The shining swords, the fine brooches, the carved ships – behind all of it stood a craftsman with his tools. What those tools looked like is shown by a unique find from the island of Gotland: the Mästermyr tool chest, the largest surviving from the Viking Age. A look into the box of a man who mastered metal and wood.
In 1936 a farmer was ploughing a drained bog at Mästermyr in the west of Gotland – where a shallow lake once lay. His plough struck a heavy lump of iron and wood. What he had recovered was a wooden chest, closed with a lock, and inside, preserved for over a thousand years, the complete tools of a craftsman.
The chest held around two hundred objects – so many that they almost make up a whole workshop. There lay hammers and anvils, tongs and files, smithing tools for metalwork. Beside them tools for wood: axes, drills, draw-knives, planes, saws and rasps. Along with locks, bells, cauldrons, rivets and blanks. The owner was evidently both: a smith and a woodworker – a man who could make a lock as well as a barrel or a ship's fitting.
Hammers, tongs and files for the iron; axes, drills and planes for the wood – a whole craftsman's workshop in one chest. Description of the Mästermyr tool find (Gotland, recovered 1936)
Why the chest ended up in the bog no one knows for certain. Perhaps a travelling craftsman lost it while crossing the lake; perhaps it was sunk or laid down as an offering. Certain is only this: such a tool set was a fortune. Whoever owned it could travel and work anywhere – a wandering master who carried his skill in a chest.
Mästermyr recalls a simple truth: the famous artworks of the Viking Age did not make themselves. Behind every sword, every brooch, every carved dragon's head stood patient work with hammer, file and eye. The tool was the quiet partner of the art. Whoever wants to know more about the materials worked with in the North will find it in our material comparison.
Between the craftsman of Mästermyr and a workshop of today lie more than a thousand years – and yet the same thing connects them: good tools, a steady hand and the joy of making something lasting from metal and wood. That attitude we carry into every engraving to this day.
The Mästermyr tool chest was found in 1936 while ploughing a drained bog in the west of Gotland. It is the largest surviving tool collection of the Viking Age and holds around 200 objects – smithing and woodworking tools (hammers, tongs, files, axes, drills, planes, saws), along with locks, cauldrons and blanks. The owner was evidently both a metal- and a woodworker. Dated to the Viking Age; today in the Historical Museum in Stockholm.
“The craftsman of Mästermyr” is an interpretation – we know neither his name nor whether the chest belonged to a single man. The reason for the deposition in the bog (loss, offering, hiding place) is also open. Certain is only the find: an exceptionally complete tool set from the Viking Age. Everything beyond that is cautious reconstruction.
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