A Viking Ship Graffito from Kilclief,County Down,Ireland

Deep ploughing near Kilclief, County Down, near the site of an early monastery, disturbed a large quantity of buried stones. One of these displayed a Viking‐type ship with a furled sail. Decorative artwork on the stone suggests an 11th‐century date. The ship displays close similarities to Viking ship graffiti in Viking Dublin and in the Scandinavian homelands. This article describes the decorated stone and suggests that it represents an Irish ship constructed in the Viking style. Documentary sources indicate that ships were being granted by an Irish over‐king to a local king of this area at this time.     

Protocol,politics and popular culture: the independence jubilee in Gabon

National days are powerful moments of commemoration that aim at renewing the citizens' bonds to the nation and the state. In order to be successful, public rituals need to draw large audiences, and their ceremonial design therefore has to be adapted to suit the masses, employing elements of popular culture and everyday forms of nationhood. Despite drawing its significance from the declaration of independence in 1960, however, Gabon's independence jubilee was less concerned with history and commemoration than with celebrating the state and the nation in the present. The ceremonial design of Gabon's jubilee featured intensive preparations, official ceremonies, popular festivities and symbolic politics. In this article, I look at why history and commemoration played such an unimportant role during the celebrations and how Gabon's jubilee organisers included official as well as popular forms of nationhood to assure the population's participation.     

Didactic translation: The first Scandinavian translation of the Eclogues: Peder Jensen Roskilde,Bucolica (1639)

The very first translation of the Eclogues into a Scandinavian language, Peder Jensen Roskilde's Bucolica (1639), is concerned with interpretative closure. Following the tradition of reading Virgil's poetry allegorically the translation supplies names and circumstances where the text is unspecific. More than that, however, the translation also includes glosses, thus making the translation a hybrid between a commentary and a translation, a didactic translation. This article offers an analysis of this translation with a special focus on the relationship between the historically oriented allegorical interpretation and this unusual format.     

中国博物馆大型原创性特展工作的创新理念与探索实践——以广东省博物馆为例专访魏峻馆长

近年来我国博物馆展览工作特别是大型原创性特展工作获得了空前的发展机遇。广东省博物馆综合该馆的宗旨定位、藏品结构体系和公众需求,规划特展的主题方向与系列,采用"策展人负责+团队协作"的模式策展,运用激励机制选拔策展人才、培养团队协作能力,其在营销推广、社会教育、公众体验、展览导赏、展览评选以及社会策展人、公募基金等方面的诸多理念创新与探索实践,为中国博物馆的原创性特展工作提供了经验和借鉴。     

The Modern Myth of the Viking

This paper presents the text of a lecture first given in the series commemorating the work of Paul Johnstone. In the years since it was given further material has been gathered and the issues it addresses are still current. The paper discusses how we have constructed histories of the Scandinavian Iron Age, in particular the myth of the ‘Viking’, and how these are manipulated and used in society today. It is argued that by not countering spurious histories assiduously enough, academia has effectively subscribed to them and in some ways has actively contributed to their construction. This realisation should temper our future research.     

Crossing the Maelstrom: New Departures in Viking Archaeology

Journal of Archaeological Research - This paper reviews the achievements and challenges of archaeological research on Viking Age northern Europe and explores potential avenues for future research....