GP 133 Hablingbo Havor II

Context and Discovery ⓘ
The cemetery of Havor lies in the southern part of Gotland, on the southern banks of the former lake and later moorland of Mästermyr, on the northern outskirts of Hablingbo parish, some kilometres east of the western shore of Gotland. The area, which today is widely forested, stretches around 750 meters from east-northeast to west-southwest on a gravel ridge. Around 260 of approximately 370 registered graves were excavated, dating from the Pre-Roman Iron Age to the late Viking Age, with a hiatus in the late Vendel Period and the Early Viking Age (Nylén 1955, pp. 61–64; Toplak, in press). The north-eastern and probably oldest part of the cemetery was heavily disturbed by gravel extraction from the middle of the 19th century onwards, which led to the discovery of the picture stone GP 132 Hablingbo Havor I, and the extent as well as the original number of burials in this area remain uncertain. Some smaller groups of graves can be found at the southwestern periphery of the cemetery, either constituting the outer edges of the burial area or belonging to separate cemeteries. The cemetery at Havor is part of a unique complex with an uninterrupted continuity of settlement from the late Bronze Age to the late Viking Age (Manneke 2005; Manneke et al. 2013). Approximately 800 meters east of the cemetery lies a ringfort, several buildings with stone foundations as well as the remains of further settlements in the immediately surrounding area. The ringfort was built no later than the end of the Pre-Roman Iron Age and was used in several phases at least until the end of the Migration Period as a meeting place and arena for socio-political or religious activities. Remains of settlements north of the ringfort can be dated back to the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age and are therefore slightly older than the earliest burials from the Pre-Roman Iron Age in the cemetery. Several stone foundations south of the ringfort and the rich finds from settlements, graves and the ringfort – such as Roman imports or golden jewellery and especially a unique hoard with a golden neck ring (Nylén 1962; 2005) – bear witness to the great regional significance of Havor as a socio-political or religious central place in the Roman Iron Age and the Migration Period. Following a decline of Havor in the Vendel Period, the late Viking Age burials attest a revival of the local society, probably due to increasing trading activities, but also a significant return to older traditions such as the re-use of older graves or the incorporation of picture stones in burials (Toplak 2022; in press).

The picture stone was found during the excavation of the cemetery of Havor in 1886. It was discovered in a late Viking Age grave (grave No. 191) where it was re-used as grave slab together with six partly fragmented picture stones (GP 134–138 Hablingbo Havor III–VII; the seventh stone is missing), similar to several other picture stones on Gotlandic Viking Age cemeteries (see Burström 1996; Thunmark-Nylén 1995–2006 III, pp. 582–584; Rundkvist 2012; Toplak 2022; Oehrl/Toplak, in press). The grave – a shallow burial mound with the inhumation of a male gendered individual with the head to the south – was located in a separated group of late Viking Age burials in the western area of the cemetery (see Toplak 2022). The deceased was buried in a supine position with dress accessories including two penannular brooches and a belt with eastern-type belt mounts as well as a knife, a comb, a fire striker, a clay pot and a large bronze bowl, which was probably imported to Gotland from the Frankish realm (Thunmark-Nylén 1995–2006 IV, p. 302; Toplak 2022, in press). The seven limestone slabs (labelled A–F by Gustafson) were arranged as a cover slab, based on two 3,3 m long rows of eight and nine fieldstones, respectively, that framed the 0,4–0,5-m broad burial pit. The obverses of the picture stones were facing downwards towards the burial. According to a rough sketch of the grave slab in situ, made by Gustafson during the excavation, the picture stone Hablingbo Havor II (stone A according to Gustafson’s designation) formed the southern end of the grave slab directly above the head of the deceased.

All seven picture stones were re-erected in the vicinity of the grave after the end of the excavation season in 1886. While the other five picture stones from grave 191 (GP 134–138 Hablingbo Havor III–VII; the sixth picture stone is lost) were moved from their location in the cemetery in Nilsson’s Träskhage (marshy pasture) to the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm as early as 1918 during a visit by Fredrik Nordin, the picture stone Hablingbo Havor II remained at the burial ground for almost two more decades. In 1910, during his last visit on Gotland, Gustafson examined the seven picture stones which he had excavated in 1886 and could not identify any serious damage on the picture stone. Nevertheless, in the 1930s moving the picture stone to a protected place such as Hablingbo church was discussed to prevent further damage to the stone, which was only covered with a tarpaulin during winter. In 1937, Sune Lindqvist suggested bringing the picture stone to Visby to consider the interests of the local population, where it was placed in Gotlands Fornsal in October of the same year.

