The Egtved Tree Burial

This large 60x40 painting is inspired from am amalgamation of several different tree burials from the Nordic Bronze Age.

Tree Burial I, 60x40 acrylic on panel ©Leslie Peterson Sapp

Tree trunk, or log coffins were not an uncommon way for elites to be buried. Versions of the practice have been found in Europe, Africa, China and even Australia. In Europe, it was  practiced from prehistoric times all the way up to the Medieval period.

The first time I saw an image of a tree burial, what grabbed my attention is the thought of something so grand, and well, so vertical would be felled, and buried beneath the earth, eternally horizontal, to intern the dead. 

With a modern, conventional coffin, the tree is no longer a tree, but a series of dressed planks, fashioned into a box.

But a tree trunk coffin is simply split length wise, with its inside hollowed out, like a canoe. The beloved is laid out with grave goods that were meant to assist the deceased in the afterlife.

This implies that the loved one is still somehow living in the tree trunk, like a tree spirit.

Tree spirits are a world-wide phenomenon. In Greek mythology, the Dryads were spirits of the woodland in general, and Hamadryads were spirits that lived in a specific tree itself.

I'm sure I'm reading into this in my own, artistic, unscientific fashion. Log coffins were probably used because of the way they preserved the body of the deceased. But I can't help myself.

There is something so juicy about the tree as a symbol of the life/death cycle.

Dryad, 1884, Evelyn de Morgan

---

The Egtved Girl

In 1921, near the town of Egtved, a farmer dug and spread soil from a mound on his farm. In it he found a large, recumbent oak tree trunk.

Log coffins had been being unearthed for about a century in Denmark, so, he knew what he had run into. He wrote a letter to the National Museum of Denmark, telling them what he’d found, with a request that they hurry up and come take a look, because, after all, he had work to do.

The Egtved Girl ©National Museum of Denmark

After excavating the log coffin, they transported it to the museum and very carefully investigated, using the most advanced techniques available in 1921.

It was determined that the log coffin had been made in about 1370 BCE.

One of the fascinating things about human remains is the often odd, unpredictable ways in which they are preserved, especially when they are in an environment that lacks that great decomposer, oxygen.

Often, they are mummified, but the results of this mummification varies from find to find. In the case of Egtved Girl, the hair, brain, teeth, fingernails, and every stitch of clothing was preserved.

But the skin, muscles, the very bones, had simply dissolved away, leaving the clothes empty, like someone had been carefully considering an outfit, and had laid their clothes out to look at.

Grave Goods

Egtved Girl's age and gender are unique in such a rich grave. From her teeth, we can tell she was about 16-18 years old when she died. In the coffin with her are:

• a pretty comb
• a small earring
• two arm rings
• an awl in a small birch-bark box
• a bark bucket with remnants of beer
• yarrow blossoms (showing she was buried in the summer)
• a bundle with the cremated bones of a small child. 

Why the remains of a child were buried with Egtved Girl is a source of intense speculation.

But it is her clothing that makes her so famous.

She wore a short, wool blouse. She had a quite short skirt made up of cords, so that when she moved, you could probably see her nether regions through it. (This caused a scandal back in 1921 when it was discovered!)

But her signature fashion feature was her bronze belt plate.

It hung on a woven belt, and is nearly 6 inches across.

It is adorned with intricate engraving, including two bands of a spiral motif.

Spirals and circles are symbols of the sun, so it is probable that the belt plate was an expression of the sun worship of the Nordic Bronze Age. (I wrote a bit more about this in my entry about The Nebra Sky Disc.)

---

My Creative Process

In making Tree Burial, I chose to include elements from various tree burials, though Egtved is the main one.

As I mentioned, this piece is on a 60x40 panel.

Working large is always an educational experience, and I had the extra bonus lesson that 60x40 is ABSOLUTELY the largest size I can fit into my beloved Kia Soul.

I got it in with a quarter inch to spare, with my knees hitting the steering column as I drove.

First, I did an energetic drawing of the Egtved burial, but instead of it lying prone in the earth, I set it vertically, in, or hovering over, a large oak tree.

As you can see, I am already contemplating a horizon, and a large circle seemingly emanating from the belt plate.

Next, I painted the tree a dark purplish color, and rendered oak leaves.

Here is where I started to integrate images from other tree burials.

On the right, a plan of the site Borum Eshøj, drawn by Konrad Engelhardt in 1875.

On the left, a photograph of workers excavating the Guldhøj site in 1891.

These I traced onto my panel using transfer paper, which I then re-drew with pencil and paint.

Next I worked on that belt plate.

I painted it with bronze colored paint. It looked quite arresting there, near the center of the painting!

Getting the spirals correct took a bit of time.

After this, I reinforced the circular shape that seems to hover over the entire scene.

How do you think I drew such a large circle? (Best Christmas gift ever!)

At the bottom of this entry, you can see a fun video of me using this big beauty!

---

Life, Death and Wonder

Presumably, we make art so that someone will hang it on their wall.

So, sometimes I have to pause and ask myself; why would someone want a large painting of a burial, no matter how interesting it might be?

In my series, Archeology Art, I find myself dealing with some pretty macabre subjects, such as burials and remains. But I guess, I just don't experience them that way.

In pre-modern times, death was all around us, all the time. The loss of a loved one is difficult for anyone, regardless of how frequently death visits. However, people in the past seemed to have a very different relationship to human remains, handling them with aplomb, even with creativity. They dressed them, provided for them, moved them around, took them from one grave to another, disarticulated their bones, even took pieces of them home to live with them and their families, a sort of eternal house guest. 

Our modern world has moved away from this cozy relationship with the dead. This shift is understandable; it's human nature to avoid pain, especially the existential terror that accompanies losing someone. And yet, it is just another way that we have been cut off from the natural world.

In Tree Burial I, I blend elements of death (coffin, corpse,) and life (tree, yarrow, sun-spirals,) along with tokens from the modern excavation.

I creatively explore the theme of the life/death cycle in my unique, modern way.

Tree Burial I, 60x40, acrylic on panel, ©Leslie Peterson Sapp

---

Video of My Cool Compass...