GP 556 Väskinde Björkome I

Context and Discovery ⓘ
There is not much information about the find circumstances. Lindqvist only notes that: “This stone was found by [Fredrik Nordin] in 1883 when it served as a floor slab in the culvert under the ‘Stenbro’ bridge (1 km south of the church, mark 45.7 on the topographical map 1:100,000, sheet Visby, 1890). It was transferred to SHM in the same year. Presumably, it originally stood in the nearby grave field” (1941/42 II, p. 142). Another picture stone, GP 550 Väskinde Björkome II, was found as a lintel stone in the northern corner of the culvert under the ‘Malmsbro’ bridge, which about 300 m northwest of the ‘Stenbro’ bridge, leading over of the same stream.
GP 550 Väskinde Björkome II

Measurements, Material and Condition ⓘ
The fragment, which is roughly in the shape of a parallelogram, represents an early-type picture stone whose head and lower part (base and root) are broken off. The lateral edges are preserved. “Limestone slab, 9–13 cm thick. The obverse in the main is smooth, but uneven, and possibly in some places hewn before being decorated. The left narrow side survives to a length of 64 cm and is curved inwards slightly more than 0.5 cm lengthwise, most clearly towards the upper end. The right narrow side survives to a length of up to 75 cm and is curved inwards 0.5 cm lengthwise. Both narrow sides are hewn flat at right angles towards the obverse, in places for their entire width (9 cm at the very bottom on the left side). They are separated from the obverse by a chamfer of about 1 cm width. The stone’s width between the surviving parts of the narrow sides is approximately 68 cm” (Lindqvist 1941/42 II, p. 142). Originally, the slab probably had a height of 170–200 cm (Hauck 1983a, p. 543, fig. XIV:30). The surface is well-preserved.

Description of Ornament and Images ⓘ
Lindqvist (1941/42 II, p. 142–143) describes the carvings as follows: “The decoration is executed with hewn lines of up to 5 mm width and 1 mm depth and chiselled background fields of equal depth in the borders, small roundels, and in every second of the crescent fields of the large roundel. In the 7-cm-wide framing borders, a stylised tendril is shown, with a zigzag-shaped stem and alternately emerging ‘leaves’. At the top of the field, a large roundel can be seen, the diameter of which was approximately 56 cm, and below it, two smaller roundels with a diameter of 22 cm and 19 cm, respectively, that both feature spiral decorations. They are connected by an s-shaped band. At the bottom, there is a watercraft that is defined only by a line for the railing, which strongly curves upward at both ends, five oars, two steering oars, and the contours of a high ‘cabin’.”

In “Gotlands Bildsteine” Lindqvist provides a drawing of the stone by Olof Sörling from 1911 (ibid. fig. 562; ATA run- och bildstenssamling 2440:23), a photograph of the untreated surface and a photograph of the stone painted with black paint (I, figs. 7, 10; taken in 1933 and 1937, ATA run- och bildstenssamling B3:89, 1718:18). Sörling’s drawing essentially matches Lindqvist’s painting, but the oars and rudder of the boat are clearly shorter and the roof of the ʻcabinʼ is only rudimentarily depicted. Also, on the photo of the unpainted stone, the pictorial details identified by Lindqvist are mostly comprehensible.

The stone belongs to the group of monuments that Karl Hauck in the 1950s re-analysed on the basis of latex impressions (detailed information on these studies and their evaluation, including all relevant literature and images: Oehrl 2019a, pp. 68–84, 286–287 and passim; regarding the Björkome stone, see pp. 152–154, figs. 135a–141b). Hauck sees in the ribbon winding around the two small rondels a snake turning with its mouth wide open towards a rider with shield and flag lance. In Hauck’s view, the boat is equipped with an animal head and a rolled-in stem; its hull, which Lindqvist only hints at by a railing line, can be seen in full in Hauck’s drawing (ibid. fig. 40c), in the form of several planks. The crew at the oars and rudders is also depicted, and on the roof of the cabin are four more men with round shields and flag lances. A spear with a large-barbed tip flies into the picture from the left, crosses the rolled-up sternpost and hovers over the stern.

