Archaeology and archaeological themes (and even the antiquarian/archaeological dimensions of some sorcerers) persist in season 3 of The Witcher. This fantasy world is a ‘land full of memories’ embodied in material culture and built environments.
For earlier discussions:
To reiterate, I’m interested in the representations in the television series rather than attempting to cross-reference with the games and books (although I welcome others’ input on the connections – similarities and differences).
In the television show, the archaeology of The Witcher is monumental, architectural and magical but also extends to portable items. In this popular neomedieval fantasy universe, archaeological themes are prominent and integral to the plot. We are presented with the deep-time antiquity of the Continent as a source of key mysteries which shed light on the drama. The past is manifest through ruinous, monumental, textual, material and osseous traces, specifically shedding light on a Continental genocide and hidden truths and lies about what came before and after.
Fantastical Landscapes
As with series 1 and 2, The Witcher provides fantastical medieval and early modern landscapes and architectures as setting for the story. This is a striking world-building in which viewers travel from islands and coastlines to river valleys, forests, deserts and mountains. Human settlements we encounter vary from isolated farmsteads, larger rural settlements and villages, castles and country houses as well as palaces, temples and urban centres. In this series, we get new insights into the many cities of the North as well as a brief glimpse at Nilfgaard’s capital and palace.
We pick up this series with Jen, Ciri and Geralt being hunted across the Continent, their hunters (employed by various agencies, including the wizard Rience (working for Vilgefortz), Dijkstra, spymaster for Redania, Nilfgaard and the elves) burning down residences that offer them shelter. Internally, there remains a feud between Jen and Geralt. Meanwhile, the elves are serving as Nilfgaard’s guerillas (the Squirrels) against the Northern kingdoms and Aretuza’s mages struggle and bicker among themselves.
Ruins of Elven Pasts
In episode 1, Geralt, Ciri and Jen are en route to Hagge, using Ciri as bait to draw out their hunter, the ‘fire fucker’ Rience. They camp at the ruins of an elven temple. Geralt explains that these are the ruins of Shaerrawedd. The twin-pronged high towers and elaborate architectures are intended to look ‘other’ – evoking a mixture of architectural allusions to ancient Mesopotamian, South-East Asian and Mesoamerican temples and ceremonial designs.
As Jen says by way of warning regarding the complexity and depth of the associations of the ruined place: ‘tread lightly, this land is full of memories’.
At the heart of the ruins there is a larger-than-life statue of Aelirenn whom Jen explains rallied the young elves to fight against the humans after the Conjunction. They reflect on the ruins and the beautiful roses that grow over them. It is considered a place where the elves were left to their deaths – it is a place of sorrow and loss. Ciri disagrees with Jen and Geralt’s perspective: she considers Aelirenn a hero – fighting for what she believed in and this was a place they revered. Geralt reflects on the futility of her valour and the death of the elves who followed her: ‘She led them all to their deaths. Neutrality, it won’t get you a statue but it will certainly help in keeping you alive’.
As well as the roses blooming around the statue, thick heavy tree roots enwrap the stonework, affording a sense of antiquity and ‘return to nature’ equivalent to the traces of past civilizations encountered in the tropics of South East Asia and Central and South America.
The ruins are part of this conversation: they are place of mourning: a material focus for the ambivalent memory of the elf-human conflict after the Conjunction and how it foreshadowed the annihilation of the elves following their failed attempt to combat humans. The landscape is one of racial conflict and material traces of its genocide. Talking within the ruins, Ciri reflects on how perhaps the elves might have won if their elders had fought with them and she might be a source of balance and harmony in the face of destruction and loss. Geralt is more cynical, seeing the ruins and the likely cyclical nature of time as resulting in futility rather than hope. Yet for Ciri, the ruins are a lesson of hope that it remains possible to bring harmony to the Continent.
Makeshift graves
The mutable ruins tell many stories and lessons, but it is clear that the past hangs heavy on the Continent, and violence upon violence populates its landscape with makeshift graves. In episode 2 – Cahir and Gallatin dig a grave for the Cahir’s fallen comrades while they scheme about how they should take control of the elves from Francesca. There is no other ceremony – just a night-time perfunctory grave-digging and closing.
Obelisks
As mentioned above, the cities and landscapes of the Continent are punctuated by ancient obelisks, already ancient at the time of the Conjunction. The theory that the obelisks are portals to other spheres is raised again when Ciri is almost caught by the Wild Hunt in episode 3, but this theme is left unexplored until the end of the series when the Tower of the Gull is destroyed by Ciri’s power. Again, we encounter Cintra, its obelisk as a material legacy of the elven pre-Conjunction past weighing on the city.
