How Much Fur Did the Vikings Wear?

To my readers: Happy New Year, and a wonderful 2025! Number 66 of the Archaeological Textiles Review is now available on the ATN Friends website. A table of contents for this issue, and a download link, can be found here.

I have just begun looking through that issue, and already have found an interesting article about a newly-commenced study seeking to establish a critical fact: was fur commonly used in Viking age clothing? It turns out that no comprehensive review of Viking age finds containing evidence of fur on clothing has been done to date. The few finds that document survival of fur on clothing are problematic as evidence, in part because it is very difficult to identify the species from which a fur specimen came using microscopy.

A project has recently been initiated to examine extant Viking age clothing finds in Denmark for fur and evidence about fur. The article in ATR No. 66 that discusses the project and the reasons such a study is important and necessary is: Luise Ørsted Scharff Brandt, Imported fur in Viking Age Denmark and its importance as a visual marker, Archaeological Textiles Review, No. 66, page 111.

Happy reading!