[MR] Of Interest to Our Norse Kin...

[Sharon Henderson]

Good evening all,

The highly addictive folks over at David Brown Books have a work on their
site at the moment that may be of some interest to those of us fascinated
with the Norse.

http://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.cfm/ID/35260

It is called *Woven into the Earth: Textile finds in Norse Greenland* by
Else Ostergaard.  Here's the blurb:

"One of the century's most spectacular archaeological finds occurred in
1921, a year before Howard Carter stumbled upon Tutankhamun's tomb, when
Poul Norlund recovered dozens of garments from a graveyard in the Norse
settlement of Herjolfsnaes, Greenland. Preserved intact for centuries by the
permafrost, these mediaeval garments display remarkable similarities to
western European costumes of the time. Previously, such costumes were known
only from contemporary illustrations, and the Greenland finds provided the
world with a close look at how ordinary Europeans dressed in the Middle
Ages. Fortunately for Norlund's team, wood has always been extremely scarce
in Greenland, and instead of caskets, many of the bodies were found swaddled
in multiple layers of cast off clothing. When he wrote about the excavation
later, Norlund also described how occasional thaws had permitted crowberry
and dwarf willow to establish themselves in the top layers of soil. Their
roots grew through coffins, clothing and corpses alike, binding them
together in a vast network of thin fibers - as if, he wrote, the finds had
been literally sewn in the earth. Eighty years of technical advances and
subsequent excavations have greatly added to our understanding of the
Herjolfsnaes discoveries. *Woven into the Earth* recounts the dramatic story
of Norlund's excavation in the context of other Norse textile finds in
Greenland. It then describes what the finds tell us about the materials and
methods used in making the clothes. The weaving and sewing techniques
detailed here are surprisingly sophisticated, and one can only admire the
talent of the women who employed them, especially considering the harsh
conditions they worked under. While *Woven into the Earth* will be
invaluable to students of medieval archaeology, Norse society and textile
history, both lay readers and scholars are sure to find the book's dig
narratives and glimpses of life among "the last Vikings" fascinating. *256p,
illus., (Aarhus University Press 2004)"
*
They have it for 40 bucks, which is a savings of 9 bucks off the usual price
when you can find it.  Sounds like neat stuff, especially for the textile
hounds among us.  :)  Oh, like me....

Beware this site.  It is highly addictive and dangerous to your wallet.  :)
Have fun!

in Service,
Meli