Sliprannor
Sliprännor or Slipskåror (Singular Slipränna or Slipskåra ) are archaeological finds that are popularly known in Sweden as svärdslipningsstenar ( German sword whetstones ). They are marked by carved straight indentations in the rock or in stone blocks, which have an arched depth. There are some that are only a few decimeters long, but there are also examples that are more than a meter long. They are usually a few inches wide and up to a decimeter deep in the middle. In most of the places where they occur there are larger or smaller groups lying side by side, often in a fan shape, sometimes crossed, as in the picture from Dibjärs. Often the incisions extend to the edge of another slip ridge, as in the picture from Ronehamn .
history
The first written mention of a Slipranna was probably in the Guthilandiske Cronica of the Superintendent of the Danish Church in the Diocese of Visby , Hans Nilssøn Strelow, which appeared in Copenhagen in 1633. He wrote about a type of stone that looks like a folded pillow on top ( Swedish vilka är så som en veckad kudde på ovansidan ). That can hardly refer to anything other than slip-franknor. He suspects that these were naturally created shapes, which he dubbed “God's beautiful creations” ( Swedish “Guds sköna skapelse” ). In the middle of the 19th century Pehr Arvid Säve wrote about Gotland history. He was probably the first to analyze the stones with the Sliprannor in more detail, which he called "sliparestenar" . The text is taken from his notes:
“Man säger att våra förfäder i the slipat sina svärd - eller ock att draken i the skurat sitt gods. - Troligen hafva dessa stenar blifvit begagnade att på dessa slipa våra förfäders stenvapen and flintredskap, somebody called 'Thors-kilar', also on Gotland finnas talrika fastän aldrig af lands sten eller kalk. ”
“It is said that our ancestors sharpened their swords in it or that dragons scrubbed their material in it. It is likely that these stones were used to grind stone weapons and flint tools of our ancestors, called 'Thor's wedges'. They are numerous on Gotland, although they are never made of stone or limestone. "
Sliprannor on Gotland have been mentioned in the scientific literature since the 1850s. At first they were called "sliparestenar" back then. August Waldemar Lundberg wrote in the magazine Kungl in 1873 . Vitterhets-, historie- och antikvitetsakademiens månadsblad , that "a few stone's throw away from the beach near Ronehamn on Gotland's southeastern coast there are a lot of fairly large boulders made of gneiss and granite , of which at least thirteen are grooved on the upturned side, which are generally not parallel, but run in different directions…. Some have multiple grooves, others just one or two; some grooves are deep and long, others short and shallow; but all are apparently made in very distant past by human hands. "( Swedish " några stenkast från hafsstranden vid Ronehamn å Gotland sydöstra kust ligga kringspridda en mängd temligen stora rullstensblock af Gnejs och granite, af hvilka åtminstone tretton Aero på de uppåt vända Sidorna försedda med inslipade refflor, hvilka i allmänhet icke aro parallella, utan gå i olika riktningar… Några hafva flera refflor, andra blott en eller två, några refflor aro djupa och långa, andra kortare och Grundasen mjordänder i olika uppenbar forntid. " )
In 1918 Rutger Sernander carried out investigations on the lake Fardume träsk . Five stones with Sliprannor lay in the water, but the water level of the lake had dropped by about one meter at the end of the 19th century. He therefore came to the conclusion that they were formed in a period with a dry climate, namely in the subboreal , which roughly coincides with the Younger Stone Age and the Older Bronze Age.
These archaeological finds were quickly given the name "sword whetstones" ( Swedish: "svärdslipningsstenar" ), which stimulates the imagination . This then evoked voices who opposed the view that these grinding marks really came from the sharpening of swords. Their arch shape made this hypothesis impossible. The crowd of Sliprannor also spoke out against the idea of gun sharpening. A study from 1933 found over 500 such stones on Gotland alone. They were evenly distributed across the island. It has also been found that the gutters in the same block often run in different directions, sometimes even across others.
The general view among archaeologists at the beginning of the 20th century was that stone equipment, or in any case stone objects, was cut into the Gotland Sliprannor. In 1933, the geologist Henrik Munthe took a different interpretation of the course of the land uplift on Gotland, according to which the deepest Sliprannor would be too deep for an origin from the Stone Age. This left the background of the Sliprannor completely in the dark again. The archaeologist John Nihlén suspected that rites played a major role. However, this picture was later changed again and it was assumed that increases and decreases in sea level may have occurred. In-depth studies of the rise in sea level and the resulting shifts in the course of the beach at the sites are required for the time periods concerned in order to provide an answer.
