Period: Late Iron Age (400 - 700 AD)

Project titel: Garnet i Teglefunnet - Praktiske forsøg

Forsker: Sunniva Halvorsen, Arkæolog, Norge.

Email: sunnivawh(at)yahoo.no

Year: 2008

Abstract:

In prehistoric times almost all textiles were made of wool. The ancient craftspeople were generally very skilled and could produce fine threads for underwear and thick yarns for winter cloths. But it is difficult to control the spinning process and the textile craftspeople of prehistory would have had to practice a lot to become really good at spinning thread.

 
In Tegle in Norway there is an Iron Age grave, where the buried person has been laid to rest with a ceramic vessel containing thick and thin, coarse and fine yarns. Perhaps these yarns were made by a young apprentice learning to spin wool? Or perhaps the yarns were made by an untalented craftsman? Perhaps it is more likely that different qualities of yarn were produced for different purposes? This will be investigated by Archaeologist Sunniva Halvorsen, who will produce copies of the yarn that will be compared with the original yarns.

Through the experiment we will learn more about the qualities of yarn, the different skills of the crafts people and how knowledge of textile crafts were passed on in prehistory. Through the Tegle yarns we will come quite close to the person who was buried in Norway 1500 years ago with pretty and ugly yarns. How were the different qualities of yarn produced? Why were some thin and some thick? And what was the purpose of taking them into the afterlife?

Reference number HAF 07/08