Showing posts with label Lund embroidery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lund embroidery. Show all posts

Monday, February 28, 2011

Lund "Embroidery"?

Here's another minor conundrum. The photograph below is from James Graham-Campbell's book The Vikings.  It depicts a textile find from Lund that Graham-Campbell refers to as a "gold-embroidered silk, perhaps from Byzantium, found in Lund." 

From "The Vikings," page 55, No. 22
And that's the conundrum.  So far as I can tell from the photograph, there is no embroidery on that textile!  It looks to me as though it has had gold tablet-woven braids sewn to it.  But nothing like modern embroidery (or even Anglo-Saxon embroidery, which was quite common during the period) seems to be present.  So I've been wondering:  is this the wrong Lund find? Are there traces of embroidery that I simply cannot detect in this particular photograph? Was Graham-Campbell  mistaken or misinformed?

This is the only reference I've ever found to the "Lund embroidery."  Any additional information (or better photographs) would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT:  This textile reminds me a bit of the pieces from Mammen, which are now believed to be the surviving ends of long ribbons used to fasten a cloak. I wonder if the Lund piece might have served similar function.