The Nazca were masters of figural nalbinding. Today’s Nalbound Object of the Week is a fragment of a brightly colored band with birds alternating with flowers coming out of it and flowers growing out of both sides as well. I had the honor of examining this one in person in October of 2019.
Description: Starting with a red band worked in the round that is approximately 1 inch (2.5 cm) wide, with the tails and wings of the bird integral on both sides, the breast, head, and beaks of the birds are worked out of the center of one side. There is a flower worked out of the center of the band for each bird to sip from between each bird. Flowers also extend from both sides of the band making the total width just under 3 inches (just under 8 cm) on average. Putting the pieces together, I measured the central band as 37 cm long.1
Material: 2 ply Z-spun S-plied Camelid wool.4 Further investigation may reveal that some of the yarns or plies of yarns come from other sources as they do not have the same texture as the majority.
Stitch(es) used: Z-crossed Cross-knit Looping5 (specific crossing determined by Anne Marie Decker during examination in October 2019)
Gauge: Approximately 19 stitches to the inch and 28 rows to the inch (approx 8 stitches and 11 rows per cm)
The fragment in the British Museum may have been part of a larger piece similar to this 2nd century BCE Nazca Border Fragment Accession Number: 31.20.1 Photo credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art – Public Domain
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For this Nalbound Object of the Week, we look to the Pech people of Northeastern Honduras. Now in the Ethnographic collections of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, we find this lovely open worked nalbound bag in alternating light and darker brown stripes.
Description: The bag starts at the base in the lighter brown and is worked for three rows with some increases visible. Followed by two rows of the darker brown and then three, three, three, and two alternating. The bag is recorded as being 19 5/16 inches high by 14 15/16 inches wide with a thickness of 1 5/16 inches (49 x 38 x 3.4cm). The opening shows no signs of decreasing the row height or otherwise finishing the mouth of the bag. The fabric builds in an clockwise S type spiral implying it was likely worked with the fabric suspended above while being worked.
Dated to: No date provided.1 The bag is part of the Ethnographic collections, so possibly collected sometime within the last one hundred and fifty years.
Find location (Continent, current country, original culture): Plaintain River, Honduras3
Material: The online catalog only describes the material as fiber.4 It may possibly Maguey (Agave sisalana f. armata) or Aechmea as both are noted as being used by the Pech to make bags.5
Stitch(es) used: B2 U/OU as read from the technical front of the work with crosses up. (Stitch determination by Anne Marie Decker based on .TIFF photograph provided by the museum for research purposes.) Given that the clockwise S type spiral direction of work reads right to left in that orientation combined with the B2 connection, this bag was likely worked with the fabric above the hands instead of suspended below. (If worked dependent (unlikely), then this would likely be indicative of being worked left-handed.) So in working, with the fabric suspended and growing down, the direction of work would read left to right, as is most frequent and the stitch would be worked as F2 O/UO crosses down.
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Sometimes nalbinding is combined with other techniques to make a artifact. My sincere thanks to Niina-Hannele Nuutinen for bringing this particular artifact to my attention. Generally the four-cornered hats of the Wari, from 8th-10th c. Peru, are knotted. This one is knotted with pile sides, but the top is Simple Looping. So this week’s Nalbound Object of the week is actually only partially nalbound.
1983.497.7 Wari four-cornered hat with Simple Looping top. Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art – Public Domain CC0
Object: Wari Four-cornered Hat with Simple Looping top
Description: A four-cornered brightly colored hat made with knotted pile in a lozenge pattern. The four corners have colored tassels. The top is Simple Looping worked in four differently colored bands from the sides of the hat to the top. The hat is 5 1/2 inches high and 5 3/4 inches wide (14 × 14.6 cm).1
Find location: The Wari culture was centered in the central Peruvian highland valley of Ayacucho. Wari pile hats with provenance come from the south or central coast of Peru.3 The exact provenance of this hat is unspecified.
