letter to the museum
Oct. 8th, 2015 01:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaI mentioned that we got a tour last Friday of the Högom Find display at the museum in Sundsvall. The woman who gave us the tour suggested several times that I email her when I got home with the questions I asked that she didn't have answers for on the day (she is primarily an architect, not a textile person). I just sent her a long letter full of questions, and thought that I would also record it here.
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Hi Johanna!
Thank you again for a delightful tour last weekend. Your willingness to make time out of your day to talk about the find with a handful of historical textile enthusiasts is appreciated. You suggested that I send you written questions when I got home. Unfortunately, it has been a busy week, so I can't promise that I will be able to remember everything I thought of on the day, but the questions that come to mind just now are:
1) The small stones in the gold decorations on the scabbard are, if I understood the sign correctly, garnet. Has anyone done any research on them to determine where the garnets come from? How about the gold itself? (I have papers on this sort of provenance research on garnets by Calligaro et. all 2002, Farges et al 1998, Mathis et al 2008, and Papplardo et al 2005. I also have a paper on this sort of research for gold by Guerra et al 2007, any of which I can send to you if you or anyone wants to see them.)
2) The lovely large stone on the belt (for fire starting?) I think I recall seeing a label that says it is quartzite, has anyone looked into where that stone would have come from and/or what the detailed composition is?
Moving on to the textiles:
3) I have (years ago) read Margreta Nocketer's book on the textiles from this find, and really enjoyed her detailed drawings of the seams. Are there now available any high-resolution photos of the seams? (I don't think we had the technology for good modern high-res photos when she did her work.) You have some lovely ones of the outside of the cuffs on display on the wall, but I am very, very interested in details of the garment construction/inside of the seams, and I didn't see any of those details on display. If there are no such photos yet in existence, is there any possibility of some being done in the future? I can assure you that I am not the only person I know who is passionate about how seams were stitched.
4) I would also be very interested in an opportunity to look at and use a microscope to photograph the seams myself, if it were possible, but I will understand if this isn't possible--I wouldn't want to risk damage to the textiles by moving them. You mentioned that much of the textiles from this find is in Stockholm (on display?, if so which museum so that I can make a point of visiting next time I am in the south), do they have all of the rest of the pieces, or are some of them in storage somewhere rather than on display?
5) Has anyone done any modern analysis of the textile composition? I know that it is possible to use Strontium isotopes in wool to determine if the sheep were grazing locally, or if the wool was imported elsewhere (I have a copy of Frei et al 2008 on this topic, if you want to see it, and I think she has published more since then).
6) I recall hearing the term "brickband" (tablet weaving) for the trim on the sleeve cuffs, yet looking closely myself at the cuffs on display, and at some of the lovely high-res photos on the wall it looked to me that most of the trim had a weaving structure wherein the threads were all parallel with one another, rather than twining around their neighbours. That suggests to me that those (including the ones with the tiny people like decorations) bits of trim are woven with a rigid heddle or other non-twining weaving technique rather than tablet weaving. On the other hand, one of the high res photos did show a section near the edge of the cuff where the treads do appear to twin around one another in the manner of tablet weaving (or even some nålbinding stitches).
7) It is possible that I misunderstood what I heard/read on the day and that you guys don't think the trim with what looks like parallel threads to me is tablet weaving, in which case please let me know and I apologize for the confusion. On the other hand, if it is all thought to be tablet weaving, it might be worth having a tablet weaver look at it again and see if they agree with my first impression (which, given the realities of the display situation could be wrong).
8) You mentioned that you don't currently have a reproduction of the clothing on display. Would the museum like one? I don't have any skills in spinning or weaving, but if appropriate fabric could be found I would be delighted to do the hand-sewing and tailoring for such a thing. I would even use a period-appropriate needle and thread if these can be found (I know of sources for late medieval style metal needles, but haven't done any research myself into what sorts of needles were in use during the migration period).
And while I am volunteering for stuff, I will also mention that I am in charge of the Laser-ablation ICP-MS laboratory at LTU, which is able to determine the trace element compositions of objects. If no one has done research making use of the trace and/or major element composition of of any of your artifacts, but someone associated with the museum would like to do so, I may be able to work with them using our lab to do the analysis. The down side of laser-ablation as a sampling method is that it is, technically, destructive, but the "craters" we leave behind in the object tend to be 5 to 100 microns wide, so they are not usually noticeable to the naked eye, unless we do a series of lines across an object to make a map of compositional changes.
Feel free to forward my email and/or contact details to anyone who might be interested in talking with me more on any of the topics of this (rather long) email. I will look forward to hearing from you when you get a chance to reply to any of the above questions for which you know answers. Feel free to reply in Swedish if you like--my ability to read Swedish is quite good, even if my ability to write in it isn't up to the vocabulary I needed for this message.