The past is accessed through antiquarian investigations of both monoliths and texts that hold their secrets. Istredd is looking for the Book of the Monoliths which holds the power to travel between spheres in order to offer the elves safety. This is never resolved but a ferryman Obin encountered by Geralt, Ciri and Jaskier claims to have seen it riding in the sky near the Tower of Thanedd. Perhaps we will learn more of the connections between worlds in future series…
A State Funeral in Redania
Redania is depicted as a landscape of chivalric opulence and designed landscapes. In this environment, a state funeral has a key significance in the narrative in episode 4. Here, we witness a scene from the funeral of Queen Hedwig, wife of King Vizimir II of Redania, her body finely dressed and lain in state with her crown on her belly. In episode 3 we saw that she was slain by Dijkstra and her head sent in a box to the king to frame Nilfgaard with whom the king had entered an alliance. Scuppering the alliance the funeral serves as a political rallying point for the king; his speech declaring war on Nilfgaard. We see nothing more of the funeral itself.
Aretuza and a Hidden Obelisk Revealed
The headland and island of Aretuza comprise a dramatic set of ancient elvish architectures inherited from before the Conjunction. Rather than ruins, they remain actively used but with secrets within and around them – a place of subterranean spaces and encased pasts.
In episode 4 we encounter Istredd lurking in the tunnels beneath Aretuza showing that there are ways into the academy cut by the elves that are unknown to the inhabitants. This subterranean level is key to the link between the Isle of Thanedd and the mainland and the layered history of the ancient complex. Indeed, the entire attack on Aretuza by the combined forces of Nilfgaard and the Elves results in knowledge of its antiquity and Vilgefortz letting them into the academy via a secret passage. The idea of the past coming back to haunt and then destroy the living via the medium of tunnels beneath the ancient architecture is central to the story. Subsequently, episodes 5 and 6 focus around the ancient elven fortress of Aretuza and the destruction of Tol Lara – the Tower of the Gull – by Ciri’s raw magical power. Crucially, and to little surprise, we learn that the tower is a casing around a far-older obelisk. Upon the obelisk she sees various ancient scripts represented, marking media for linking past, present and future. When she uses the obelisk, she knocks away Vilgefortz and transports herself to a desert.
Desert Bones
Ciri roams in the desert and has visions of the dead – her mother and grandmother interspersed between three visits from a personality from the past of the Continent: Falka (whom had been burned at the stake in Redania). She confronts them and reflects on her destiny. Her mother visits her where food can be found: a place of life. Meanwhile, her grandmother visits her at a place of death – human remains are scattered amidst the rocks. Her grandmother explains that the desert is the ‘largest graveyard on the Continent’. The human remains are merely the macabre here, but operate on a spiritual as well as a corporeal level at a point of intercession with the spirits of the dead in Ciri’s heat and dehydration-induced hallucinations.
Novice Burials at Aretuza
The remaining sorcerers retrieve the bodies of the novices abducted and experimented upon by Vilgefortz from the castle in Redania, returning them to individual bodies. Triss insists they are ‘given a proper burial’. Back at Aretuza, the bodies are placed in individual but adjacent graves in the subterranean crypt of elven skulls beneath the Tower of the Gull. We don’t see the digging of graves or the internment of the corpses, but we do see part of the memorial service. The sorceresses process to the graves, each holding a candle. Magical symbols are inscribed on their sand-covered graves and flower petals fall magically onto them during the ceremony. The cruel treatment of the girls joins with the deep-time legacy of death represented in the ossuary of the elven dead.
Of course it begs the question: what was the fate of the remains of the many other sorcerers, soldiers and elves who died in the battle at Aretuza? Where is the cemetery for this academy?
Conclusion
In summary, while there is only two brief funerary scenes – a makeshift mass burial of elves and a Reganian royal funeral – death and memory are mediated through material culture, monuments and architecture in the world of The Witcher, specifically through Shaerrawedd, Aretuza and other obelisks. The careful and respectful burial and memorial service for the three novices is a touching and central moment in the series. Drawing the evidence together, series 3 pursues many of the existing themes – monumental and osseous references to the distance past and the dead.
We cannot leave the archaeology of The Witcher behind, however, without mentioning the most important and prized artefact in the possession of Geralt of Rivia. I refer to Renfri’s brooch which he has worn fixed his sword since the backstory of series 1. The penannular brooch – crudely inspired by early medieval Insular examples from northern Britain and Ireland – was a striking part of the costume of Renfri whom Geralt loved but killed. Indeed, it is quite possibly the only vaguely ‘early medieval’ item to make an appearance in the fictional universe.
Geralt is still recovering from being nearly killed by Vilgefortz and is looking to avoid a fight as he ventures with Jaskier into Nilfgaardian territory. In order to avoid a fight, he bribes the captain of the Nilfgaardian road blockage by giving him the brooch. Yet seeing the maltreatment of other refugees by the soldiers, Geralt slays them all to a man but for the captain. Yet he deliberately leaves behind the brooch – either as a sign or to articulate that he has finally moved past his mourning for his past deeds. Instead, his focus is upon returning the cloth doll to the child of the refugees… This shows the care and attention afforded to thinking about material culture and memory in The Witcher.
Archaeo𝔡𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔥 