A couple of weeks ago I sifted through Danish Inhumation Graves of the Viking Age to get an idea of the average number of beads in grave assemblages in that area and made a post discussing my findings. This past week I have combed through the Birka material (both volumes of Birka I as well as the Birka Grave Catalog online).
I used the same criteria that I used for the second half of my previous review of the Danish material, that being oval brooches, as that is my real interest in this. I covered 147 graves with oval brooches, 5 of those had some issue with provenance, exceptional fire damage or other things resulting in inconclusive data, causing me to eliminate them from my final count. 3 graves had both cremation and inhumation burials, so they were included in the total, but not in the breakdown of graves by type.
I used the same criteria that I used for the second half of my previous review of the Danish material, that being oval brooches, as that is my real interest in this. I covered 147 graves with oval brooches, 5 of those had some issue with provenance, exceptional fire damage or other things resulting in inconclusive data, causing me to eliminate them from my final count. 3 graves had both cremation and inhumation burials, so they were included in the total, but not in the breakdown of graves by type.
- 142 total graves with oval brooches had 3252 beads, with an average of 22.74 beads per grave. The number of beads per grave ranged from 0-306.
- 22 cremation graves with evidence of oval brooches had 248 beads, with 14 average beads per grave, and a range of 0-72 beads.
- 120 inhumation graves with oval brooches had a total of 3004 beads, with an average of 25 per grave and a range of 0-306. 26 of the graves had no beads at all.
- EDIT 3/19/19: Per my comments below, I went back and looked at the graves and found that when I take into account location of beads in the 120 inhumation graves, and remove those that were obviously found elsewhere in the grave (such as at the feet), the average number of beads drops to 17 and the range is 0-194. Note that this still includes items that might be a separate necklace in addition to brooch swag if it was still found in the upper body area.
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Both of the sets of beads above were from Birka 508. What is critical in this grave is the context. I had a total of 306 beads but ONLY 77 of them were worn near the brooches, the remainder were found near the feet. Photo credit to Historiska museet. Eventually, I will recalculate the totals with that type of context in mind.
Birka 526 is another grave that has a very large number of beads, but not all of them were part of the assemblage with the oval brooches. In that grave 194 of the beads were located near the brooches.
Birka 526 is another grave that has a very large number of beads, but not all of them were part of the assemblage with the oval brooches. In that grave 194 of the beads were located near the brooches.
 Birka 464 photo credit to Historiska museet |  Birka 835, photo from the Historiska museet. |
Birka 847, photo credit to Historiska museet
Something that I found interesting that I plan to address soon, is the color difference between image in Birka I, drawings from the period, and actual photos. The first is very dull, while the other two are radiant with color. Below are examples from Birka 550.
 Birka III book |  Historiska museet image from Birka Graves site |
Glorious detailed shot of beads from Birka 550
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