Thanks,
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**************
Hi Johanna!
Thank you again for a delightful tour last weekend. Your willingness to make time out of your day to talk about the find with a handful of historical textile enthusiasts is appreciated. You suggested that I send you written questions when I got home. Unfortunately, it has been a busy week, so I can't promise that I will be able to remember everything I thought of on the day, but the questions that come to mind just now are:
1) The small stones in the gold decorations on the scabbard are, if I understood the sign correctly, garnet. Has anyone done any research on them to determine where the garnets come from? How about the gold itself? (I have papers on this sort of provenance research on garnets by Calligaro et. all 2002, Farges et al 1998, Mathis et al 2008, and Papplardo et al 2005. I also have a paper on this sort of research for gold by Guerra et al 2007, any of which I can send to you if you or anyone wants to see them.)
2) The lovely large stone on the belt (for fire starting?) I think I recall seeing a label that says it is quartzite, has anyone looked into where that stone would have come from and/or what the detailed composition is?
Moving on to the textiles:
3) I have (years ago) read Margreta Nocketer's book on the textiles from this find, and really enjoyed her detailed drawings of the seams. Are there now available any high-resolution photos of the seams? (I don't think we had the technology for good modern high-res photos when she did her work.) You have some lovely ones of the outside of the cuffs on display on the wall, but I am very, very interested in details of the garment construction/inside of the seams, and I didn't see any of those details on display. If there are no such photos yet in existence, is there any possibility of some being done in the future? I can assure you that I am not the only person I know who is passionate about how seams were stitched.
4) I would also be very interested in an opportunity to look at and use a microscope to photograph the seams myself, if it were possible, but I will understand if this isn't possible--I wouldn't want to risk damage to the textiles by moving them. You mentioned that much of the textiles from this find is in Stockholm (on display?, if so which museum so that I can make a point of visiting next time I am in the south), do they have all of the rest of the pieces, or are some of them in storage somewhere rather than on display?
5) Has anyone done any modern analysis of the textile composition? I know that it is possible to use Strontium isotopes in wool to determine if the sheep were grazing locally, or if the wool was imported elsewhere (I have a copy of Frei et al 2008 on this topic, if you want to see it, and I think she has published more since then).
6) I recall hearing the term "brickband" (tablet weaving) for the trim on the sleeve cuffs, yet looking closely myself at the cuffs on display, and at some of the lovely high-res photos on the wall it looked to me that most of the trim had a weaving structure wherein the threads were all parallel with one another, rather than twining around their neighbours. That suggests to me that those (including the ones with the tiny people like decorations) bits of trim are woven with a rigid heddle or other non-twining weaving technique rather than tablet weaving. On the other hand, one of the high res photos did show a section near the edge of the cuff where the treads do appear to twin around one another in the manner of tablet weaving (or even some nålbinding stitches).
7) It is possible that I misunderstood what I heard/read on the day and that you guys don't think the trim with what looks like parallel threads to me is tablet weaving, in which case please let me know and I apologize for the confusion. On the other hand, if it is all thought to be tablet weaving, it might be worth having a tablet weaver look at it again and see if they agree with my first impression (which, given the realities of the display situation could be wrong).
8) You mentioned that you don't currently have a reproduction of the clothing on display. Would the museum like one? I don't have any skills in spinning or weaving, but if appropriate fabric could be found I would be delighted to do the hand-sewing and tailoring for such a thing. I would even use a period-appropriate needle and thread if these can be found (I know of sources for late medieval style metal needles, but haven't done any research myself into what sorts of needles were in use during the migration period).
And while I am volunteering for stuff, I will also mention that I am in charge of the Laser-ablation ICP-MS laboratory at LTU, which is able to determine the trace element compositions of objects. If no one has done research making use of the trace and/or major element composition of of any of your artifacts, but someone associated with the museum would like to do so, I may be able to work with them using our lab to do the analysis. The down side of laser-ablation as a sampling method is that it is, technically, destructive, but the "craters" we leave behind in the object tend to be 5 to 100 microns wide, so they are not usually noticeable to the naked eye, unless we do a series of lines across an object to make a map of compositional changes.
Feel free to forward my email and/or contact details to anyone who might be interested in talking with me more on any of the topics of this (rather long) email. I will look forward to hearing from you when you get a chance to reply to any of the above questions for which you know answers. Feel free to reply in Swedish if you like--my ability to read Swedish is quite good, even if my ability to write in it isn't up to the vocabulary I needed for this message.
Thanks,
******************