What is in a Booth? Material Symbolism at Icelandic Assembly Sites

Bibliographic Data

ID4690274
AuthorsOrri Vésteinsson (0000-0002-3004-646X, University of Iceland, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume2013
Issuesp5
Pages111
Publication date2013-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the North Atlantic (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1935-1933 • E-ISSN: 1935-1933
PublisherJournal of the North Atlantic (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.3721/037.002.sp505
OpenAlexW1950675550
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited5

Booths are a distinctive feature of the assembly sites established in Iceland in the Viking Age. The study of Icelandic assemblies has a long pedigree. Although there have been significant advances in this field in recent years, the booths remain enigmatic, both in terms of their dating and their function. In this paper, it is argued that instead of viewing the booths primarily as functional solutions to the problem of camping in the open, it is more revealing to consider their symbolic meaning, which can be deciphered on at least two levels. On the political level, the size of the booths, their number, and their arrangement were determined by the political landscape of each assembly, providing fuel for hypotheses about political developments in late Viking Age Iceland. On an ideological and mental level, the booths can be seen as symbols of collective and individual participation in the new social and political structures being created, but also—critically in landscapes only beginning to acquire cultural signifiers—they served the purpose of marking, and thereby legitimizing, the assemblies and their functions

Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Genealogy · Icelandic · Ideology · Linguistics · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Visual arts · Historical and Archaeological Studies · History · Law

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