Stitch(es) used: Larkshead Knotting with supplementary pile sides5 with Z-crossed Simple Looping, F1 O, in for the top (Top stitch determination by Anne Marie Decker from photographs)
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Since the purple fragment went over so well last week, I thought that I would share this purple Roman Era Egyptian sock as this week’s Nalbound Object of the Week. It was excavated from the Christian burial grounds of Oxyrhynchus, present-day al-Bahnasa, by the Egypt Exploration Fund in the 1896-71 excavation season.
Description: A piece dyed2 purple (red and blue) split-toed sock for the left foot with a tongue and lacing loops closure, currently sewn through the tongue, and knit/purl ribbed patterning on the upper ankle cuff. Measurements on the online catalog record, length approximately 21.5cm, width approximately 8.4cm, and height approximately 10cm,3 reflect a sock that would fit a US Children’s size 3, Women’s 4.5.
Find location: The Christian burial grounds of Late Roman Era Oxyrhynchus.5 The present-day city of al-Bahnasa in Egypt.
Material: S2Z plied wool.6 Originally a light natural color, the sock was piece dyed red and blue, resulting in a purple sock.
Stitch(es) used: S-crossed Cross-knit Looping variant of nalbinding.7 Gauge is reported as 9 stitches per inch by 12 rows per inch8 or 3-4 stitches by 5 rows to the centimeter.9
Some sources in which more information can be found:
Burnham, Dorothy K. “Coptic Knitting: An Ancient Technique” in Textile History, Vol. 3 December 1972. edited by K. G. Ponting and Dr S. D. Chapman. The Pasold Research Fund LTD, England, 1972; pgs. 116-124. No ISBN/ISSN provided. DOI: 10.1179/004049672793692237
De Moor, Antoine, Cäcilia Fluck, M. Van Strydonck, and M. Boudin. “Radiocarbon dating of Late Roman woolen socks from Egypt,” In Textiles, tools and techniques of the 1st millennium AD from Egypt and neighbouring countries. Proceedings of the 8th conference of the research group ‘Textiles from the Nile Valley,’ Antwerp, 4-6 October 2013, ed. Antoine De Moor, Cäcilia Fluck, and Petra Linscheid, p. 131-136. Tielt: Lannoo Publishers, 2015. ISBN 9789401432405.
Kendrick, A. F. Catalogue of Textiles From Burying-Grounds in Egypt: Vol. II. Period of Transition and of Christian Emblems. Victoria and Albert Museum, Department of Textiles. London: Publ. under the Authority of His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1921. No ISBN.
Köstner, Barbara. “Roman and Late Roman nalbinding socks from Egypt: Bringing ‘Egyptian fashion’ to the North” in Excavating, analysing, reconstructing: Textiles of the first millennium AD from Egypt and neighbouring countries. Proceedings of the 9th conference of the research group ‘Textiles from the Nile Valley’, Antwerp, 27-29 November 2015. ed. by Antoine De Moor, Cäcilia Fluck, and Petra Linscheid. Tielt: Lannoo Publishers, 2017. ISBN 9789401443999.
Photographs:
There are a few additional photos in the museum’s online catalog entry.
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Kendrick, Catalogue of Textiles From Burying-Grounds in Egypt: Vol. II. Period of Transition and of Christian Emblems. 1921. pg. 88. ↩︎
The sock appears to have been dyed after it was created instead of dying the wool and then nalbinding the sock. The interior of the yarn is still a light natural color and the red and blue appear to be on the surface only. ↩︎
Today’s Nalbound Object of the Week is the Dublin fragment E190:7430. It is a purple nalbound fragment that is not large enough to give any indication of its original size, form, or function. It was found outside a house dated to the 10th century in the excavations of Viking Age Dublin carried out by the National Museum of Ireland from 1962 to 1981. Frances Pritchard had the opportunity to examine the textiles found and published an article in 1992 entitled “Aspects of the Wool Textiles from Viking Age Dublin” which includes most of what is known about this fragment (including the only published photograph). 1
Image of a portion of the Dublin fragment with one row of stitches highlighted in a rainbow progression by Anne Marie Decker. Base photo provided by Frances Pritchard is a slightly tighter image than that published in her article “Aspects of the Wool Textiles from Viking Age Dublin” taken by Jon Bailey, Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England.
