Oseberg : Putting up the Pot

The object that I have based more commentaries on, over the now 14 years and over 1000 postings of this blog, has been that iron tripod from the Oseberg Ship burial.

This image was sent to me by a fellow (and also quite serious) Norse re-enactor. I had made an open plea on Facebook recently, asking if anyone had actually physically seen the artifact themselves. Judy had replied saying that although she certainly had been to the museum, it was a good number of years back. The image above, which she kindly sent me, was a direct scan of a post card she had purchased at the museum.
That image is 'flat on' and the lighting here is considerably more even than the more dramatic one I had posted last week from Alamy :

This image does show the tripod in its entirety however, and was the one I used for the following modified drawing :

For rational behind the scale and overall measurements given here, please refer back to my March 11 piece : Oseberg Cauldron ( 1 )

My reservations about this tripod as a working tool has at its core the simple problem of construction :
1) The hanging hook is a single fixed length of about 20 cm.
2) As displayed, the large cauldron also in the burial barely clears the ground.

This in combination creates two major problems  ( 2 ) :
1) There is no ability to change the hanging height of the mounted cauldron. So no way to modify the effective cooking temperature (other than knocking the fire out?)
2) There is almost no room to actually fit a fire under the cauldron - at least as the combination is displayed.

So, one consideration must be : Can the position of the tripod legs be modified, thus raising the cauldron?

So in the drawing, what I did was :
a) use the length of the tripod legs at 125 cm (as indicated in the scale drawing from the original excavation report) to generate a scale.
b) trace first the pot and hanger combination from the Alamy image.
c) trace the tripod legs, but shifted so they just clear the diameter of the cauldron

This then generates a 'best possible' base line below the cauldron.
Which via the scale is estimated to be at most 35 cm clearance. ( 3 )

So - maybe possible.
That 35 cm really does not leave much clearance for firewood. To build an effective split wood fire, my own experience suggests at least 20 cm of height would be required.
Consider the size of the cauldron, at ≠ 55 cm diameter. To heat a pot that large, my guess is that it would require a wood fire of at least roughly the same width. Although I'm hardly the best campfire cook, this combination (55 wide x 20 + cm tall) represents a pretty big fire. Especially if the clearance between fire and bottom of the pot is at best in the range of 20 cm.

All this begs some actual experimental testing in my mind.


I may attempt to pursue this further by contacting the Viking Ship Museum directly. If this comes to pass, I will most certainly share the details that I learn.
I am especially interested to find out if the thin band of metal, seen along the top edge of the cauldron, is part of the original artifact - or a strengthening band added during the initial preparation for display.


1) Or if you really want to dig into this - use the search function here for "oseberg tripod ". I come up with over 10 previous commentaries on the topic!

2) This is leaving aside the main reason that I do not encourage the display of this object in modern historic camps : The amount of iron required, and the abundant decorative details, most certainly indicates this object is of royal quality. As such, it remains clearly beyond the economic reach or social status of the characters being portrayed by most.

3) I freely admit that this method clearly leaves a fair room for estimation error!