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Hougen starts his article in Viking in this manner: "Tapestries and wood carving - in these two words are the
starting point for the new perspectives that the Oseberg nd has opened for the arts history of the viking age.
We are here presented for the rst and so far only time with a full selection of forms of artistry that we knew
existed, but could not picture, because we lacked practically any actual materials." Such as the tapestry
fragments appear today, it is hard to get any real impression of them. Many are so stiff and unclear that any
attempt to analyse them is practically impossible.
[Cake of textiles in many layers. It was not possible to separate them all.]
It has been possible to get something from some of them. It turns out that they have been surprisingly narrow,
between 16 and 23 cm wide. The length can't be determined; but since it must be considered fairly certain
that they were created on the little tubular loom of which pieces were found both in the
chamber and in the fore, they may, based on the distance between the cross pieces, have
been between 1 m and 1.5 m long. Even though they are that narrow, these strips are still
lled with a diverse richness of topic, ordered in horizontal rows above each other. As
Bjrn Hougen has suggested, this could have been a primitive attempt at perspective.
First some words on the technical weaving aspect of these extraordinary tapestries. The
warp, which is of wool, has on average ten threads per centimetre. The threads, which
make up the gures, are also of wool, but between the individual gures the warpthreads
are left exposed. It is unthinkable that this was originally the case. Therefore we must
believe there was a double weft system, one of wool which made up the motifs, and one of
linen which is now gone. This is known as brocade. The actual brocading is done in twenty different weaving
patterns, of which several have an exquisite decorative effect. The outlines of each gure was marked by a
thread of a different colour than the background, and it's wound around each warp thread - so called
slyngesmett.
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Brocading is a special type of weaving technique with ornamentation of differently coloured wool yarn in
different weaves and patterns. The warp can be of wool or linen and the background of linen. This kind of
fabric is found already in the 7th century in some Swedish graves (Valsgrde. 8 and Valsgrde 6), and in two
graves in the Swedish Viking merchant town Birka at Lake Mlaren. In Norway there are fragments of this
technique in three Norwegian nds, from Haugen in Rolvsy, stfold and Bo in Torvastad, Rogaland and
Jtten in Helland, Rogaland, but above all the technique is strongly represented in the Oseberg grave's rich
collection of textiles. The colours are now faded and appear in different shades of brown and grey colour
tones. Only the red colour has kept well and still has a fresh carmine colour. This colour appears so often it
can appear as though it was the main colour.
[The red colour has lasted better than the other colours, like here in the great wagon train. The tapestry
fragment was sketched during the excavations.]
These narrow cloths seem to equal the Old Norse word 'rell'. Unlike a wide rug it was a long, narrow piece
and of a more costly material than the rug. In modern terminology it's known as a [runner]revle.
Tapestries from Skog and verhogdal in Sweden (verhogdal C-14 dated to the 9th-12th centuries) can be
considered commoner descendants of the rened tapestries manufactured at the court of the Oseberg queen.
It has been suggested that the earlier examples of brocading in the braids from Eveb and Snartemo, which
belong to the Migration Period, could be the origin of this art.
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[Illustration Page 178. Collection of textile remains drawn during the excavations.]
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manufactured in Byzantium and the Middle-East in that period. They were also cut up and found a similar
use as decoration on plain-coloured pieces of clothing. One of the fragments from Oseberg has a pattern clear
enough that it can be directly compared to a large silk fragment preserved in Lyon.
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[Fragment of woven braid. About double size. Water colour after drawing by Soe Kraft.]
It is likely that we in Norway as early as the Bronze Age had a fully developed sheep industry, and that the
sheep belonged to the short-tailed, goat-horned sheep breed Ovis aries palustris, which is related to our
modern spel sheep. This breed had long, shiny kemps and a particularly ne undercoat, which was
extraordinarily well suited for woven cloth. This sheep had the characteristic that it shed the wool in large
clumps, which were easy to collect. Originally perhaps this was satisfactory. But from the Viking age graves
we know large shears, which have been interpreted as sheep shears. There is therefore reason to believe that
the wool of the Oseberg textiles was cut. This theory is supported by the fact that there is no roots on the
wool bres in the Oseberg material, and that a pair of shears were found in the grave, see ill. p. 185.
