For the Nalbound Object of the Week, we head to Australia where there is a strong nalbinding tradition amongst the aboriginal peoples. Most commonly we see this in their string bags. This bag was collected in 1896 and is now in the Ethnographic collections of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.
Description: A rectangular bag with alternating light and darker brown stripes. Not quite 11 1/2 inches tall and 6 1/2 inches wide (29 x 16.5 cm)1 The body of the bag and string around the mouth are both Z twist. The carrying string is S-twist.
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One of the best things about researching any topic is that continued research will always bring further insights; be that greater clarity on a particular detail, proof of a particular theory, proof that a particular hypothesis was wrong, correcting a technique misidentification, new design details, new stitches, new dating, and more artifacts to examine. Hypotheses get developed and sometimes they are supported and possibly proven. Sometimes they are disproved and new hypotheses are born.
Add to that, things that are true of our modern esthetics in the craft may prove to be constant throughout the historical record, or they may prove to be recent inventions. Care should always be taken to ensure that we are not making assumptions, even based on our prior knowledge, and allowing our biases to hide the new data. Insights may come from the most unexpected sources and even experts can be proven wrong. I have had thousands of theories that have been made or dashed with arrival of new data. It’s exciting!
I’ve discussed several examples of this process on this blog previously,1 but today, I’d like to add a few additional examples.
Direction of work:
Nalbinding is predominately worked left to right, regardless of whether the work is dependent from the working row or hung above. Both of which leave telltale, but different, signs in the resultant fabric. Obviously, there are exceptions: lefthanded people often work in the opposite direction, and of course, there is the option of an esthetic choice to work in the non-dominant direction for a variety of reasons; including opposing spirals or flat work for example.
So the question becomes, how often do we see nalbinding worked in the non-dominant direction, when, where, and can we tell why? This is not an easy question to answer as so little research published has included this important detail about the artifacts.
Several of the artifacts that initially appeared to be worked in the non-dominant direction have turned out to be more likely found with the technical back to the outside. For example the Egyptian sock now in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.2 This could be accomplished by working in the non-dominant direction, but is more likely simply a case of the creator or wearer deciding that they preferred the texture of the technical back to the outside. In the case of the sock in Edinburgh, it seems a common trait of socks made in that particular stitch. In the case of the pair of socks from Sudan,3 only one is “inside out.” This could be a case of the wearer not noticing, the person dressing the dead not noticing, or some cultural reason of which I am not aware.
In both cases, and in fact in all of the 115 or so known Egyptian socks, the socks are worked from the toe up to the ankle. The hats from the tip down. Up until very recently, all of the pre-17th century handcoverings I’ve examined have been worked from the tip of the fingers to the wrist. And yet, last year I had the opportunity to examine a beautiful glove from medieval Kalmar that surprised me in several ways. One was the particular stitch used as I had never seen its like before. And the other, was that it was clearly worked from the wrist towards the fingers. More research as to the direction of work of thumbs (and fingers on gloves), especially in relation to the associated handcovering, is desperately needed.
Wrist Bumps:
17th century mitten with a tar stain from Copenhagen . National Museum of Denmark Photo credit: Anne Marie DeckerCloseup of the wrist bump on the 17th century mitten from Copenhagen. Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker
I once had a idea that wrists that showed a prominent bump in the spiral might have been started at the wrist. Examinations of artifacts has consistently proven me wrong so far on that hypothesis. It was my modern esthetics that had given the the incorrect impression that the maker would always smooth out the final spiral.
Now, we do have examples where the final spiral ending is rather smooth. The Oslo mitten gives the appearance of a smooth ending. However, looking at the rows above it, one can see that it has been pulled and distorted such that the result is the edge currently looks like it was smoothly finished, but in fact it was a rather short transition that now significantly distorts the row to which it connects.
Oslo Mitten C28155 on display at the Historical Museum in Oslo Photo credit: Anne Marie DeckerDetail of the Oslo Mitten C28155 showing the short transition of the final row. Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker
Lace:
Another example. In 2004, I was approached by someone with a lace shawl they had that they wanted to know if it could be nalbound or not. The pictures they sent showed that an individual row had a structure we know can be produced by a particular nalbinding stitch, but the connections between rows were unclear, so we were missing important secondary construction details that can be vital to understand which particular technique produced the particular structure fabric.
I allowed as how it was possible that it might be nalbound, but that if it was that brought up many additional questions that would have to be answered. Such as, how would the connections be made in such an openwork structure without falling apart? In 2005, another was brought to my attention. My friend, Virginia Miller, became quite interested in the lace shawls and set about trying to find their source.
Around this time, many other examples of this particular type of shawl were apparently being examined at a variety of locations. Others were recognizing the structure of the chain as being a possible nalbound structure, but the specifics of the secondary constructions details that would reveal their true construction technique would not be recognized until the details of a related structural cross-over were discussed.4 These details show that there are a significant number of miss-identified examples in museums around the world.
