collection 01
Objects you can verify
Not illustrations “of the period,” but objects with a findspot, date and museum record. Every link leads to where verification begins rather than where the story ends.
digital cabinet
Objects with inventory numbers
Four objects that lead straight to a museum database. Where no local image is cleared, the cabinet remains an honest record rather than replacing the object with an illustration.
3001031
A dirham with runes
Minted in Baghdad, the coin later received a runic inscription. It links the Islamic world and the Baltic through one specific object rather than a generic illustration.
- date
- 808–809 CE
- material
- silver · 2.82 g
- findspot
- Lingsarve, Gotland
- context
- hoard
Photo: Ola Myrin / SHM · CC BY 4.0
107173_HST
The Mästermyr axe
The museum describes this axe first of all as a universal tool for timber and woodland work. It restores an object’s double life beyond the familiar image of a weapon.
- date
- 800–1100 CE
- material
- iron
- findspot
- Mästermyr, Gotland
- context
- bog find
Museum-card photo: Helena Bonnevier / SHM · CC BY 4.0
528596_HST
An armring fragment
Only part of an ornament stamped with triangles and dots survives. The fragment matters more than a false sense of wholeness: archaeology almost always works with incomplete objects.
- date
- 800–1100 CE
- material
- copper alloy
- findspot
- Håringe, Småland
- context
- barrow D7a
Museum-card photo: Sara Kusmin / SHM · CC BY 4.0
107730_HST
A comb with its case
This grave object reminds us that daily life was not a backdrop to voyages. Grooming, craft and personal belongings leave their own traces in the ground.
- date
- 800–1100 CE
- material
- bone and horn
- findspot
- Tuna, Uppland
- context
- grave III
Museum-card photo: Yliali Asp / SHM · CC BY 4.0