Glass has had its position in Europe for many centuries as shown by remains found in graves and building excavations. Focusing specifically in Northern Europe, the excavations of meadhalls, graves and ships has shown us shards of vessels and in rarer cases, an existence of glass  game pieces. Since board games had no financial or social boundaries, we can find remains of these pieces throughout Europe.  

Found in Viking Grave excavations, glass gaming pieces had a prevalence in Scandinavia, as well as beyond, with remains being found in the glass production powerhouse of Rome. While in trade and in war, the Romans had a cultural influence on the people of Northern Europe. Notably, the Roman game Ludus Latrunculorum being the inspiration of the Tafl game family and by extension the game of Hnefatafl, which is the Scandinavian version of the Tafl game family. The Talf games were broken off into specific games to minimize confusion. Obviously coming with a board game comes the board game pieces. Because of the lack of social and financial barriers to getting into board games at the time, we see a variety of different pieces for game materials, including pieces made with bone, stone, clay and antler, we see a few glass game pieces being found in the Viking graves in Northern Europe. These pieces are similar to glass beads in size, but are deliberately designed and include some design choices found in glass vessels.

Glass Tafl king piece from a dig in Lindisfarne

Glass Vessel Trade:

In a broader sense, glass vessel trade was huge in the 7th-9th centuries, with trade routes being present all over Europe. Glass powerhouses beyond Rome were found in Egypt and Islamic areas. Even so, all of these areas practiced widespread methods, with free-blowing and molding being incredibly popular to create unique designs and optimize mass production. The chemical compositions found in glass shards excavated from locations in Denmark and Norway have allowed us to see how far these trade routes and glass designs have actually gone. Traveling through the excavations in Ribe, Denmark and Kaupang, Norway allows us to pick up the shards of glass remaining from vessels and trinkets broken in time. The origin of these pieces of glassware can come from chemically testing these shards for the formulas present. Stopping in Ribe, the majority of the glasswares are high in titanium dioxide and aluminum oxide (Egyptian) and heavy in Silicon dioxide and sodium oxide (Roman). Another chemical present was Zirconium, which is the chemical evidence of glass recycling. With data from the Kaupang excavations, high amounts of  Silicon dioxide (quartz sand), sodium oxide, aluminum oxide (Alumina) and calcium oxide (Lime) have been found, which chemically traces back to Roman glass origin. 

Glass Vessels

The vessel objects themselves can be categorized into four loose categories based on size and appearance:

Jar:

The broadest category is jars, since they were used for storage, they  ranged extensively in size and height. It is common to see the rim diameter fall anywhere between 5cm-11cm, with examples falling significantly out of that range. Jars were made of many materials, such as wood, ceramic and glass.

Bowl:

Bowls are a wide and shallower shape, they typically fall around a rim diameter of 12cm-14cm, which is significantly wider than other classified objects. 

Tall Palm Cup:

Palm cups were around but not quite the height of a funnel beaker, with a rim ranging from 10 cm to 12cm. The diameter of the cup would decrease the further down the cup you go, giving the cup the shape of a rounded cone. The rim could be a folded rim or a tubular one.

Funnel Beaker:

Funnel beakers were the tallest of classified glass objects, these vessels were of a shape that is familiar to us as a funnel now,  and stretched up to 17 cm in height with a rim diameter ranging from around 9 cm to 12cm, The rim itself was typically folded over. It was also possible for the funnel to be more of an S shape near the bottom as opposed to a straight line. 

Color and Design Choices:

Color and design choices ranged due to the popularization of free-blowing as a glass making method by this point. Free-blowing is a style of glassmaking where the vessel is blown into shape by skillfully blowing into a long tube with the molten glass located at the end. Even with this popularized method, trends still existed within the glassmaking scene. Color wise, there was a heightened popularity with blue-green hues, especially as seen in the Kaupang excavations. Trails of color being found in the glassware was quite popular at the time, including the intertwining of two colored trails together throughout the piece (reticella). Another design choice that would be included was specifically colored or specially molded rims around the edge of the glass objects. The rims of the cup could have all different design choices, such as a separate color, a folded rim and other unique attributes. 

Vessel with Reticella design and a molded and colored rim

Culturally, both drinking vessels and board games are essential pieces to building a community in Viking times. Whether on ships or in a Mead-hall, glass vessels brought people together to share alcohol and community while board games shared practice with strategy and warfare. Hnefatafl contains several theories on what the purpose of the game is. It is believable that the game portrays a message as a battle with enemies, such as the Romans or neighboring tribes. But it is also theorized that the symmetry of the pieces and the lack of a king character on the attacking side show a warning for an internal conflict, and a dire warning for a king that decides to act too far out of place.

Sources

Barfod, Gry H., Claus Feveile, and Søren M. Sindbæk. “Splinters to Splendours: From Upcycled Glass to Viking Beads at Ribe, Denmark.” Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 14, no. 9 (August 26, 2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-022-01646-8.

Dagfinn, Skye. “Part II: Tools and Utensils.” Essay. In Things from the Town, 169–279. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press, 2011.

Dries, François M. A. van den. “Some Notes on Roman Mold Material and the Technique of Molding for Glassblowing.” Journal of Glass Studies 49 (2007): 23–38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24191114.

Henderson, Julian, and Ingegerd Holand. “The Glass from Borg, an Early Medieval Chieftain’s Farm in Northern Norway.” Medieval Archaeology 36, no. 1 (January 1992): 29–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/00766097.1992.11735547.

Museum, Getty. “Glassmaking Technique: Free-Blown Glass.” YouTube, February 3, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqnrJMTp9dc.

“Roman Glass-Making.” Wondrous glass. Accessed December 3, 2023. https://exhibitions.kelsey.lsa.umich.edu/galleries/Exhibits/WondrousGlass/RomanGlass-Making.html.

Swedish History Museum. The Viking World. Accessed January 22, 2024. https://vikingar.historiska.se/index.php?e=no&l=en.Torben Sode, Bernard Gratuze, James W. Lankton. The Glass Beads of Ribe – Evidence of Local Glass Bead Making and Long-distance Trade. Michael Dodt; Sebastian Messal; Bente S. Majchczack; Andreas Kronz. Glas als Fernhandelsprodukt im frühen Mittelalter – Köln und der europäische Norden : Zwei Workshops im Rahmen des DFG-Schwerpunktprogramms »Häfen von der Römischen Kaiserzeit bis zum Mittelalter«, ausgerichtet vom Römisch-Germanischen Museum zu Köln, 8.-10. November 2016 und dem Sydvestjyske Museer in Ribe / Dänemark, 20.-22. März 2018, RGZM – Tagungen (46), Propylaeum, pp.159-182, 2022, 978-3-96929-187-0. ⟨hal-03921776⟩