Identifying plant fibre textiles from Norwegian Merovingian Period and Viking Age graves: The Late Iron Age Collection of the University Museum of Bergen

Abstract

The investigation of textiles and textile production can yield important information about the infrastructure and resource management in ancient societies. Before the 19th century textiles made of plant material in Scandinavia were mainly made from locally available raw materials: nettle, hemp and flax. In 2012, an investigation of ten Scandinavian Viking Age and Early Middle Age wall hangings showed that four of these, including the famous Överhogdal wall hanging, are in fact made with hemp. This investigation demonstrates that hemp, in some cases at least, was also used for fine textile production in Viking Age Scandinavia. The aim of this paper is to investigate this topic further. In order to do so we examined all known Merovingian Period (560/570–800CE) and Viking Age (800–1066CE) textile finds in the Late Iron Age Collection of the University Museum of Bergen. The collection is extensive and belongs to one of the oldest archaeological collections in Norway. It contains finds from western Norway mainly. We identified a total of 45 grave finds with more than 100 different weaves in the collection. Plant fibres do not keep well under the burial conditions in Norway, but we managed to identify ten non-mineralized and non-charred finds with fragments of plant fibre material belonging most probably to clothing and accessories. Fibres from these ten finds were investigated using the modified Herzog test. In addition, morphological features were observed carefully. Nine samples were identified as flax, one sample could only be identified as a bast fibre. Our finds show that though hemp was used in some cases for fine textile production in Viking Age Scandinavia, available remains of plant fibre clothing and accessories coming from Hordaland, Sogn og Fjordane and Rogaland counties are made of flax.