Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2007, Page 45

Nails, Rivets, and Clench Bolts: A Case for Typological Clarity
1) simple box constructed
with clench bolts
2) simple box constructed
with nails
Figure 6. Schematic drawings of box construction using clench bolts and nails
wood around them and clenched a length
of 12-26 mm between the head and the
rove. In Iceland, at the Hrísbrú cemetery
dating from the late 10th—1 lth centu-
ries, a similar burial with three clearly
defined lines of clench bolts and two
additional burials with numerous jum-
bled clench bolts were uncovered in 2002
and 2004 (Byock et at. 2005a; Byock et
al. 2005b). The majority of these clench
bolts, clenching a length between 10 and
20 mm, were similar in length to those
uncovered at Fyrkat. It seems likely that
the clench bolts in these graves represent
pieces of boats. The lengths of the clench
bolts at Fyrkat and Hrísbrú are shorter
than would be expected for the planks of
a clinker built ship, but fit more closely to
boards from a small boat.
The interpretation of boats or
pieces of boats interred with the deceased
is supported by evidence from the 8th-9th
century cemetery of Caister-on-Sea in
eastern England, where 12 out of the 150
inhumation burials contained clench bolts
(Carver 1995: 116-117). Martin Carver
(1995: 117) observes that none of these
burials contain a whole boat, but that the
“riveted timbers were more likely to have
derived from pieces of clinker-built boats
than any other source.” Also, at the exca-
vation at Sebbersund, an 8th—12th century
coastal trading site in northern Jutland
in Denmark, Peter Birkedahl and Erik
Johansen (1995) argue that the clench
bolts found in 41 out of 468 excavated
graves are remnants of broken boat parts
used by poor fishermen.
The important question is
whether the deposition of boat pieces in
graves served a purely functional role,
such as Birkedahl and Johansen suggest
(1995: 162-163), or whether the practice
had wider symbolic meaning for the indi-
viduals burying their dead. Considering,
for example, the postulated poverty of the
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