As with most of Hauck’s new interpretations of picture stones, the essential part of the results in this case, too, could not be verified on the basis of detailed examination of the stone surface with the RTI method and with the aid of 3D models, or could even be proven wrong. However, Hauck is correct about some constructional details of the rowing boat (ibid. fig. 141b). Indeed, with the digital examination methods, parts of a hull can be detected, in the form of small remnants of the plank lines in the stern area. The same applies to the ring-shaped formations on the roof of the cabin, which Hauck interprets as shields. In fact, four very faint roundish structures can be seen at this point, especially above the right edge of the roof, which become much less distinct towards the left, but in their entirety appear quite uniform and intentional (ibid. figs. 138a–b, 139a–141b). Such a ring-shaped ornamentation of the roof is undoubtedly depicted on the Type A stones GP 350 Sanda kyrka IV, GP 197 Hellvi Ire IV, GP 428 Stenkyrka kyrka 46, and GP 43 Bro kyrka I. The snake’s head drawn by Hauck can also be made quite plausible based on 3D models.
GP 350 Sanda kyrka IV
GP 197 Hellvi Ire IV
GP 428 Stenkyrka kyrka 46
GP 43 Bro kyrka I

Interpretation of the Imagery ⓘ
For the interpretation of the large whorl motif, which is usually taken as a representation of the sun and interpreted in a cosmological and eschatological sense, the pair of smaller roundels which are frequently entwined by serpents, and the rowing boat, which probably represents a ship of the dead, see in detail the article on GP 350 Sanda kyrka IV.

The meaning of the rings on the roof of the cabin, which Hauck correctly recognised but misunderstood as shields of supposed flag bearers, remains unclear. It is also uncertain whether it is actually a chamber-like structure or rather a tent (Lindqvist 1941/1942 I, p. 62; Müller-Wille et al. 1978, p. 277), a canopy or perhaps a sun-roof (Althaus 1993, p. 10). Tent constructions on deck, in which the crew could sleep during longer voyages, are later recorded in the Icelandic sǫgur (Falk 1912, pp. 10–13). On the Type A picture stones, it could be a rather small tent, presumably for the laying out of a dead person (Ellmers 1986, p. 350). Such a “tent that was on the ship” is mentioned by the Arab diplomat Ahmad Ibn Faḍlān in his report on the burial of a Varangian prince on the Volga in 922 (Togan 1966, pp. 88–90). In a later addition, this construction is described as a kind of canopy: “[...] in the middle of the ship they set up a dome of wood, and that dome they cover with various kinds of cloth” (ibid. pp. 92–93). Such a covering of cloth could also be present in the case of the picture stones. Massive wooden burial chambers with gable roofs for the burial of the dead on deck have survived in some Vendel and Viking Age boat graves (Ellmers 1986, p. 350). In particular, the tent-shaped chamber in the prominent Anglo-Saxon royal tomb at Sutton Hoo, whose boat (Carver 2005, p. 181, figs. 85, 87) corresponds quite well to that of the picture stones, should be mentioned. The rings on the roof of the picture stone boats could simply be decoration, in the case of a massive roof they could be strung shields or perhaps supersized gold rings, which are supposed to represent the wealth of the burial (Oehrl 2019a, p. 154). However, it is also conceivable that we are dealing with rolled-up tent panels.
GP 350 Sanda kyrka IV

Type and Dating ⓘ
The fragment represents a tall early-type picture stone, i.e. Type A according to Lindqvist’s typology (“Abschnitt” A), dating to about AD 400 to 600. Lindqvist assigns it to the Martebotypus (1941/42 I, pp. 27–28), which he describes as a more exclusive variant of the Brotypus. The tall monuments of the Brotypus are characterised by a large roundel with a whorl pattern in the upper half and a pair of small disk motifs below. In the Martebotypus, a serpent encircles the small disks, and the border decoration is more elaborate, consisting of a geometrized tendril. Varenius (1992, p. 58, appendix 2) assigns the ship depiction on Väskinde Björkome I to his group 1 (rigglösa skepp), which he dates to between the 5th and the 6th century. Lindqvist calls those ships on Type A stones “Langboote vom Brotypus” (ibid. pp. 62–64).

References ⓘ
Lindqvist 1941/42 I, pp. 27, 62–63, 110, 112, 125, figs. 7, 10; II, pp. 142–143, fig. 562; Hauck 1983a, p. 543, fig. XIV:30; Larsen 2009, p. 27; Guber 2011, p. 155 cat. no. 92; Oehrl 2019a, pp. 74, 152–154, 160–161, 228, 286, figs. 40c, 135a–141b

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