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GP 132 Hablingbo Havor I
GP 134 Hablingbo Havor III
GP 135 Hablingbo Havor IV
GP 136 Hablingbo Havor V
GP 137 Hablingbo Havor VI
GP 138 Hablingbo Havor VII

Measurements, Material and Condition ⓘ
“Limestone slab, 16–18 cm thick on average. The obverse is almost flat, surely hewn to a certain degree. The narrow sides commonly are dressed in an acute angle towards the obverse, with a chamfer of about 1 cm width between them. The upper and vertical narrow sides are slightly concave in profile. […] The reverse is slightly convex and probably unworked. Height of the stone above the root (at a level with the lower limits of the hewn vertical edges) is 110 cm. Along the vertical axis, the decoration extends down 112 cm below the stone’s upper edge. The width between the upper corners is 100 cm, halfway down, it is 87.5 cm, at the base 88.5 cm.” (Lindqvist 1941/42 II, pp. 54–55). The shape of the picture stone Hablingbo Havor II corresponds to a rectangle with a convex upper narrow side with vertical edges extending outwards and a short flared ‘root’. Compared to the picture stone GP 132 Hablingbo Havor I, the picture stone Hablingbo Havor II is considerably more compact.

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GP 132 Hablingbo Havor I

Description of Ornament and Images ⓘ
According to Lindqvist (1941/42 II, p. 55), “the decoration is executed with chiselled bands of about 1 mm depth and varying width (commonly 1–2.5 cm). Bands are accompanied by approximately 1-cm-long and 2-mm-wide lines with rounded bases that stand at right angles to the band’s edges. Similar chiselled lines occasionally appear to form the band’s contours, but mostly the bands are defined by the same fine chisel lines running parallel to the bands and also filling the band’s inner surfaces. The chamfers toward the narrow sides at a distance of about 1 cm are accompanied by shallow grooves that at the right and left edges are not quite 1 cm wide but reach a width of 1.5 cm towards the top.” The upper narrow side is decorated with a broad border with stylised floral tendril ornamentation with the central ‘leaf’ formed like an animal’s head.

Along the vertical edges, broad borders without contour lines run down toward the root, decorated with a ‘running dog scroll’ motif with stylised animal heads on all its terminals that resembles the zoomorphic meander in the ‘Maison des Dauphins’ in Delos (c. 100 BC) (Holmqvist 1952a, pp. 14–16; Oehrl 2019a, p. 25, fn. 254). The gaps between the curved bands of the ‘running dogs’ form triangular spandrels that represent the necks of the animal heads. As Lindqvist (1941/42 II, p. 55) notes, “apparently all have been chiselled in completely; only once there seems to be a triangle in the middle that clearly was left standing.” From the mouths of the two uppermost animal heads, curled tongues reach into the centre of the stone. As on GP 132 Hablingbo Havor I, the central motif is a large roundel, measuring 46,0 cm in diameter but with a looped square (Saint Hannes cross (St. John’s cross) or Bowen knot which also appears on a gold bracteate, dating to the late Roman Iron Age or early Migration Perion (Oehrl 2019a, pp. 22–23) instead of the whirl rosette. This looped square as a motif in the central roundel is an exception, the so-called “Vallstena-Havor-typus” according to Sigmund Oehrl (2019a, pp. 9, 125, fn. 1156; see also Guber 2011, pp. 43–47). Below the roundel, two upright, standing, stylised antithetical animal figures are depicted whose bodies are similar to the s-shaped loops of the vertical borders. A circular ornament is depicted between their wide-open mouths.