The spinning was done by spindle. In the Oseberg ship was found a functional whorl of clay shale with the
spindle attached. There were also several loose spindles. With this primitive tool the loveliest, ne and even
threads were spun. It could not be done better today with our advanced aids.
The whorl is one of the most commonly found tools in female graves of the Viking age. This shows that
spinning must have been done by virtually every single woman in our country. However, some will have
been better than others, and that it might also have been a specialist task is not out of the question.
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When the threads were spun, the warping of the loom could begin. Various circumstances make it clear that
the Oseberg textiles must have been woven on a so-called warp-weighted loom, which simply put is an
upright loom with hanging warp. At the bottom of the warp warp-weights of stone were attached to keep the
warp threads under tension. The warp was created by weaving a narrow braid on a heddle or such, but the
thread which was brought into the weave from one side, was brought out in a long loop or a warping frame
on the other side before it returned to the weave again. A warp that is created thus will have a closed starting
border on the nished cloth. See ill. on page 192 top.
[Illustration page 192 Top. Analysis of the starting border on a four-shed fabric. Drawing: Anne Stine
Ingstad.]
A warp set up in this old fashion was found in a bog on the farm Tegle I Time on Jren. It's been dated to the
Migration Period. See ill. on page 192 bottom. This extraordinary and rare nd is an illustration of how the
Iron Age women set up their loom.
[Illustration page 192 Bottom. Warp with starting borders and warp weights. Found in a bog onTegle I Time
on Jren. From ca 500 A.D. Photo Norsk Folkemuseum.]
The warp, the hanging threads in a loom of this old type, was always tightly spun to be able to carry the
weights which held it tense. In all the fabrics mentioned here, these threads are right-spun. The horizontal
threads are called the weft or woof. It could be either right-spun or left-spun, and it was quite often thicker
and looser, and of ner wool than the warp. The threads in the warp were thereafter organised with the help
of heddles, which were attached to the heddle-rods. One of the sheds was the natural shed created by itself
because of the tension of the warpweights. Because of this warping system what we call a two-shed fabric, is
in the old terms known as a one-shed + the natural shed; a four-shed fabric was in the old mode known as a
three-shed + the natural shed. In the following I'll use the modern terminology.
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Fourshed or twill
Twill is another of the basic weaves. There are several types: the weft oating over two and under two
warpthreads creates 2/2 twill or so-called diagonal twill. Because the entrypoint is moved one thread
sideways each row, diagonal lines are created in the weave. There are many fragments of this type in the
Oseberg material, both coarse and ne. The nest have between 14-28 threads per cm in the tightest system
and between 8 and 20 in the other. Many fragments are in surprisingly good condition, almost as though
they'd just been taken off the loom.
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[Analysis of tubular selvedge on a four-shed wool fabric. Oseberg. Drawing: Anne Stine Ingstad.]
Several so-called starting borders are also preserved on these fragments. These borders are caused by the
special way of setting up the warp, which is described on page 190.
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Some of the fragments in this group appear to come from the clothes the dead were buried in. There are some
ne, blue fragments with seams, which appear to be from a gown. We will look closer at this in a later
chapter. There were also several fragments coming from either a tent or the ship's sail, as there are a number
of rope ends sticking out between the layers. See ill. lowest on page 197. All in all this group of the Oseberg
material shows that 2/2-twill or diagonal twill was widely used.
[Illustration page 197 bottom. Wool fabric with rope ends. Tent or sail?]
Cross twill is a variant of twill where the diagonals are broken. A large group has this type of weave. They
are for the most part found in large stiff cakes in several layers. There are also other textiles between the
layers, namely the beautiful patternwoven covers of wool and linen. What connection these different textiles
may have had to each other I will discuss later. These textiles must also have been used as unprocessed
blankets, since there are a number of fragments of them that have selvedges, of the same type as the diagonal
twills mentioned above. These fabrics have their nap raised on one or possibly both sides. There are 7-8
threads per cm. The warp in these blankets is very thin and tightly right-spun. The thread of the weft is quite
thick and is spun from ner wool than the warp. There are 4-5 threads per cm. They are loosely left-spun. In
this matter the old have produced a very soft and airy blanket, which now mostly exists in stiffened cakes.
But one fragment is still in good enough condition that we can see what the blankets originally looked like.
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[Analysis of wool fragment in cross twill. Drawing: Tone Strenger. Fragment of wool fabric in cross twill
with tubular selvedge.]
