Whenever you heard about the Vikings, it is not always that their jewelry comes to your mind. Most of the people think the Vikings were raiders and savages who have shields, swords, and spears. These were the people who raided Europe and ruled there. Anyway, there is not much any written history about them. But do you know that they also made beautiful and unique rings, necklaces and bracelets? Most of the norse jewelry was made up of iron, gold, bronze, resin, and amber. At the start, in 800 AD, the jewelry was very simple. As time passes, it becomes more sophisticated and detailed.
Use of Jewelry in Vikings
All the information we have explains how much they like their jewelry. Actually, the Vikings were farmers and warriors. Despite the gender, the Viking men and women both high -quality shiny objects. Another interesting thing is that the norse ornaments are not only used as jewelry but they were also working as a currency. From this, we can understand the importance of crafting jewelry. They trade each other with norse ornaments. If a piece of ornament is too large for the trade, then they broke into small pieces.
Moreover, the ornaments made these days were not all metallic. The Viking people also use different beautiful stones and ornaments in their jewelry. According to our research, most of the Vikings do not bother to put stones in their jewelry.
The Viking people wear beautiful hand-crafted necklaces. These necklaces are made using different precious metals such as bronze, silver, and gold. Moreover, they use precious stones, amber, and resin in their jewelry too. Most of the commonly use metal to craft necklaces was glass. That explains why they produce glass on a high scale. Pendants in the necklace were normally used as the symbol or for the gift. The archeologists have found necklace was more used in Viking age compared to the neck rings. Anyhow, they are not very sure about the gender who wore them. Because most of these artifacts are found in grace sites and hoards. Many believe that these were used as a currency and wore by both of the genders. They think that it was a way of showing their wealth. Moreover, the weight of a necklace describes its value.
Amulets and Pendants
There were many kinds of pendants such as Valknut pendants, Mjolnir pendants, etc. The hammer of Thor has frequently seen on the pendants. Moreover, they wore different others too such as axes, the tree of life, Valknut symbols, arrowheads etc. Most of these amulets are found in the graves which explains that they were not wearing commonly. The use of the cross in Viking jewelry does not explain. Actually, at the Viking age, the Christians missionaries were trying to convert people. There is a chance that the Norsemen were adopted the religion. However, many few of these pendants were found which means that many few Vikings were Christian.
The Viking people also used beads in their jewelry which is commonly made up of glass and amber. The beads are also used in the modern age. They are very cheap and many people use it in their facial hair. However, the archeologists have found many few of them in the graves. Maybe they are used, but the use was not very common at that age. Most of these beads are found alone or with pendants. So, it may be used for a symbol or they were rare and precious. However, they found only two to three beads per necklace that may be because they were used for showing status or wealth.