First Ladies

From the fifth century to Viking Age in present-day Norway, certain women belonging upper strata of society were buried with high-quality ornamental bow-brooches. Although adjusting changing styles decoration, practical function and basic form brooches - rectangular headplate, bow rhomboidal footplate – remained more or less same throughout centuries they use. By exploring burials which include these accessories, I argue that functioned as an important factor reproducing continuously negotiating identity shared by within Scandinavian Iron elite.