Are many Vendel and Viking Period gaming pieces made of whale bone (original) (raw)

Gaming pieces from the late Iron Age are frequently found in burials and most often interpreted as made of antler or bone (from large terrestrial animals) without any further analysis of the material being made. When studying the gaming pieces and the raw material in detail, we have sometimes noticed than none of the above mentioned materials correspond with the bone structure of the artefacts found. Influenced from recent studies of gaming pieces from the Salme boat burials, we decided to study the raw material of some 40 gaming pieces found in a large burial mound in Gnista, just outside Uppsala. The study sheds light on a little known large scale production of whale bone products during the Vendel period. It highlights Viking age whale bone handicrafts and, importantly, the long distance trading networks of Scandinavia during this period.