This is an open access publication distributed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International License. The bear in Late Iron Age and Viking Period Scandinavian art – a survey By Sigmund Oehrl Keywords: Scandinavia, bear, iconography, imagery, Late Iron Age, animal art Abstract: The paper constitutes a survey of bear depictions in the 1 st millennium AD from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark as well as Scandinavian-influenced parts of England, including certain, almost certain, and possible images of bears. Chronologically, the relevant material ranges from the Roman Iron Age to the Late Viking Age, most of it dating to the Merovingian/Vendel Period and the Early Viking Age. The images occur in quite different contexts, on different objects and bearing different possible meanings (military and heroic contexts, commemoration and sepulchral contexts, female jewellery, figurines and more). Some recent finds are also considered. The main conclusion is that there are many more depictions to be considered, and that the bear is not as rare in Late Iron Age and Viking art as many scholars have so far supposed. No detailed study and comprehensive collection of bear depictions from the 1 st millennium AD in northern Europe has so far been available. 1 There are only a few well-known depictions of bears that are frequently mentioned in research literature, in particular those of the Vendel Period Pressblech imagery and the bear figurines on Vendel Period spearheads (both discussed below). Scholars dealing with Scandinavian art or bear-related topics in archaeology repeatedly state that there are not many depictions of this kind and that bears are very rare in the art and iconography of Late Iron Age and Viking Period Scandinavia. Lotte Hedeager concludes that the bear is “pretty much non-existent” in Scandinavian imagery and that “its lack of representation in the iconography throughout the entire Iron Age and the Viking Age is [...] quite remarkable” (Hedeager 2011, 94–95; cf. Hedeager 2004, 244–255), compared to the importance of the bear in pre-Christian religions, burial customs, Old Norse literature, personal names, and folk belief (see several papers, this volume). As this seeming lack appears to be in need of explanation, Hedeager assumes: “Perhaps the only explanation is that the bear [...] was feared and considered so taboo that it could not be depicted” (Hedeager 2011). However, after collecting and investigating the relevant material more intensively, I am convinced that there are more depictions than have been considered so far, and that the bear is not as rare in Late Iron Age and Viking art as Hedeager and other scholars suppose. In the following, this material and their contexts will be presented, not 1 The most comprehensive survey so far was presented by Sebastian Beerman in his German Master’s thesis on bear claws and bear skins in burials from the Pre-Roman Iron Age to the Migration Period (Beermann 2016, 61–71). Bear and Human: Facets of a Multi-Layered Relationship from Past to Recent Times, with Emphasis on Northern Europe, ed. by Oliver Grimm (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023), pp. 961–990 FHG 10.1484.M.TANE-EB.5.134374