Object: Dublin fragment
Description: Original size unknown. Current size unknown, but the photo published in Frances Pritchard’s article is scaled 2:1.2 That published photo does not show the complete fragment, so the complete dimensions cannot be calculated. It is the only nalbound example found amongst the hundreds of wool textiles and a good number of silk textiles found during the excavations.3
Color: Dye analysis by Penelope Walton indicates it was dyed with lichen purple4
Dated to: The excavations date to Viking Age Dublin, c. 917 to 1169 CE.
Material: Two-ply Z/S-ply7 wool yarn.8 Diameter calculates to approximately 1-1.5 mm based on the photograph and scale.
Gauge: Row height calculates to roughly 0.75 cm and there are approximately 3.5-4 stitches to the cm based on the photograph and scale. It’s a fairly open worked binding.
Stitch(es) used: The stitch used has not been formally determined by examination as the fragment is currently inaccessible.9 My examination of the photo available leads me to believe that it is the stitch colloquially referred to as half-York, but could better be called Dublin stitch: F2 U/OO.
Further research is indicated. At the time of Frances Pritchard’s article, it was thought that nalbinding was only usual in Scandinavian and Baltic countries of the time and thus probable it was made by a Scandinavian settler, much like the Coppergate Sock found in York.10 Of the other known Viking Era finds in Scandinavia, none use York family style intralacing. The York family style intralacing is found in similar stitches in Egypt, France, Spain, and Greece so far. Thus the nalbound artifacts in the Isles may have more in common with the nalbinding of Southern Europe/North Africa than of Scandinavia.
Link to museum catalog or other data: The National Museum of Ireland does not have online catalog information for this artifact.
Some sources in which more information can be found:
Pritchard, Frances. “Aspects of the Wool Textiles from Viking Age Dublin” in Archaeological Textiles in Northern Europe Report from the 4th NESAT Symposium 1. – 5. May 1990 Copenhagen, edited by Lise Bender Jorgensen & Elisabeth Munksgaard, Tidens Tand, Nr. 5, 1992, pages 93-104. Copenhagen: Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi, 1992. ISBN 87-89730-04-6.
Wallace, Patrick F. Viking Dublin: The Wood Quay Excavations. Irish Academic Press, 2016. ISBN 978-07165-3314-6. (A brief mention of the fragment is found on page 263.)
Photographs: There are no photos in the National Museum of Ireland’s Image Library for this reference or reg number.12 The only known image is the partial one published in Frances Pritchard’s article.
Documenting attempts to determine the stitch variant used:
In 2016, Katherine Walsh, posted to the Nalbinding Facebook group asking if anyone knew which stitch was used to make this fragment.13 Her initial thought was maybe Oslo, but she wasn’t sure. At the time, I suggested Loop & Twist with a carried thread and connecting around the post instead of in between stitches as the fragment shows a very distinctly vertical wale, not the diagonal more commonly found in Loop & Twist. Not long after this, I realized that it was not Loop & Twist, but U/OO F2 instead.
Katherine provided several samples testing out the theory which she later appears to have developed into a small handout entitled “Nalbinding in Fishamble Street.”14
In April 2019, Kathrine posted in the Léine Medieval Crafters Facebook Group showing some further experimentation including the back side of her theoretical construction which clearly shows the “purl” effect of the F2B connection.15 This type of connection to the previous row is sometimes referred to as encircled.16
The Loop & Twist theory unfortunately does not seem to have quite the correct angles to match the image of the Dublin fragment.
Further experimentation led me to believe that the Dublin fragment is most likely U/OO F2. It’s the F2 connection that causes the vertical stacking on the intraconnections. If it is U/OO F2, that is actually quite interesting as it is very similar to the York17 stitch (UU/OOO F2), only off by one loop, which is, in and of itself, and as a family style of intralacing, unusual in the Scandinavian corpus.
Debbie Bradley Lauf seems to have independently come to a similar conclusion. She has noted that a scarf she finished looks similar to the structure of the Dublin fragment. I think the resemblance would be greatly enhanced by working with a two-ply yarn and working in the round instead of flat, but you can see her scarf here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/644499622267562/permalink/3444789742238522/ Sept. 1, 2020.
