Flying Daggers, Horse Whisperers and a Midwinter Sacrifice: Creating the Past during the Viking Age and Early Middle Ages

Abstract

This paper sets out to trace the life history of a horse skull found in a bog in Scania in the year 1900. A parallel is drawn between the find of the horse and the famous painting, "Midwinter Sacrifice" by Carl Larsson. The story of the horse has opened up a discussion on how material culture is created and recreated in time and space, resulting in completely new communicative fields. The manifestation of the past and the reuse of Stone Age places and artefacts are brought into focus when the author discusses the location where the horse skull was originally found.