A silver pendant found in a Viking Age grave at the farm Aska in Hagebyhoga parish, Ostergotland, Sweden, and held by the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm under accession number SHM 16429. The pendant represents a standing woman wearing a broad necklace around her neck, dated to around 1000 CE. Scholars have connected the necklace shown to Brísingamen, the great necklace Norse mythology gives to Freyja, and on that basis the pendant is widely read as an image of the goddess herself, one of the clearer candidates among the small surviving body of figural Viking Age metalwork for a named deity rather than a generic female figure.
Facts
Subject Matter
Devotional FunctionSourced to the subject's own accountThe pendant was recovered as a grave good, buried with its owner rather than kept in circulation or passed down, which points to a funerary rather than purely ornamental function: an image read as the goddess accompanying the dead into the grave, presumably carrying some hope of her protection or favor into whatever followed death. 1 Classification
Object TypeSourced to the subject's own accountAmulet or Small Carved Object 1 Medium (class)Sourced to the subject's own account Physical Form
MediumSourced to the subject's own accountSilver pendant, SHM 16429, circa 1000 CE 1 Connections
Associated With
This source names Sweden directly: "in Hagebyhoga parish, Ostergotland, Sweden, and held by the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm under accession number SHM 16429."
Source Freyja Pendant, Aska (Wikipedia)
Belongs to Tradition
Source Freyja Pendant, Aska (Wikipedia)
Depicts
Freya, Deities The standing, necklace wearing woman most scholars read as Freyja through her necklace Brisingamen, held by the Swedish History Museum, Stockholm, SHM 16429.
Source Freyja Pendant, Aska (Wikipedia)
Additional Source Freyja in Silver, File Record (Wikimedia Commons)
Sources
1. Freyja Pendant, Aska (Wikipedia)
Wikipedialead, on Freyja associations and attributes
is a goddess associated with love, beauty, fertility, war, gold, and seiðr (magic for seeing and influencing the future). Freyja is the owner of the necklace Brísingamen, rides a chariot pulled by two cats, is accompanied by the boar Hildisvíni, and possesses a cloak of falcon feathers to allow her to shift into falcon hamr.
catalogue record, medium/object-type description
A silver pendant found in a Viking Age grave at the farm Aska in Hagebyhoga parish, Ostergotland, Sweden, and held by the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm under accession number SHM 16429.
View the Source Freyja in Silver, File Record (Wikimedia Commons)
Wikimedia CommonsDepicts: FreyaQuote, Depicts: Freya
A Viking period silver amulet of the Norse goddess Freyja found in Aska in Hagebyhoga parish, SHM 16429.
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