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Page 102 of Frances Pritchard’s “Aspects of the Wool Textiles from Viking Age Dublin” in Archaeological Textiles in Northern Europe Report from the 4th NESAT Symposium 1. – 5. May 1990 Copenhagen, edited by Lise Bender Jorgensen & Elisabeth Munksgaard, Tidens Tand, Nr. 5, 1992, pages 93-104. Copenhagen: Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi, 1992. ISBN 87-89730-04-6 contains the photo attributed to Jon Bailey, Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England. ↩︎
Pritchard “Aspects of the Wool Textiles from Viking Age Dublin” Pg. 102 ↩︎
Frances Pritchard in personal correspondence in September of 2020. ↩︎
Pritchard “Aspects of the Wool Textiles from Viking Age Dublin” Pg. 102 ↩︎
Frances Pritchard in personal correspondence in September of 2020. ↩︎
Pritchard “Aspects of the Wool Textiles from Viking Age Dublin” Pg. 102 ↩︎
Pritchard “Aspects of the Wool Textiles from Viking Age Dublin” Pg. 93 ↩︎
Frances Pritchard in personal correspondence in September of 2020. ↩︎
Pritchard “Aspects of the Wool Textiles from Viking Age Dublin” Pg. 102 ↩︎
In August of 2019, Emma Boast commented, on another Facebook post inquiring about the Dublin fragment, that she had reached out to the National Museum of Ireland and was “was told they don’t currently know where it is within the collections.” [Emma Boast writing as Bruni Bear at the time, in the comments of: https://www.facebook.com/groups/644499622267562/posts/2583805478336957/]. Confirmed with Frances Pritchard in personal correspondence in September of 2020. ↩︎
Personal correspondence with the Image Library Officer dated 18 March 2024. ↩︎
Primarily demonstrated with Cross-knit Looping, see Looping: 9. Encircled Looping on pages 17 & 18 of Seiler-Baldinger, Annemarie. Textiles A Classification of Techniques. Washington: Smithsonian Inst, 1994. ISBN 1-56098-509-7, Encircled isn’t a stitch per se, but a method of connection to the adjacent row. ↩︎
Having had an excuse to go to Norway, I had to go to Trondheim to see our next Nalbound Object of the Week. Found in a pre-1300 CE context, the Nidaros stocking is one of the earliest knee length nalbound stockings found.
The stocking is laid out horizontally with the upper portion of the foot to the left of the photograph, toe up. The leg still has folds, but likely reached the knee. A high resolution photo is available via the link in the online catalog. Photo: Ole-Aleksander Ulvik, NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet CC BY-SA 4.0
Object: Nidaros Stocking
Description: A nearly complete full stocking from toes to the knee. The sock shows heavy fulling, though if that was intentional or from wear or find circumstances is unknown. There are 4 holes that show evidence of compression near them. The areas away from the holes are a significantly darker color, have a layer of fibers obscuring the nalbinding, and are noticeably stiffer and not flexible.
Find location: Field S of the Søndre Gate 4 dig in medieval Nidaros, modernly Trondheim, Norway. More specifically it was found under the floorboards of a pre-1300 house in the wealthy blocks of the city.3
Stitch(es) used: Further examination is necessary given the condition of the textile. However, the surface texture most closely resembles the stitch known as Dalby, F1 UOU/OUOO.
Some sources in which more information can be found:
In 2020, there was a Facebook post by the Nidaros Archaeological Archive (NIDARK) project with a photograph of the stocking and some information regarding its excavation. I’d share it with you, but within this last year, that post has since disappeared along with all of the rest of the NIDARK Facebook page posts. Nonetheless, that project and its posts led me to this fabulous artifact.
Photographs:
Detail of the cuff of the Nidaros Stocking showing one of the holes. Photo: Anne Marie Decker 2024Examination day is always so exciting! Photo: Anne Marie Decker 2024The Nidaros Stocking was found in excavations under this street. Photo: Anne Marie Decker 2024
Acknowledgements: My sincerest thanks to the NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet and especially to Torkel Johansen, Curator, and Frances Lucas Lukezic, Conservator for their assistance during my study visit.
