Remembrance abroad: 16th century graveslabs of German merchants in Shetland and Iceland

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Investigating Cultural Aspects of Historic Mortuary Archaeology: Perspectives from Europe and North America", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In the context of Hanseatic trade, many ships and merchants from Bremen and Hamburg sailed to the North Atlantic islands in the 16th century to bring dried fish and other goods back to northern Germany. Some of these merchants met their deaths abroad. This paper presents four graveslabs of merchants from Bremen and Hamburg that are still preserved in the Shetland Islands and Iceland. The graveslabs were imported from Germany and their inscriptions are in Middle Low German and thus illegible to the islanders. The graveslabs are discussed in the context of trade, migration, commemoration and othering.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Investigating Cultural Aspects of Historic Mortuary Archaeology: Perspectives from Europe and North America   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow