NESAT Update

Although the volume of papers from the proceedings of the eleventh North European Symposium on Archaeological Textiles ("NESAT XI") is, unfortunately, not yet published, scheduling for the program of NESAT XII, scheduled to take place in May 2014 in Hallstatt, Austria, is well underway. The tentative program for NESAT XII may be viewed here.

Unsurprisingly in light of the fact that NESAT XII is being held in Hallstatt, near the salt mines where many fascinating Bronze Age textile finds have been made, several of the program items will focus on those finds. Other interesting papers are expected as well, however.  Here are some of the planned program items that particularly interest me: 

• U. Mannering: Costume and Textile Design in the Nordic Bronze Age
• K. M. Frei: Strontium isotope investigations of Danish Bronze Age textiles
• S. H. Fossoy: Seams and embroidery on Bronze Age costumes in northern Europe
• B. Klessing: Textile Tools from Viking Age Graves in Gothland, Sweden: a Preliminary Exploration
• H. Lukesová: Old Fragments of Women's Costumes from the Viking Age - New Methods for Identification
• S. Desroiers: Chinese silks in the Merovingian graves of Saint-Denis Basilica?

I continue to look forward to more useful, in-depth information from archaeological discoveries as the technologies available for analyzing fiber finds advance. 

New Article on an Ancient Garment

Today, I found a new article by Marianne Vedeler and Lise Bender Jørgensen, analyzing a Norwegian ancient garment find. The citation is as follows:

Vedeler, Marianne & Jørgensen, Lise Bender. Out of the Norwegian glaciers: Lendbreen—a tunic from the early first millennium AD. ANTIQUITY 87, pp. 788-801 (2013).

Professor Vedeler has uploaded a PDF copy, and is in the process of downloading a Scribd copy, to her account on academia.edu, where it can be downloaded for free to members (membership is free and members do not have to be academics). The URL for the page where the article can be downloaded is here.

This is an analysis of the wool tunic, found on land revealed by the thawing of a Norwegian glacier, that I wrote about here nearly two years ago.  According to the article, the tunic has been radiocarbon-dated to between 230 and 390 CE.  Since it was not found on a body (it was found in a pile, crumpled up instead of folded, and "bore traces of close association with horse dung"), it cannot be said with certainty whether it was made for a man or woman, though the article notes that from the measurements (the chest area measures about 1.08 meters around) it would fit a slender man.

Since the article is available for free I don't need to describe it in detail, but I will mention some interesting details about the tunic's fabric and construction.

• The neckline of the garment is boat-necked, with a slight, stand-up rim all around. (p. 792-793).
• The garment is woven of several different colors of undyed sheep's wool, including white, brown and black. (p. 790).
• The body of the garment is woven from a 2/2 diamond twill. (p. 790).
• The sleeves of the garment are woven from a different 2/2 diamond twill than the body (determined by which threads of the weave are of which colors). (p. 790-91).  The authors suggest, based on that fact and the fact that the sleeves are sewn with a different quality of thread than the body, that the sleeves may have been added at a later date to what was originally a sleeveless garment. (p. 793).
• The colors used to weave the fabric used in the body of the garment create a houndtooth-like pattern that obscures the fact that a diamond weave was used.  (p. 791; see also picture p. 793).
• The garment was well made and of good quality, but had been much used and was patched.  (p. 793).
• The armholes of the garments are rounded.  (See, e.g., sketch on p. 798).  This is a feature that sometimes is not found in garments of significantly later date.
• Other textile fragments were recovered from the same general area.  According to the article, "Currently, approximately 50 fragments await dating and analysis and, as global warming progresses, more can be expected. They promise to shed further light on dress, textile design and textile production in the first millennium AD—and earlier." (p. 799).

I commend this well-written and well-illustrated article to anyone interested in the clothing worn in Northern Europe during the first millennium CE, and I will continue to keep an eye out for further research on the Lendbreen finds.

EDIT:  (9/10/2013)  The article is no longer available for free download on academia.edu.

EDIT:  (11/20/2013)  The article is once again AVAILABLE for free download on academia.edu.  The link in my post above has been changed to correctly point to the new download link.

Sarmatian Splendor

From near the the village of Filippovka in the Orenberg region of southern Russia comes news of a recent archaeological find; a previously undisturbed 2,500-year-old grave of a wealthy Sarmatian woman. A news article about this find can be read here. 

Reconstructed costume, Issyk kurgan*

The untouched nature of this find is shown by the picture of the grave in the article.  Sarmatians, like the Scythians who occupied this part of the world before them, liked to decorate their clothing with numerous small gold or sometimes bronze precious-metal plaques.  If the grave had been opened in antiquity by a would-be robber, those items would certainly have been taken, instead of being found all about the woman's remains.  In addition, other valuables were found, including a silver mirror with a decorated gold handle, a large bronze kettle, and what the article describes as containers for cosmetics.  No mention is made of surviving textile fragments, though it's possible that the bronze kettle or other bronze items in the grave may preserve some textile scraps that were not mentioned in the article.

Attempted reconstructions of Sarmatian and Scythian clothing are based on evidence (often from depictions of human figures on jewelry) that those peoples wore simple, long-sleeved tunics and (in the case of men, at least) pants, but decorated them with gold and bronze plaques (which have been found in multiple graves).  Sarmatian and Scythian  women of rank also wore tall headdresses, similarly adorned. No reconstruction image of the Filippovka grave's inhabitant has yet been published, so far as I am aware.  However, the figure on the left, a reconstruction of the costume of a Scythian royal, interred in the Issyk kurgan (grave mound) in Kazakhstan gives a good idea of the type of splendor involved. Interestingly, there is some controversy as to whether the costume depicted in the Issyk reconstruction was worn to the grave by a young woman or a young man.

Since the Filippovka grave was untouched, it seems likely that it will attract greater than average attention from researchers.  I look forward to learning what information is extracted from future research of this rich find.

*  Photograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The Ancient Is New Again

Grecian dress, rear

Kore statue, c. 530 BCE

Pally's "Grecian Maxi Dress"

I have just returned from one vacation, and am preparing to head out on another. Right now I'm too exhausted to engage in original thought, or even finish one of my nearly finished drafts. However, I did find some intriguing images to share with my readers on this hot summer (or boring winter, depending on where you live) day.

The image on the left is a picture of statue of a maiden wearing a peplos, a simple garment formed by draping a sheet or tube of fabric around the body and pinning it at the shoulders. It is dated to 530 BCE.

The images on the right are from Neiman Marcus's website; Google Shopping found it for me today. The website calls it Rachel Pally's "Birdie Draped Grecian Maxi Dress". According to her website, Ms. Pally is a young California-based designer "distinguished by her ability to blend the 'easy and elegant' with the 'chic and classic.'" Taking into consideration the stylization of the Kore statue as compared to a photograph of a living woman, the dresses and hairstyles depicted are surprisingly alike.

The Kore's peplos likely was made from fine wool, as wool was the fabric most commonly used for Greek clothing in the 6th century BCE. It must have been woven from a fine wool, perhaps loosely woven, so that it would drape fluidly and flatteringly. Scientific analysis of the Acropolis's Kore statue, which detected minute traces of brightly colored paints, suggest that the Kore was originally wearing a red peplos, but other Kore statues, and likely living Greek maidens, may well have worn blue instead. Wool takes vegetable dyes very well, including woad, an indigotin-containing plant common to Europe and used since ancient times to dye textiles blue. Wikipedia states, in its article about Kore statues, that when Kore were painted the "[d]ominant color was the red for the lips and hair, red and blue for the clothes, and black for the eyes." Wool is naturally soil repellent and tends to shrink and felt when washed, so the Kore's dress likely would not have been washed. but would have been carefully aired and brushed to remove dust, and perhaps stored in a chest with dried herbs to discourage moths.

Neiman Marcus's dress wouldn't be washed, either; according to the description on the Neiman Marcus website, the Pally dress is made from modal and must be dry cleaned.  The company's website describes Rachel Pally's Grecian Maxi Dress thus:

Stretch jersey.

Cowl neckline; sleeveless.

Caftan overlay top; cape back.

Cinched waist.

Rippled A-line skirt.

Hem falls to floor.

Modal/spandex; dry clean.

Made in USA.

I am impressed by Ms. Pally's success at recreating the elegant, humble effect of the ancient peplos with modern techniques and fabrics. But what's more impressive is that after 2,500 years, the same look still appeals to Europeans and other cultural descendants of the ancient Greeks. These images are powerful support for the idea that fashion really does reuse the best ideas, and what is old, perhaps even very old, may come around and be new again.

The Kore statue shown is in the Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece; the photograph is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. The photographs of the Grecian Maxi Dress are from the Neiman Marcus website.