The Reception of Figurative Art Beyond the Frontier: Scandinavian Encounters with Roman Numismatics

Abstract

The distribution of images of the Roman emperor, from portrait busts to miniature numismatic art, was key to the creation of the sprawling ‘imagined community’ of the Empire.1 Such images were ubiquitous across the empire, through the provinces and beyond, with coins reaching as far away as Scandinavia. In this paper, I present a case-study of a small number of fourth-century Late Roman medallions that were brought to the North and inspired a new type of object, the Scandinavian gold bracteate of the Migration Period in the fifth and sixth centuries. My goal is to examine how the imagery of the medallions was received and imitated in the North, that is, the impact of the empire on Scandinavian visual representation. In this encounter, the miniature figural art of Roman medallions was incorporated into a culture that had an appreciation for animal ornamentation, had its own writing system in the form of runes, and used reciprocity and other forms of exchange before an incipient monetary economy began during the Viking Age late in the ninth or tenth century.2 northern centuries medallions loops reached