, Wielbark culture, burial rituals, taboo, Germanic mythology, Gothic vocabulary

Abstract:
The article is an attempt at interpreting a peculiar burial practice noted by archaeologists in the Wielbark culture, attributed to the Germanic Goths. In the first centuries AD on the territories of present-day northern and eastern Poland, graves contained jewellery, while weapons and tools were avoided. The visible contrast between silver jewellery and iron objects may correspond to certain social and mythological classifications. The author, using an anthropological structuralist analysis, puts forward the hypothesis that there was a taboo that stemmed from identifying the signs of masculinity, warlike spirit, and using weapons with life and openness. Objects associated with femininity, such as jewellery, may have been linked to the ‘other world’, the hidden funerary space. The contrast in question was an effect of political events involving Germanic tribes and a reflection of old mythical values concerning warriors, women, metallurgists, and objects associated with them.

About Author:
ANDRZEJ P. KOWALSKI – philosopher, anthropologist of culture, Professor in the Institute of Archaeology of the University of Gdańsk.

References
Go back