Celtic treasures found instead of ‘beer stones’ at Viking site

Norwegian archaeologists on a recent dig were delighted to find that instead of the expected ‘brewing stones’ at a Viking site they had evidence of Norway’s links to the Celtic Dark Age.

The silver book clasp – or possibly a brooch – found during the dig. Its design strongly suggests it is from a Celtic country. Photo credit: Åge Hojem, NTNU University Museum

The team from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s (NTNU) University Museum were digging at Byneset Cemetary next to the medieval Steine Church near Trondheim when the artifacts were uncovered.

The archaeologists had been called in to assess the area before the cemetery was expanded, as is required under Norway’s cultural heritage laws, as it is known that there used to be a large farm estate in the area near the church in the 8^th and 9^th centuries AD.

The team was apparently expecting to find ample evidence of Viking era ‘brewing stones’ that are often found in great abundance in rural areas but came up with some far more prized items instead.

The chief find was the silver, gold-plated fitting almost certainly from a book that, judging by its design, is highly likely to have been from a Celtic area – possibly Ireland.

Quite how the book got to Norway is open to question. Although much is made in more modern times of the more peaceful, trade-inclined ways of the Dark Age Scandinavians, their propensity for violent and bloody pillaging is no myth.

Raymond Sauvage from NTNU’s Department of Archaeolgy and Cultural History, commented: “We know that the Vikings went out on raids. They went to Ireland and brought things back. But how peacefully it all transpired, I won’t venture to say.”

Also uncovered at the site were a key, a belt buckle and a knife. Along with other finds at the dig, the status of the farm and its owner is now thought to have been rather considerable because, said Sauvage: “You don’t make discoveries like this everywhere. There are only a few areas where people had the resources to go out on such voyages.”

Furthermore, the digging has brought up finds from before the height of the Viking Age (roughly 780AD-980AD) pointing to an occupation and use of the farm for longer than previously thought.

“We started the project with slightly lower hopes for what we might find than what’s recently emerged,” said museum director Reidar Andersen.

Brewing stones

Many Viking sites are absolutely covered – in some areas as much as a metre deep – in small, fire darkened stones that are commonly found with animal bones in old refuse pits.

These are cooking or brewing stones, part of an extremely old method used by poorer people in predominantly rural areas to cook and brew beer. Their use has been recorded in Norway, Finland, England and the Baltic states.

They seem to have been most common in rural and poor places where families were more likely to have wooden rather than metal cooking utensils

Clearly they could not put them over open fires so they would super heat rocks and then drop them into the pot in order to cook their food or boil the wort and mash when making beer.

It is an extremely quick way to heat or boil liquid and in beer it has the effect of caramelising the sugars and even giving off a smoky taste from the fire leading to a distinctive tasting brew.

The stones became particularly attached to the brewing industry, as while a small metal container might be found for cooking food in a household, brewing was often more of as communal activity and required in larger quantities – hence why the mash tuns tended to be wooden.

Most stones can only be super heated once before cracking (or even exploding if it’s particularly friable) and were discarded when they became too small, hence why they are so common in refuse pits.

Despite being a very old method, brewing stones don’t begin to disappear from archaeological sites in many places until around 1500.

In fact, ‘steinbier’ (‘stone beer’) continues to be made today in Germany and remained quite common in Austria and southern Germany until the beginning of the 20^th century – helped by the fact that the local stone, known as ‘grey wacke’, is more resistant than most rock types to being heated up.