Härskarna i Uppåkra och Lejre. Om förkristna härskarideal i arkeologiskt material från två sydskandinaviska kontexter.

Sammanfattning

This study aims to investigate the concept of pre-Christian rulership in archaeological material. The information on ruler ideology from Scandinavian contexts before Christianity was established in the region is often derived from written sources from the Christian period. In this study, those rulership ideals are compared to the archaeological findings from Uppåkra in Sweden and Lejre in Denmark, two locations with similar status of central places in the later part of the Iron Age period. The results indicate that while many of the functions of rulership in the written materiel also can be found in the archaeological findings, the ruler him- or herself is not always visible. A possible conclusion is that the functions therefore was not necessarily connected solely to the ruler’s person in the way that is indicated in the written sources. The results also indicate a difference in which aspects of rulership ideology that was emphasised in the two different locations. A possible conclusion is that rulership ideology was less uniform in the pre-Christian era compared with the following period.