2021/12/16 by Luke John Murphy, Heidi R. Fuller, P. L. T. Willan +1 · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Arts and Humanities · #Forensic and Genetic Research #Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies #Eagle #Scholarship #Torture #Context (archaeology) #History #Anthropology #Sociocultural evolution #Historicity (philosophy) #Aesthetics #Sociology #Archaeology #Literature #Art #Politics #Law #Human rights
paper · doi:10.1086/717332
openalex publication_date 2021/12/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
The infamous blood eagle ritual has long been controversial: did Viking Age Nordic people really torture one another to death by severing their ribs from their spine and removing their lungs, or is it all a misunderstanding of some complicated poetry? Previous scholarship on the topic has tended to focus on the details and reliability of extant medieval descriptions of the blood eagle, arguing for or against the ritual’s historicity. What has not yet been considered are the anatomical and sociocultural limitations within which any Viking Age blood eagle would have had to have been performed. In this article, we analyze medieval descriptions of the ritual with modern anatomical knowledge, and contextualize these accounts with up-to-date archaeological and historical scholarship concerning elite culture and the ritualized peri- and post-mortem mutilation of the human body in the Viking Age. We argue that even the fullest form of the blood eagle outlined in our textual sources would have been possible, though difficult, to perform, but would have resulted in the victim’s death early in proceedings. Given the context of the ritual depicted in medieval discourse, we also argue that any historical blood eagle would have existed as part of a wider continuum of cultural praxis, and been employed to secure the social status of the ritual’s commissioner following the earlier “bad death” of a male relative at the hands of the ritual’s victim.