Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. Old Norse cosmology as an archaeological challenge -- Cosmological aspects of Old Norse religion -- The chronological and spatial horizons of Old Norse cosmology -- Archaeology and Old Norse cosmology -- Three archaeological studies -- 2. In the shadow of Yggdrasill -- Mythological trees -- Real trees -- Representations of trees -- The archaeology of 'tree settings' -- The semiotics of the 'tree settings' -- The world from the view-point of 'tree settings' -- The tree in Old Norse religion -- 3. A world of stone -- A biography of Ismantorp -- �Olandic comparisons -- Scandinavian forts -- Outlines of an early Scandinavian martial culture -- War as ritualized action -- War and cosmology -- Models and parallels -- Back to Ismantorp -- Ismantorp and Old Norse cosmology -- 4. Whirls, horses, and ships -- Early picture stones on Gotland -- New contexts -- An initial pictorial analysis -- A return trip to Bronze Age iconography -- Bridging the gap between Eskelhem and Sanda -- Bronze Age perspectives on early Gotlandic picture stones -- Metalwork in the Iron Age -- A special case: the gold bracteates -- Iron Age perspectives on early Gotlandic picture stones -- The sun in later mythological contexts -- Tracing sun rituals -- The disappearance of solar symbols and sun rituals in the sixth century -- Solar traditions through time -- 5. Placing Old Norse cosmology in time and space -- Different trajectories -- The Migration Period as a cluster of changes -- The Huns -- The dust veil -- The disappearance of the sun-oriented traditions in the sixth century -- A golden age -- Outlines of a new context -- References -- Primary Old Norse sources -- Other primary sources and secondary literature.

The study of Old Norse religion is a truly multidisciplinary and international field of research. The rituals, myths, and narratives of pre-Christian Scandinavia have been studied and interpreted in detail relying mainly on Christian Icelandic literature from the Middle Ages. Here, Anders Andr�en offers a long-term perspective on Old Norse cosmology and argues that the fundamental ideas of an ordered universe, time, and space in Old Norse religion can be studied in a dialogue between archaeology and the Icelandic narrative tradition. Ideas about the world tree, middle earth, and the sun can be traced in images and material culture from Scandinavian prehistory. By combining the prehistoric representations with the later written record the author presents a fresh and nuanced study of the fascinating Old Norse world.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2021. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.