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Per discussions with Torkel Johansen, curator at the Institutt for arkeologi og kulturhistorie, NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet during my study visit on 16 April 2024. ↩︎
Per discussions with Torkel Johansen, curator at the Institutt for arkeologi og kulturhistorie, NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet during my study visit on 16 April 2024. ↩︎
Last week I had the distinct pleasure to go visit a well known mitten that rather recently has been placed on display again in the NOREGR – Medieval Stories exhibition at the Historical Museum in Oslo. And thus, the Oslo mitten joins the Nalbound Object of the Week series.
Anne Marie Decker pointing to the Oslo mitten on display in the Historical Museum in Oslo. Photo Anne Marie Decker 18 April 2024
Object: Oslo Mitten
Description: An adult sized mitten made of wool with damage at the base of the thumb and palm areas.
Dated to: 11th century,1 medieval. Ca. 1025-1125 CE2
The exhibition label for the Oslo mitten in the NOREGR – Medieval Stories exhibition at the Historical Museum in Oslo. Photo: Anne Marie Decker 18 April 2024.
Find location: The mitten was found during the 1926 excavation of the old town of Oslo on a layer of wood chips under the wooden flooring of a narrow passage between houses. This part of town was built in the 11th century.3
Stitch(es) used: Nordland published the stitch used as 412 in his classification system5 which most likely translates to the stitch commonly known as Oslo and classified in Hansen’s notation as UO/UOO F1. However, further examination is warranted as the surface texture does not match. The surface texture more closely resembles the Mammen stitch, F2 UOO/UUOO.
Some sources in which more information can be found:
Claßen-Büttner, Ulrike. Nadelbinden – Was ist denn das? Geschichte und Technik einer fast vergessenen Handarbeit. Norderstedt: Books on Demand GmbH, 2012. ISBN 978-3-8482-0124-2.
Claßen-Büttner, Ulrike. Nalbinding – What in the World Is That? History and Technique of an Almost Forgotten Handicraft. Norderstedt: Books on Demand, 2015. ISBN 978-3-7347-7905-3.
Nordland, Odd. Primitive Scandinavian Textiles in Knotless Netting. Studia Norvegica no. 10. Oslo: Oslo University Press, 1961. No ISBN listed in Book.
Photographs:
The museum catalog has 3 very nice zoomable photos. The two color photos are of one side and the black and white of the other.
Oslo Mitten. Photo: Anne Marie Decker 18 April 2024Detail of the thumb of the Oslo Mitten. Photo: Anne Marie Decker 18 April 2024The display case in which the Oslo mitten is currently located in the NOREGR – Medieval Stories exhibition. Photo: Anne Marie Decker 18 April 2024Detail of the cuff of the Oslo Mitten. Photo: Anne Marie Decker 18 April 2024
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The famous sock from Uppsala is not the only nalbinding found in Uppsala. This week’s Nalbound Object of the Week are the fragments of what is believed to be another sock. This one found in the Kransen quarter of Uppsala. I was graciously allowed access to examine these fragments at the Statens Historiska Museet in May of 2023. Some of what you see in the box is moss.
Image of the fragments of 34821, cropped to remove excess background. Upphov: Rosengren, Helena, Historiska museet/SHM (CC BY 4.0)
Object: Kransen sock fragments
Description: Nine fragments of what is believed to be a sock.1
Some sources in which more information can be found:
Gustafsson, Jan Helmer, and Ola Ehn. Kransen: ett medeltida kvarter i Uppsala. Uppsala: Upplands fornminnesfören, 1984. ISBN 91-85618-21-7.
Photographs (if permissions allow):
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Gustafsson, Jan Helmer, and Ola Ehn. Kransen: ett medeltida kvarter i Uppsala. Uppsala: Upplands fornminnesfören, 1984. Pg. 76. ISBN 91-85618-21-7. ↩︎
Gustafsson, Jan Helmer, and Ola Ehn. Kransen: ett medeltida kvarter i Uppsala. Uppsala: Upplands fornminnesfören, 1984. Pg. 8. ISBN 91-85618-21-7. ↩︎
The patterned fragment from Dura-Europos has always fascinated me, so today it too joins the Nalbound Object of the Week collection. The fragment was excavated by the Yale-French Excavations at Dura-Europos sometime between 1928–37. It is only 5 7/8 by 6 11/16 in. (15 × 17 cm). Given the standard ratios of socks of this type and analysis of the fragment itself, what remains is 3/4 of the original circumference of the sock ankle.
