Ship images in the Bronze Age

At the beginning of the Bronze Age – around 1700 BC – a rich visual art arose in Scandinavia. The most common motif was the ship. On one of the two ceremonial swords from Rørby in western Zealand we see for the first time one of the Bronze Age ships sailing off. The ship had a tall, inward-curving prow and stern. The crew are shown as lines. The custom of depicting ships spread quickly over a wide area. Similar ships were carved into stones. Rock carvings with the ship as a motif have been found on Bornholm. In Sweden they have also been found in Scania in the south and occur as far north as Uppland, with the northernmost examples located in the Trøndelag region in Norway.