Gnezdovo and Pskov

Recently, I mentioned receiving the latest issue, Issue No. 53, of the Archaeological Textiles Newsletter (a periodical which, starting with the very next issue, will be called the Archaeological Textiles Review (click on the line for "2011" and scroll down).

One article in that issue particularly piqued my interest. The title of that article is:

Orfinskaya, Olga and Pushkina, Tatyana. 10th century AD textiles from female burial II-301 at Gnezdovo, Russia.

The authors begin by noting that Gnezdovo was occupied in the 10th century chiefly by "Scandinavians and Slavs."  This article is about another one of those 10th century chamber grave that are fashioned like an underground room, with boards lining all four interior surfaces.  Some jewelry was found; specifically, a number of beads large enough to make up a necklace; a silver cross, and fragments of an equal armed brooch and an "oval" brooch.  Two round birchbark pieces were also found in this grave (one split in two) with holes around their edges, as though they had been laced to a fabric piece to create a box, like the birchbark find in the Pskov grave. As at Pskov, textile fragments were associated with this putative birchbark box, suggesting that a costume had been stored inside it when the grave was sealed.  But unlike the Pskov grave and certain other graves at Gnezdovo that I have written about, this grave did not contain any textile finds resembling what is currently thought of as Viking era women's costume. 

Reconstruction of Dress 1 (ATN, No. 53, p. 39)

Instead of a large piece of fabric with loops that might have been an apron dress, there were substantial fragments of two dresses that incorporated silk brocades, fragments of a linen dress that included blue pieces as well as undyed pieces, and a scrap big enough to be identified as sprang but too small to be identified as a particular object or garment. Dress 1 had long sleeves with cuffs and a short, standing collar and a bodice portion made from a brocade that the authors believe, on the basis of the type of gold thread used in it, likely had been made in Northern China.  The illustration that appears to the right is from the article and shows two possible reconstructions of its original appearance. Dress 2 survived only in fragmentary form; other than ascertaining that it had a v-shaped neckline, the authors do not opine about how that dress was made.

Toroptsa dress (11th-13th c)

The linen fragments are just as interesting.  They appear to constitute the remains of a tunic or shift that was made from undyed, coarse linen on the top, with a skirt of blue-dyed, finer linen that was pleated onto the garment at approximately the level of the  waistline.  The description resembles a tunic found at the Toroptsa site in Izyaslavl, Russia, a sketch of which is reproduced at the left.  (I cannot reproduce the citation information, since I can no longer access the website from which I downloaded this image.)

The lesson I take away from this find as the ATN writeup describes it is that the contents of each grave excavated must first be examined on the basis of its own contents, without attempting to constrain the analysis in terms of what the analyst expects to find.  Although other finds in this area appear to be Scandinavian (i.e., Viking), this one does not appear to be even remotely like those finds.  To the contrary, this find contains jewelry that a Viking woman might have worn, a dress decorated with a Chinese brocade and made in a rather Chinese style, and another dress, perhaps an underdress, in a style that might have been found in a Slavic grave.  It's a useful reminder that all people do not always dress exactly the way their tribe, nationality, or station prescribe, but may adopt different clothing according to circumstances, and reconstructing the clothing may help us understand the circumstances that shaped the way they lived.

The article contains way too much detail for me to adequately summarize it here, and I commend it to my readers' attention.  In case you did not subscribe to ATN last year, be of good cheer:  you can purchase a copy of Issue No. 53 for 10 Euros, or wait another year or two and download a copy from the Internet, and read the article for yourself.