Weird Viking Bodies

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 598 Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2024

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Looking at the way human and animal bodies were treated in death and used in rituals prompts New Generation Thinker and archaeologist Marianne Hem Eriksen, from the University of Leicester, to ask questions about the way humans, animals and spirit-worlds were understood. Her Essay shares stories from a research project called Body-Politics’: presenting worlds where elite men could shapeshift into animals — and some people’s bones ended up in rubbish pits.

This Essay is part of the BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinkers scheme which puts academic research on radio.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

You can hear Marianne discussing insights from her research in episodes of Free Thinking called The Kitchen and in one broadcasting next week looking at Attitudes towards death.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Can I just say?
0:01.5	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast.
0:04.0	It's such a wonderful listen.
0:05.6	So nice.
0:06.5	There are loads more like it on BBC sounds.
0:08.8	Different paces, different heights.
0:10.6	The roof is buckling.
0:11.9	Where you can also listen to live sports commentary.
0:14.2	It's right foot goes for goal.
0:16.7	And then enjoy even more podcasts full of analysis and reaction to the big stories.
0:21.7	The stat that is astonishing is they ended with the lowest amount of possession.
0:25.2	And she's had to live with that.
0:26.8	So if you love sport, a passion, it's almost like a religion.
0:29.7	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:31.7	Sort of expecting that every week now.
0:35.8	BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. Hello and welcome to the Radio
0:41.3	Three Arts and Ideas podcast. I'm Marianne Hemerickson. I'm a new generation thinker, part of a
0:46.8	scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC. I teach archaeology at the University of
0:51.6	Lester. This edition of the essay is called Weird Viking Bodies.
0:57.2	The Vikings, those infamous Scandinavians that raided and settled around Europe and beyond in the 8 to 11th centuries,
1:03.9	are among the most stereotyped past populations.
1:06.9	Popular and romanticized, they often fall into flat caricatures of strong warriors and seafaring explorers.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.