Crosstwills are found in Norway in only two other Viking age nds, and it is not common in Europe either
during that time. It appears as though this weave was particularly well suited for blankets that would have the
nap raised. It is possible that these blankets can be identied as the so-called 'villosa', fulled cloaks produced
in Mainz in the 9th century and exported to England. These could often be very ne, and were popular as
gifts sent to prominent people. We know that Boniface sent such a villosa to the pope in Rome. It is also
possible that our blankets are copies of these villosa, and that they were produced in the queen's workshop,
something indicated by the selvedges. They are identical to the selvedges that appear on the diagonal twill
fabrics, which are most likely woven locally. Tubular selvedges are only found once elsewhere in the Viking
Age Norwegian material. Outside Norway there is one example in the material from Novgorod in Russia, and
six from the Viking Age layers of Ladoga Staraja. There are also selvedges of this kind found in a couple of
Polish nds from the 13-14th centuries. There is reason to believe that tubular selvedges are a Norwegian
specialty of the Viking age, but that here also they were rare. Even stranger then that there are so many of
them in the Oseberg material. Perhaps it is because this material must have contained so many blankets,
which required a solid selvedge.
There are also ve fragments of another fabric woven in cross twill in this material. It has a few more threads
per cm in the respective thread systems, and the wool is very soft and ne. The fabric was probably
originally white, but is now miscoloured by a red fabric that must have been lying in close contact with it.
This is probably an imported fabric, as it has a very exclusive appearance.
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[Illustration on page 200. Fragments of wool fabric in diamond twill. The fabric is made from mohair.]
Another fabric in this type of weave has 30 threads in the tighter system and 20 in the other. It somewhat
more closed than the previous one, but was also originally red. The third fabric of this type has 20 threads per
cm in both systems. It is signicantly coarser than the other two and was originally dyed blue with woad. It is
probably homemade. It has a preserved starting border, something that shows it was woven on a warpweighted loom. There can on the other hand be little doubt that the other two fabrics were imported. Alizarin
has been found in them, and they were probably dyed with madder.
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graves with a noble appearance, characterised by rich imported goods, rich jewellery, needle cases, and
kitchen- and weaving implements. The male burials are often characterised by rich weaponry, and there are
often smith's tools and scales. Further it is worth mentioning that the farms where these graves are found
often have names ending in -vang, -heim or -stad, which further underlines that it is the most noble farms in
the area we're talking about. They are centrally located, right by or near by places that grew into market
towns in the Middle ages. This suggests that these places had a trading role already in the Viking age. Based
on such associations I nd it reasonable to believe that the textiles in question must have been traded.
Judging from the distribution of nds in Norway it appears that the oldest nds, such as the four from
Overhalla in Nord-Trndelag, must have entered this area from Sweden. In the century before the Viking age
Overhalla was one of the most important entrypoints to Trndelag for Swedish inuences. In the Viking age
the distribution of the nds is more even through the county, but it's strongly concentrated at the end of the
dales which lead to Jmtland. Here the Storsj area, which is considered to have been settled from central
Sweden, may have been the trading centre which distributed goods from the Mlar area and Birka to
Trndelag, and vice versa. In the Vestland there is also a concentration of these diamond twill textiles at the
end of the mountain passes, especially those with a connection to the various valley routes of the Gudbrand
valley. This seems to suggest that these textiles were carried across the passes and down to the Vestland.
When they appear to come through the Gudbrand valley, it is easy to believe they were carried the long way
through central Sweden and into Norway where the Korsvinger track now enters. The journey continued
across Solr and onto Mjsa, then by boat across Mjsa and up through the various routes through the
Gudbrand valley and down to the Vestland. The only nd of this type of textiles in the central country is from
the lands of the Trstad farm close to Kongsvinger. From very early times the Glomma ferry landed here.
This textile fragment then seems to mark where these fabrics entered the eastern parts, stlandet. When there
are no other nds like it in the whole stland area, this could be due to a different kind of burial practice that
did not leave textile remains in the graves. There are many uncertainties here. The total lack of this type of
nd here has indeed been the main argument for these ne textiles being produced on the Vestland, since the
most of them are found there. Some of them must undoubtedly have been woven as copies of imported
textiles, but there is really little doubt that the nest of them were imported to Norway. It is probably Birka
that was the transit point for these textiles. There is little likelihood they were produced in Sweden.