The reading of the decoration is relatively consistent on the different representations of the picture stone such as the drawing by Olof Sörling (Lindqvist 1941/42 II, p. 55) and the repainting by Lindqvist (Lindqvist 1941/42 I, fig. 23). The only difference is the more precise reconstruction of the lower part of the picture stone with the two upright, standing animal figures, which are only partially reproduced in Sörling’s drawing. However, Gustafson had arrived at the same interpretation of the lower section of the centre field in his last examination of the stone in 1910, as can be seen in a sketch in one of his notebooks (Lindqvist 1941/42 II, p. 55). Contrary to what was initially assumed by several researchers – including Rutger Sernander, Nordin and cautiously also Gustafson – there were, however, no remains of the original (presumed) painting on the stone.

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GP 132 Hablingbo Havor I

Interpretation of the Imagery ⓘ
Similar to the whorl rosette, surrounded by a corona of rays or spikes, on the picture stone GP 132 Hablingbo Havor I, the looped square in the centre of Hablingbo Havor II can also be interpreted as a symbol of the sun (Oehrl 2019a, pp. 120, 124–125). More elaborate information on the possible interpretation of whirl motifs as sun symbols and the iconography of the Type A picture stones is available in the article on GP 350 Sanda kyrka IV.

Since the upright, standing, antithetical animal figures below the central motif might be regarded as ceto- or dragon-like (sea) creatures analogous to other early picture stones (Oehrl 2019a, p. 109) and the stylised animals of the ‘running dog scroll’ motif of the broad borders resemble sea creatures such as dolphins in antique zoomorphic meanders such as in Delos (Lindqvist 1941/42 I, p. 89; Holmqvist 1952, pp. 10–16), the entire scene could be interpreted as rise of the life-giving sun from the sea (or perhaps from the underworld). If this interpretation was understood by the late Viking Age society at Havor, the position of the picture stone Hablingbo Havor II with its obverse facing the head of the deceased might reflect ideas of some form of a spiritual rebirth in the afterlife. In contrast, based on the interpretation of spiral roundels as labyrinthine symbols for the underworld, as suggested by Karl Hauck (1983a, pp. 546–547, 578–579; 1983b, pp. 444–445; see Oehrl 2019a, p. 125), the entire scene could depict and thus anticipate the deceased’s journey to the world beyond.

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GP 132 Hablingbo Havor I
GP 350 Sanda kyrka IV

Type and Dating ⓘ
Axe-shaped picture stone representing an Early Type monument, belonging to Lindqvist’s “Abschnitt” A (circa AD 400–600; Lindqvist 1941/42 I, pp. 28, 110; see also Oehrl 2019a, pp. 8–10). Lindqvist classifies the fragment as representative of the first “Großsteingruppe”, group 5 – “Havor-Austers-Gruppe”, named after the stones Hablingbo Havor II and GP 172 Hangvar Austers. Characteristic of this group of monuments, consisting only of these two stones, is the significantly reduced height in relation to the width. In contrast, Hauck (1983a, pp. 543–545) classifies Hablingbo Havor II as representative for his type V (type V,4), defined by a spiral roundel as central motif. Martin Rundkvist, in turn, suggests a typological classification of the outline shapes of the picture stones and defines Hablingbo Havor II as Type dwarf1 (Rundkvist 2012, pp. 155–160, table 3).

A later dating to the 6th and 7th centuries as suggested by Wilhelm Holmqvist (1976, p. 563) was rejected by Oehrl (2019, p. 10). Lindqvist’s dating to the Migration Period finds support in the archaeological material from the cemetery of Havor which demonstrates a final phase of socio-political, economical, and perhaps even religious importance of the society at Havor and a rapid decline during the early Vendel Period (Toplak, in press).

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GP 172 Hangvar Austers II

References ⓘ
Lindqvist 1941/42 I, pp. 23, 28, 33, fig. 23, 26*; II, pp. 54–55, fig. 367, 373; 1962, 11; Holmqvist 1952a, pp. 8, 13–16; Lamm/Nylén 2003, pp. 38–39; Hauck 1983a, pp. 545, 551, fig. 9; Hauck 1983b, pp. 444–445; Thunmark-Nylén 1995–2006 III, p. 583; Guber 2011, p. 122 cat. no. 25; Oehrl 2019a, pp. 9–10, 23, 25, 109, 120, 125; II, table 1, 87; Rundkvist 2012, pp. 151, table 2, 152, 157, fig. 5a, 159, table 3; Toplak 2022, p. 88; Oehrl/Toplak, in press; Toplak, in press.

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