Architecture, Society, and Ritual in Viking Age Scandinavia: Doors, Dwellings, and Domestic Space by Marianne Hem Eriksen

In this book, Marianne Hem Eriksen explores the social organization of Viking Age Scandinavia through a study of domestic architecture and in particular, the doorway. A highly charged architectural element, the door is not merely a practical, constructional solution. Doors control access, generate movement, and demark boundaries, yet also serve as potent ritual objects. For this study, Eriksen analyzes and interprets the archaeological data of house remains from Viking Age Norway, which are here synthesized for the first time. Using social approaches to architecture, she demonstrates how the domestic space of the Viking household, which could include masters and slaves, wives and mistresses, children and cattle, was not neutral. Quotidian and ritual interactions with, through, and orchestrated by doorways prove to be central to the production of a social world in the Viking Age. Eriksen's book challenges the male-dominated focus of research on the Vikings and expands research questions beyond topics of seaborne warriors, trade, and craft.

Marianne Hem Eriksen is Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Oslo. She is a research fellow (2017-2019) at the University of Cambridge. An elected member of the Young Researchers of Norway, under the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, she was awarded His Majesty the King's Gold Medal for Younger Scholars of Excellence in 2016.