Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2009, Page 35

ICELANDIC VlKING AGE GRAVES: LaCK IN MATERIAL - LACK OF INTERPRETATION?
burial we do not usually see the dead, or
even anything that reminds us of them,
which admittedly affects our experience
of the whole ceremony. If the different
constituents of a Viking Age grave and
their physical proximity to one another
were visible during the funeral, it would
have created a (new) context of visible
relations between them in the eyes of the
observers, whether or not such relations
existed or were known earlier. As argued
by Howard Williams (2005, 256-257)
the grave collective, composed by the
body, animals and artifacts, formed a
“symbolic text” whose reading was an
important part of the ritual performance,
as well as the construction of social
memory. However, the whole dimension
of the relationships displayed would not
have been available to everyone present.
Conditioned by the personal knowledge
and life histories of the participants, as
well as the objects exhibited, the range of
relations evoked was almost infínite, and
at the same time involved a certain
degree of secrecy. It was as impossible
for those participating as it is to us to
identify the whole scope of identities and
relations entangled, while the material
actually at hand does give us reason to
infer.
What all funerals have in common is
that they are driven by the death of a
person and gathered around his or her
material remains. In a modern Westem
perspective the dead body is generally
regarded as inert, vulnerable and defence-
less matter. Deprived of the mind/self
that once occupied and animated it the
corpse is thought of as a numb and empty
shell incapable of action (Hallam and
Hockey 2001, 133). However as the
“object” around which the collective
practice circulates, the physical presence
of the dead body may be argued to affect
those burying, not only emotionally but
by tying them together, temporarily at
least, in an actor-network (cf. e.g. Latour
1999) and insist on that the action is ful-
filled. As pointed out by Hallam and
Hockey (2001, 109) the dead body may
thus be conceived of as a “boundary
being”. It is simultaneously the material
residue of life and the physical indicator
of death. This comes close to what Michel
Serres (1987) and Bruno Latour (1993,
51ff.) would call a “quasi-object” - an
indefínable hybrid in between the dimen-
sions of life and death, mind and matter,
culture and nature. Through its ambigu-
ous status, the physical remains of a
deceased person, the corpse, can be con-
sidered as an archetype of a biographical
or memory object as it stands “...not
only as a material reminder of the embod-
ied, living person, but as a medium
through which the dead might communi-
cate directly with the living” (Hallam and
Hockey 2001, 134).
Howard Williams (2004) has criti-
cized how, despite the emphasis on agen-
cy, recent archaeological research on
burial and death rituals have tended to be
“mourner-centred”, and thus failed to
recognize the centrality of the dead body
in this social and mnemonic act. However,
as argued by Williams and others (see
e.g. Fowler 2001) societies may have dif-
ferent conceptions of death and its affect
on the body and personhood. Thus,
through the transition of death (Hertz
1960 cited in Williams 2004) the body
and identity may, in some contexts, con-
tinue to be closely entangled, and the
“corporeal presence” of the dead person
can thus allow it to affect the living, their
experience and the act of burial.
Therefore, although the dead do not
33