Multiple Microanalyses of a Sample from the Vinland Map

A sample of the Vinland Map remaining from the radiocarbon dating was analysed with the purpose of identifying the post‐1950 contaminant and establishing other evidence on the material composition, identity and condition. The analyses revealed that the parchment originates from a bovid and contains hair remnants. The fibre structure was in poor condition, with fragmented collagen fibres and a low hydrothermal stability. Greenish and reddish particles were observed on the parchment. The greenish particles were identified as basic copper(II) chloride, most probably atacamite, and the reddish particles as rust; that is, various iron(III) oxides. The extracted modern contaminant was identified as being naturally produced glycerol monostearate.     

The Roman Age Hall and the Warrior-Aristocracy: Reflections upon the Hall at Missingen,South-East Norway

This paper discusses possible functions for an Early Roman Age hall (c. ad 1–200) at Missingen, Østfold, south-east Norway. The hall represents one of the earliest known halls in Scandinavia. Its existence corresponds with the introduction of the Roman Age warrior-aristocracy. No status goods were recorded from the hall or the site. The assemblage of artefacts, plant macrofossils, together with the site's layout, points to Missingen as a farm with traditional farm functions. However, the farm's great size and well-considered location in combination with the presence of the hall has led to the conclusion that Missingen represents a chieftain's farm. It is argued that the farm could have served as a resort or camp for a group of warriors, led by a chieftain or a military leader belonging to a warrior-aristocracy. The existence of a Roman Age aristocracy in Østfold, hitherto represented by graves with weapons and rich imported goods, is for the first time evidenced by a hall and a chieftain's farm.     

Legitimation work in state cultural organizations: the case of Norway

Finding the balance between the inclusive and exclusive in programming and communication strategies are important for state-funded cultural organizations to master in order to be perceived as relevant by the public and deserving of their privileged position. The organizations have to legitimize themselves to broad audiences, in the last instance all of the nation’s citizens, as well as a narrow audience, the artists and intellectuals. This paper investigates how this legitimation work is mastered by the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, two Norwegian cultural organizations that receive most of their funding from the government. Through an analysis of the organizations’ annual reports, strategy documents and websites, in addition to interviews conducted with the CEOs, I investigate how the organizations communicate their relevance to the public.     

War Pessimism in Britain and an American Peace in Early 1916

By offering a reinterpretation of an Anglo-American pact known as the House-Grey Memorandum, this article challenges prevailing views about British decision-making in 1916 in the months leading up to the Battle of the Somme. It argues that serious doubts that the war could still be won without American assistance were the defining characteristic of their deliberations. Owing to deep scepticism about the proposed offensive and severe worries about their financial resources, a majority of the key British civilian leaders were prepared to accept a compromise peace mediated by the United States. Yet these efforts failed primarily because of intrigue at the highest levels of British politics, hard-line Conservative opposition and serious diplomatic missteps by American President Woodrow Wilson. In the end, although doubting it would produce any meaningful results, the British civilian leadership allowed the Somme offensive to go forward only because of their failure to unite on another course of action to prevent it. Finally, this study significantly revises existing thinking about American diplomacy during this period by challenging prevailing notions of the practicality and rigidity demonstrated by U.S. leaders in their foreign policy.     

Representations of the Chudes in Norwegian and Russian Folklore

Abstract

The objectives of this article are (1) to reveal the meaning (semantics) of the word “Chude” in Norwegian and Russian cultures; (2) to analyze Russian and Norwegian legends about the Chudes in order to define the main plot-constructing elements. When writing this article the authors used a synchronous and diachronous methods of analysis of material that was written down in a period that exceeds one and a half centuries. In etymological sense the word “Chude” (tsjude or Cud) can be derivative form from old Slavic form *tjudjo (strange, foreign) that can in its turn be borrowing from a Gothic or a German word that got the meaning “a nation” (folk). With the Sami the word “tshudde”/ “shutte” means an enemy, an adversary. The image of the Chudes has been preserved in Russian and Norwegian narrative traditions. Oral stories in Norway are called sagn. In Russian folkoristic narratives about the Chudes are traditionally called “predanie”.

The ethnonym “Chude” has a collective meaning in Russian and Norwegian folklore. In Norwegian culture it means plunderers of different ethnical belonging who came from the East to plunder the local population in the Northern Norway. As the undertaken research has shown, this name could have been applicable to Russian, Finns, Karelians, Kvens and peoples speaking Nordic languages (Swedes). In the Russian cultural tradition the name “Chude” was used to name different Finno-Ugric peoples living in the North-West Russia before the Russians came there and who later assimilated with the Russians. The Kola Sami called Swedes and Norwegians who came to them from the west to plunder the Chudes. The existence of a people in the same name in the old times is not excluded. The research carried out by place name scientists reveals that this people could be related to the Baltic-Finnish group of peoples.

The word Chude has historical and mythological aspects. Folk legends about the Chudes have “preserved” memories about the historical past of the northern region. Additionally this ethnonym contains conceptions of the world's binary character that are typical for archaic consciousness. Folk legends about the Chudes are widespread in the European North of Russia while plots about militant and plundering Chudes are localized in traditional Sami regions of Russia and Norway. In folk legends and sagn, the Russians and the Sami belong to one's “own” world, while the Chudes are associated with the concepts of the “strangers”. This nomination acquired the meaning “a stranger”, “a robber”.