In 1936 the archaeologist Torsten Mårtensson was able to publish his study on Sliprannor in northwestern Skåne. According to statements from local residents, the Sliprannor were used until the beginning of the 20th century to grind so-called "vädjestenar", which are whetstones .
Types and dates
Sliprannor can be found in several locations, with Gotland in a class of its own. At sites outside Gotland, parts of Scania and Halland in Sweden or Häme in Finland or Luxembourg can be named. In France they are called "polissoirs" (grinding points), as well as in French Guyana , where similar shapes that are dated to the Stone Age can be found. It is believed that these places are the remains of the grinding of prehistoric objects.
On Gotland, however, they occur practically all over the island. A good 3,600 Sliprannor are known there, of which a good 700 occur in the solid limestone soils and the rest are spread over around 800 blocks. These often consist of hard rock soil such as granite or gneiss ; but softer rock soils made of limestone or sandstone also occur. Many of these have been removed from their original location, but some are still in their original location.
It has been shown that the Gotland Sliprannor are not randomly oriented, but show a significant accumulation of the east-west direction and, moreover, an obvious symmetry within this direction. And with a probability bordering on certainty it has also been found that the two types of sliprannor have the same directional distribution.
The largest occurrence of Sliprannor is the Gantofta grinding grooves on private property in Gantofta in Skåne . Here is an elongated edge of a ravine with thousands of horizontal and vertical slip ravines of different sizes. They can be found almost everywhere on the soft sandstone walls, sometimes even in overhanging blocks. What and when was sanded there, however, is unknown and controversial. The legacies in this place are unique.
The dating of the Gotland Sliprannor was once the subject of a debate between archaeologists, who believed it was medieval, and non-archaeologists, who argued for dating to the Neolithic . The latter is based primarily on the idea that the orientation of the Sliprannor could be given an astronomical interpretation, in which every incision relates to a heavenly phenomenon that can be associated with a certain year in the Stone Age. Sliprannor under overhanging boulders at Gantofta, however, cannot have been used as sight lines.
On some picture stones from the younger Gotland Iron Age there are Sliprannor, which were added after the decoration of the stones was carved, which suggests a late date. The same applies to the level above sea level for the lowest-lying Sliprannor on the island, which proves that these cannot be older than 1000 years with regard to the postglacial land elevation .
A similar type of find of a different origin are Bronze Age rock slides ( Swedish "hällkana" ) and elongated cup-and-ring markings ( Swedish "avlånga skålgropar" ), which occur together with petroglyphs (rock carvings, Swedish "hällristningar" ).
Creation
The symmetrical arch shape most commonly found, such as the carved picture in the Häffinds block, could indicate that some form of wheel or pendulum was used to create it. You can even draw conclusions about how big the wheel or the pendulum length could have been.
function
The question of how Sliprannor were created and applied has not been conclusively answered. There are interpretations according to which the Sliprannor arose as a side effect of grinding , for example for swords in the Middle Ages or stone axes in the Stone Age or grindstones for many centuries, and those according to which they had an astronomical meaning and were used to look at a certain to judge the heavenly phenomenon of that time.
literature
- Sven Rosborn: Det randiga berget i Gantofta . In: Popular Historia . No. 1 , 1992 ( popularhistoria.se ).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Henrik Munthe: Om Gotlands sk svärdslipningsstenar: Illustr. 1933.
- ↑ a b c Torsten Mårtensson: Sliprannornas Practiska bruk. In: Fornvännen . tape 129 , 1936, pp. 132-133 .
- ^ Petroglyphs in the Prehistory of North Amazonia and the Antilles. In: Advances in World Archeology, 4, 1985, pp. 335-387.
- ↑ a b Gotlands slipskåror, Sören Gannholm. 1993 , ISBN 91-630-1845-4 .
- ↑ Lennart Swanström: Slipskåror och på järnhantering Gotland. In: Gotländskt arkiv . tape 1995 , no. 67 , 1995, pp. 11-18 ( hgo.se ).
- ↑ Jonathan Lindström: Fornlämningarnas orientering på Gotland: en kritisk granskning av den arkeoastronomiska tolkningen av sliprännor including a study of riktningsfördelningen hos öns forntida gravar, hus och medeltida kyrkor . In: Till Gunborg . 1997, p. 497-508 .
- ↑ Göran Henriksson: Astronomisk tolkning av på slipskåror Gotland . In: Fornvännen . 1983.