Anne Marie Decker’s theoretical reconstruction of what the Dura-Europos patterned fragment may have looked like when the sock was whole based on standard ratios found in examinations of socks worked in Cross-knit Looping found in Egypt and surrounding regions. The fragment itself is in the background.
Object: Patterned fragment from Dura-Europos
Description: The patterned heel cup and ankle of a fancy Cross-knit Looping sock. The pattern consists of a vertical column of knit wales followed by a purl background with two pomegranate shapes placed one over the other (one is missing). Then another vertical column, a tree of life pattern that goes up the center back of the sock, and another vertical column. This is followed by another purl background with two pomegranates and ending with a final vertical column. The fragment has a few perpendicular stitches on the bottom right that are the remains of the mid-foot section. On the same side, a few lacing loops are preserved indicating that this sock likely had a tongue flap and lacing closure similar to that seen in the contemporaneous sock from Egypt currently in the V&A collections in London.
Rutt, Richard. A History of Hand Knitting. London: B T Batsford Ltd, 1987 ISBN 0713451181; reprinted Loveland, Colorado: Interweave Press, 1989 ISBN 0-934026-35-1, Library of Congress Catalog Number 87-46353; pgs. 28-30.
Pfister, Rudolf and Bellinger, Louisa. “The textiles: Knitting,” Rostovtzeff, M.I., et al. The excavations at Dura-Europos Final Report IV, Part II. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1945, 54-5.
Photograph:
1933.483 Patterned fragment from Dura Europos. Cropped and rotated to show original orientation. Original Photo Credit: The Yale University Art Gallery – Public Domain CC0 1.0 Deed
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The Yale Univeristy Art Gallery dates the fragment to c. AD 200-256 https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/5962. Dura Europos was sacked and never reoccupied, so we are fairly certain the sock pre-dates 256 CE when that occurred. The only other example of a sock with lacing loops in the corpus has been carbon dated to a very similar timeframe. ↩︎
This week’s Nalbound Object of the Week comes from Central Africa. There are quite a few of these beautifully fine Prestige Capes from the former Kingdom of Kongo now in museums around the world. I was honored to be able to examine this particular one closely. Until you are in the presence of one, it is hard to comprehend just how delicate and fine this complex compound nalbinding is; and then you add in the openwork patterning. Definitely breathtaking.
Photo Credit: Textile Museum Acquisition – Public Domain
Description: A stunningly fine raffia cape worked in a trebly intralaced compound nalbinding stitch with an openwork zigzag pattern. The neck opening has a layer of Simple Looping around the edge. The outer edges have raffia fringe knotted onto them. The front and back rows have strings knotted on every few stitches from which the handle-like tassels are suspended. This cape has one both front and back. Some also have them off the sides.
There is an illustration of an etching, based on a photograph, that was made ca. 1880 of a Chief in Full Dress Attire wearing a nkutu on page 73 of Kongo: Power and Majesty.
Stitch(es) used: B1 UU/OO/UU/OOU as determined by Anne Marie Decker during her examination of the object on 14 June 2023. The row heights are very fine for this compound of a nalbinding stitch; around 5/8ths of an inch. There is a single row of Z-crossed Simple Looping, F1 O, around the neck opening.
The Textile Museum specifies that the structure is “looping,” but not the specific stitch used.7 This type of cape has also been misidentified as sprang8 in other examples, but they are not.
So far, the only other place where we see other stitches in the same trebly intralaced family of stitches is in the Omani stitch sock as described by Peter Collingwood (the only example of that particular stitch out of Oman that has been found so far).
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For example, the British Museum’s Af1853,0713.1 lists its technique as sprang: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1853-0713-1, but also provides clear and close photographs that show it is worked in exactly the same interlinking nalbinding stitch as this one in The Textile Museum. ↩︎
