Sewing for Byzantium: The Himation is Done!

The himation

Finally!  It's done.

Actually, it's not *quite* done. I still need to complete the seam finishing so nothing ravels, and I intend to perpetrate embroidery around the neckline and sleeve-ends at some point. But I may well be able to do the seam finishing tomorrow night, and even now it's wearable. I photographed it on a hanger purely because my husband wanted to go to bed early and I didn't feel like putting on the other garments that go with it (the mantion, savanion, and shirt) for photographs.  I'll do that sometime this week.

Here are the official statistics, as required by the Historical Sew Fortnightly rules:

The Challenge:  #24--Re-do. (i.e., re-do a previous challenge).  As I've said way too many times now previously, my himation qualifies for a number of the previous challenges.  This time, I'm going to list all of the ones for which I think it qualifies:

• #2 UFO. This is the last necessary component for my Middle Byzantine outfit and I'd been meaning to do it for years now.
• #5 Peasants and Pioneers. The outfit of which this is one of the most important parts is essentially rich peasant's clothing.
• #8 By the Sea.  Byzantium (later called Constantinople and now called Istanbul) was a seaport, and many of the Byzantine Empire's provinces were coastal.  
• #10 Squares, Rectangles, and Triangles.  All early medieval garments are composed of squares, rectangles, and triangles, and this one is no exception.
• #14 Eastern Influence.  The Byzantine Empire was an Eastern power, compared to the rest of Europe, of course.
• #17 Robes and Robings.  The neckline and sleeve-ends are trimmed with robings, and one could arguably consider the tunic itself to be a robe.
• #21  Colour Challenge Green.  Very.
• #23 Generosity and Gratitude.  I owe a debt of gratitude first to Peter Beatson, whose page on how to make a Manazan shirt inspired me to start making a Middle Byzantine outfit in the first place, but also to Timothy Dawson, whose research, both in print and on the Levantia website, gave me the information to finish it.

Fabric:   Nearly 3 yards of 100% linen, medium weight, in apple green, purchased from fabrics-store.com.  Scraps of the same type of linen in dark blue, from the same source.

Pattern: My own, adapted from Peter Beatson's Manazan shirt pattern and Timothy Dawson's sketches and research.

Year: It is rarely possible to pin down Early Period clothing to a particular year.  My design is Middle Byzantine, i.e., 10th-12th century CE.

Notions: Linen thread, in several different (and not particularly matching) shades of green, 80/3.  Silk thread in dark blue from Gutterman's (for sewing the blue linen around the neck and sleeve-ends). 

How historically accurate is it?  The pattern is as accurate as present research can make it.  It is completely hand-sewn, and at least some of the construction stitches I chose are accurate though I haven't checked very closely.  The colors would be plausible for wool, and the blue was possible on linen (it's pretty close to the blue of the linen apron-dress loop found in the 10th century Pskov grave).  However, I can't document that the particular green I chose for the body of the dress could have been achieved on linen during that period, and there's always the issue of whether linen was used for clothing other than undergarments in period.  So let's say 70%-80%, though that might be wildly optimistic on my part. 

Hours to complete:  5 hours, spread out over almost as many months.

First worn:  Not yet! Hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday for photographs, including photographs of the entire Middle Byzantine outfit.  

Total cost:  Hard to say because most of the costs were incurred years ago and the blue silk thread was originally bought for another project anyway.  If you added up the original cost of the linen thread and the cloth used, it probably comes to no more than $30 USD.

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.