Sound and Music of the Vikings: Understanding the Younger Iron Age Scandinavians Through Their Instruments

Abstract This master thesis explores sounds and music in Younger Iron Age Scandinavia. I will discuss the use of music archaeology as a discipline to help understand the meaning behind and of Viking Age music and sounds. The aim of this thesis is to research the music traditions of Younger Iron Age Scandinavia by analysing their sound-producing devices and therefore elaborate on the connection between academic and artistic interpretations of historical instruments and music. My assessment is based on archaeological material found in burials over the Southern half of Norway, which contain sound-producing devices. This data has been comprised into a dataset for analysis. Textual and iconographic sources are also key components in understanding the music of the era and region. I will use both Snorre’s sagas and the ‘Codex Runicus’, a Danish law book from the 1300s, to help structure an idea of what the music sounded like, as well as determine the meaning of these sounds and its effect on Old Norse people. Music archaeology is a reasonably new subdiscipline of archaeology, and the topic of sounds and music of Younger Iron Age Scandinavia has not yet received the academic attention it deserves. I am glad to be able to contribute to this topic in a meaningful and hopefully influential way