Biographical note
Klaudia Karpinska is currently Doctoral Research Fellow at the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. She is working on her interdisciplinary PhD project entitled “On Wings to the Otherworld: Bird Remains in Viking Age Graves from Scandinavia and the British Isles”. During three years, she will analyse and interpret graves with eggshells, feather remains and bird bones dated to the Viking Age discovered in Scandinavia and in the British Isles. In her PhD thesis, she will also compare the conclusions emerging from the analysis of archaeological finds from funerary and other contexts with the meanings of birds in medieval written sources, as well as discussing selected bird depictions in Viking Age iconography.
In November 2018, she conducted short research project entitled “Eggs and Bones: Bird Remains in Viking Age Cremation Graves from Sweden” at the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm which was kindly supported by the Viking Society for Northern Research.
From July to September 2017, she worked on the project “Birds in the Viking Age Mortuary Practices” which was generously supported by DAAD funding.
In September 2016, she graduated from the Institute of Archaeology University of Rzeszów. Klaudia Karpińska's Master thesis is entitled „Uzbrojenie z IX – XI wieku z terenu północno-zachodniej Polski w kontekście wodnym” (Eng. Weaponry from the 9th to 11th Centuries from Watery Locations in North-Western Poland).
Academic interests
General Research Interest: funerary archaeology, Viking Age archaeology, Early Medieval archaeology, Viking Age Scandinavia, archaeology of death and burial, archaeology of mourning and remembrance, archaeology of cremation, archaeology of inhumation, archaeology of ritual and beliefs, experimental archaeology, public archaeology, zooarchaeology, underwater archaeology, archaeology of personhood, prehistoric archaeology.
Themes in Viking Archaeology: Viking Age mortuary practices, animals in Viking Age graves, animals in Viking Age beliefs, Viking Age art, animals in Viking art, Old Norse sorcery, Viking ‘diaspora’, Viking identities, Viking Age weaponry.
Background
- 2 October 2017 – 31 July 2018: Erasmus+ student at the Institute of Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology, University of Kiel, Germany.
- 1 October 2014 – 8 September 2016: MA student in archaeology at the Faculty of the Institute of Archaeology, University of Rzeszow, Poland.
- 1 April 2015 – 31 July 2015: Erasmus+ Student at the Institute of Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology, University of Kiel, Germany.
- 1 October 2011 – 25 June 2014: BA student in prehistoric archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University of Rzeszow, Poland.
Awards
- 11-17 November 2018: The Viking Society for Northern Research grant for a short research project entitled ‘Eggs and Bones: Bird Remains in Viking Age Cremation Graves from Sweden’ which was conducted at the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm (Sweden).
- July – September 2017: German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) grant for a short-term research project entitled ‘Birds in Viking Age Mortuary Practices’ at the Institute of Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology, University of Kiel (Germany).
Positions held
- July – September 2017: Researcher at the Institute of Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology University of Kiel (Germany) in the scope of DAAD short-term project.
Publications
- Karpińska K. in press: Women in Viking Re-Enactment, [in:] The Vikings Reimagined: Reception, Recovery, Engagement, T. Birkett, R. Dale (eds.), Michigan: The Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University.
- Karpińska K. 2018: Asche und Knochen. Vogelüberreste in wikingerzeitlichen Gräbern auf den Nordfriesischen Inseln und in Dänemark, Arkæologi i Slesvig / Archäologie in Schleswig 17, pp. 115-131.
- Karpińska K. 2017: Weaponry from the 9th to 11th Centuries from Watery Locations in North-Western Poland, RMN Newsletter 12-13 (Double Issue 2016-2017), pp. 208-209.
- Karpińska K. 2016: Review of: Leszek Gardeła, Scandinavian Amulets in Viking Age Poland (= Collectio Archaeologica Ressoviensis 33), Sprawozdania Archeologiczne 68, pp. 437-441.
- Karpińska K. 2015: Review of: Bettina Braunmüller, Ritual, Tradition und Konvention – Wikingerzeitliche Opferfunde in Altdänemark. Teil 1-2 (=Universitätsforschungen zur prähistorischen Archäologie 241), Analecta Archaeologica Ressoviensia 10, pp. 365-407.