Woven Into the Earth: Textiles from Norse Greenland (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9788772889351)

One of the century's most spectacular archaeological finds occurred in 1921 when Poul N rlund recovered dozens of garments from a graveyard in the Norse settlement of Herjolfsn s, Greenland. Preserved intact for centuries by the permafrost, these medi-aeval 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 N rlund'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. Eighty years of technical advances and subsequent excavations have greatly added to our understanding of the Herjolfsn s discoveries. In Woven into the Earth Else stergård recounts the dramatic story of N rlund's excavation in the context of other Norse textile finds in Greenland. She 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.

Author: Else ØStergård
ISBN-10: 8772889357
ISBN-13: 9788772889351
Publisher: Aarhus University Press
Language: English
Published: 08/31/2026
Pages: 296
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 3.21lbs
Size: 11.78h x 8.44w x 1.15d