Everything suggests they were originally from the East somewhere, where similar textiles much have been
produced long before they began appearing in Nordic graves. There are extraordinarily ne diamond twills in
graves in Palmyra in Syria and in Antino in Egypt that are from the 4th century. These are much ner than
those found in our graves, but they all share the same characteristics with our textiles. That there is a
connection here must be considered without a doubt.
Herringbone twill is another variant of twill. It is closely related to the diamond twill and is characterised by
the regular turn of the diagonal in the direction of the warp or the weft, forming a 'sh-bone' pattern. This
type is rarer in Norway than the previous, but since these are very small fragments it can often be difcult to
tell the difference between herringbone twill and diamond twill. In the Oseberg material there is a fragment
of this type which has 30 threads per cm in one and 14 in the other system. The threads are right-spun in both
systems.
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[Fragment of wool fabric in Slyngevev, and analysis of the same fabric. Drawing: Tone Strenger.]
Soumakh or 'Slyngesmett' is a technique that is relatively little known in the Nordic area. The weaving is
done through winding a weft thread around each warpthread in a way similar to stockingstitch. They are then
adjusted through the next row. A fabric produced in this way is similar to a tabby with a ribbed effect. It's
known as Oriental Soumakh. In our material there are some rather small fragments of this technique. AS the
warp threads in this case were of wool, it was possible to analyse the piece. In other instances the warp
threads must have been made of a vegetable bre, since there are now only remains of threadspirals left.
People from the Caucasus and nearby areas used the technique in more recent times for fabrics that were
subject to heavy wear and tear, such as saddle gear. This might mean that our fragment comes from an
imported fabric, possibly a belt? But then it shouldn't be that hard to copy it either.
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may have been grown on the farm. Flax is an ancient cultivar, which must have been grown early on in
Norway also, as is attested by placenames.
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[Illustration page 180. Watercolour of silk embroidery. Much enlarged. After drawing by Soe Kraft.]
Small seams occur in a few places, both as repairs of tears or on fragments of fabrics sewn together. Amongst
others, two blue twills were each sewn together with a piece of diamond twill (see the picture above) in such
a manner that one fabric overlays the other.
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Felt
There are two fragments of felted wool in the material. The pieces are no more than 2 mm thick, and it's
doubtful if they can really be called felt. It is hard to imagine what these thin akes could have been used for.
It is possible that wool was worn in the shoes, and that due to heat and sweat the wool turned into felt.
Otherwise it's hard to imagine what practical use they could have been.
Leather
One catalog number consists of four lumps and one small fragment of leather. The largest lump measures 9.5
x 1.5 cm. To one of them a thin string is attached which is made up of ve right-spun wool threads. They are
now dark brown. Inside the lump there is a small space, which hid a seed which through analysis was shown
to be hemp, (Cannabis sativa). This was probably a pouch with seed in it, which one of the women wore
around her neck, or it might have been placed somewhere on her body. There were also found four seeds of
Cannabis sativa among the bedding. These could originally have come from this pouch.
Fulling
Fulling is a kind of after-treatment of fabric. With a thistle or carder or some other tool a nap of loose bre
ends was raised on the surface of the fabric. This type of after treatment was done on the A-group of textiles
in our material, the light blankets with tubular selvedges.
Dyeing
The nest of the tabbies were dyed after they were woven. This is easy to establish, as the colour is lighter
where the threads cross each other, but also inside the threads. We don't know if it was common to dye whole
pieces of cloth in the Nordic areas during the Viking age, or if we should see the examples of this technique
in our material as an indication that these fabrics were imported. Since it is some of the nest fabrics in the
whole material and additionally dyed red, the latter is likely. It appears as though red dye was an English
speciality. In a market roll from St. Denis from the beginning of the 8th century it is mentioned that people
came across the sea to buy wine, honey and madder.
The Tapestries
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Horse and woman in the shape of a carrion bird in front of a house with dragons' heads on the gables. Drawn
by Soe Kraft.
Spear carriers outside two small houses with dragons' heads on the gables. Drawn by Soe Kraft.
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"Quay" with raised spears. A ship is drawing alongside. Drawn by Soe Kraft.
Covered cart with dragons' heads. A woman walks in front of it. Drawn by Soe Kraft
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