Bildstein from Smiss (Garda)
The Smiss picture stone in the parish of Garda (called Smiss I) on the Swedish island of Gotland is a specimen that dates back to the 200-year-old middle period of the three picture stones , the main feature of which is the use of animal motifs.
Between 500 and 700 AD the first pictorial stone style using representational elements emerged on Gotland, with stones of the so-called type 2. The drawings were no longer exclusively geometrical, as before, not completely pictorial as after, and not laid out flat, but scratched as outlines. Some stones are scratched identically on both sides.
The stones of the era are generally small and are therefore also called dwarf stones - the one referred to as Smiss I is 73 cm high. The dominant motif is a duck-like bird and a highly schematized boat with a vertically positioned ax , which, from its position, is also described as an ax-shaped sail. The edge is provided with a so-called "angled pattern". A completely similar stone (Broa VII), but only 55 cm high, comes from the parish of Halla. The stones are now in Gotland's Fornsal in Visby .
literature
- Erik Nylén , Jan Peder Lamm: Picture stones on Gotland. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1981, ISBN 3-529-01823-6 .
- Sigmund Oehrl: Gotland's picture stones. Problems and new ways of their documentation, reading and interpretation (= Studia archaeologiae medii aevi. 3). Likias Verlag, Friedberg 2019, ISBN 978-3-9820130-1-5 .