Golden Middle Ages in Europe : new research into early-medieval communities and identities

Publication des actes du 2e congrès Dorestatd qui s’est tenu au National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden, Pays-Bas du 2 au 5 juillet 2014.

WILLEMSEN Annemarieke, KIK Hanneke (eds)
Golden Middle Ages in Europe : new research into early-medieval communities and identitiesTurnhout : Brepols, 2015, 168 p.
ISBN 978-2-503-55513-3

Résumé éditeur :

Dorestad was an important harbour town in the middle of the present-day Netherlands, that had its hey-day in the Carolingian period, but was already an important settlement in the centuries before, with a famous 7th-century Frankish mint. In July 2014, the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden hosted the second Dorestad congress, exactly five years after the first. This congress was attached to the exhibition ‘Golden Middle Ages: The Netherlands in the Merovingian World, 400-700 AD’ and brought together historians, archaeologists and linguists to discuss these ‘Dark Ages’, their burials and settlements, rituals and identities, and the position of the Low Countries in the world-wide networks of early-medieval Europe. Contributions in these congress proceedings are devoted to key themes like early-medieval identity and agency, so-called royal burials in Europe, significant find categories like garnets, coins and Merovingian glass, important new sites and finds from the Low Countries and recent work in the Carolingian ‘vicus famosus’ of Dorestad. (4e de couv.)

Dr. Annemarieke Willemsen is curator of the Medieval Department of the National Museum of Antiquities (Leiden), where she organized the 2009 exhibition & congress on Carolingian Dorestad and the 200 exhibition & congress on the early-medieval Netherlands.

Hanneke Kik J M.A. is project manager at the same museum, and was secretary of the Dorestad Congress in 2009 and 2014.

Table des matières :

Settlements and cemeteries
Before the birds started nesting : linguistic diversity in the early-medieval low countries, Michiel de Vaan
Looking for early-medieval royal graves in the low countries and the Rhineland, Annemarieke Willemsen
Kingship in early-medieval ‘frisia’ : historical versus archaeological sources, Johan Nicolay
Merovingians at Borgharen : digging into a listed monument near Maastrcht (the Netherlands), Roel Lauwerier et al.

Material culture
Early-medieval glass in the middle Meuse valley : shapes, matrials and techniques, Line Van Wersch
Merovingian rock crystal : practical tools and status markers, Genevra Kornbluth
Trade, cultural exchange and coastal identities in early anglo-saxon Kent : a ceramic perspective, Ben Jervis
The cothen hoard as witness of the international circulation of sceattas, Wybrand Op den Velde
Series X and its international framework : an art historical contribution to the study of early-medieval coinage, Anna Gannon

New research on Dorestad
Dorestad’s rise and fall : how the local landscape influenced the growth, prosperity and disappearance of an early-medieval emporium, Menne Kosian
The dendrochronology of Dorestad : placing early-medieval structural timbers in a wider geographical context, Esther Jansma, Rowin van Lanen
Golden ages of Dorestad : connections and conclusions, Annemarieke Willemsen