Fine Belt-Buckles of Walrus Ivory - also Made in Greenland

• Main Author: Roesdahl, Else
• Other Authors: Baug, Irene, Larsen, Janicke, Mygland, Sigrid Samset
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: University of Bergen 2015
• Subjects: Greenland; walrus*
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/1956/15392

It is usually believed that finely shaped and decorated objects found in Greenland were imported from elsewhere. However, a broken and discarded rough-out of a walrus-ivory beltbuckle found in 1997-1998 at a rescue excavation in the Eastern Settlement demonstrates that such buckles, which belong to a small group of belt-buckles known from north-western Europe, were actually also carved in Greenland. This find, and a brief look at other objects found in Greenland, leads to the conclusion that many decorated objects originated there and, indeed, that the Norse society in Greenland had both the economic and the cultural capacity to produce and appreciate decorative art. publishedVersion