Crocheted chain lace shawl from Turkey gifted to me by Virginia Miller in 2012. Photo credit: Anne Marie DeckerDetail of the chain lace shawl from Turkey showing the crocheted connection. Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker
Virginia, having tracked down the origin of at least some of the shawls, kindly managed to procure one for me. Being able to examine one in detail up close has led to an understanding that allows me to understand details that while I had seen them before, had not revealed their relevance. Now, given sufficiently clear photos, it is easy to determine that these shawls are a form of crocheted chain lace. Rather similar in structure to the earliest forms of crochet that been identified.5
Another example of this structure’s construction technique being misidentified is a lovely pair of baby booties in the V&A Collection. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O136095/pair-of-bootees-unknown/ The Simple Looping in cream on the ball at the top of the tassel at the ankles is a form of nalbinding (and also a form of needlelace), but the green lace are these open worked crocheted chains. Once again, it’s the connections between the chains that reveal the technique used.
Hypotheses come and go, but that is in many ways the fun part of research. We are always learning new things. Theories become proven. Hypotheses are dashed and formed again. All of which leads to a better understanding of the entire corpus of both nalbound textiles and related looped textiles, their origins, transmission, development, traditional uses, and influences on the modern craft.
Speaking of exciting new opportunities and artifacts to examine, I have recently learned of new excavated socks to add to the corpus of nalbinding that have never been examined before. Unfortunately, my travel budget to go see them is rather dry. If you’ve enjoyed my research and would like to be a part of my support team, I sincerely appreciate any assistance you are willing to send my way. You can use the one time donation link in the menu or become a monthly Patron. Patrons on Patreon receive priority requests, early access previews, and occasional extra details.
The Nalbound Object of the Week this week takes us back to Peru with another Simple Looping cap. However, this one is topped with feathers! With stripes reminiscent of the Omani Sand Socks and feathers like those seen on hats from Cameroon, this 10th-15th century CE Peruvian hat reminds me of both the similarities and differences of nalbinding around the world.
Peruvian Feathered Cap, Accession number 1994.35.136 Photo credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art – Public Domain
Object: Feathered Cap
Description: A stunning cap worked from the top in alternating three rows of cream camelid yarn with three rows of dark brown yarn. Brown feathers have been attached to the top; splaying in a bouquet like fashion.
Peruvian Feathered Cap, Accession number 1994.35.136 Photo credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art – Public DomainPeruvian Feathered Cap, Accession number 1994.35.136 Photo credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art – Public Domain
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I’m excited to announce that the most recent issue of Hemslöjd contains the article, Strumpforskning [Stocking research] (Swedish language only), where I was interviewed about my theoretical reconstruction of the Dura-Europos patterned sock fragment. It is mentioned in the list on the cover as Sockan från romarriket [The Sock from the Roman Empire]. This issue is being mailed out to existing subscribers this week and should hit the shelves soon.
Hemslöjd is Sweden’s largest magazine about crafts, folk art, and handwork. While it is too late to get a subscription for a mailed paper copy to include this issue, there is a digital subscription option.
If you’ve enjoyed my research and would like to be a part of my support team, I sincerely appreciate any assistance you are willing to send my way. You can use the one time donation link in the menu or become a monthly Patron. Patrons on Patreon receive priority requests, early access previews, and occasional extra details.
I’ve been hoping to find Sámi nalbinding as there is so much nalbinding in the region, but finding Sámi specific nalbinding has been a bit of a challenge. Today’s Nalbound Object of the Week is a Skolt Sámi hat collected in 1933 that was brought to my attention by Ingela Lindberg Anderson after her trip to the National Museum of Denmark. As she was trying to find more information about some of the objects she had seen on display, she ran across this hat in the online catalog.
Skolt Sámi hat ObjectId 19278 Item number K.782 Photo credit: Mads Kildegaard Nielsen – Nationalmuseet, Danmark CC-BY-SA
Object: Skolt Sámi hat
Description: A light brown, natural colored, nalbound hat. The National Museum of Denmark provides the following measurements: Largest measurement 22 cm, Diameter 18 cm, Height 18 cm.1
Dated to: collected in 1933
Find location: The museum lists the location as “Samer – Suonikylä. Petsamo Lapps, Finland.”2 This reflects the terminology of 1933 when the hat was collected. This region of the larger Sápmi is no longer within the borders of Finland as it was ceded to Russia in the Second World War.3
Stitch(es) used: According to Margrethe Hald, the hat is worked in Långaryd stitch5, UOOOO/UUUUOO F1. However, the surface texture does not match that stitch determination. Further research should follow the Ethical Guidelines for Research Involving the Sámi People in Finland.
Inventory number: ObjectId 19278 Item number K.782
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This week’s Nalbound Object of the Week is another Incan wig Cap from Peru. Similar to the cap posted in late July, this is a stunning example with a beautiful set of braid wrapped ends that together make a zigzag pattern.
Cap Woven with Human Hair, 1983.491.2 Photo credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art – Public Domain
Object: Inca Wig Cap with zigzag braid wraps
Description: A cream colored cap with a broad brown stripe around the middle from which many brown human hair braids are hung. The braid ends are wrapped tightly in brightly colored wraps that form a zigzag pattern across the braids. This cap with braids is 28 inches long.1
A black and white photo of the Cap Woven with Human Hair, 1983.491.2, laid out flat. Photo credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art – Public Domain
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Peru and Egypt have both excellent preservation characteristics and extensive excavation histories, so I often return to these locations for nalbound artifacts. However, for this week’s Nalbound Object of the Week, I’d like to explore an item that reflects a different tradition. While we don’t know much about archeological examples, the Arabian Peninsula has evidence of a very strong traditional usage of nalbinding. زرابيل zarbool,1 or sand socks and camel muzzles2 seem to be the predominant items made with nalbinding there. This particular pair of Omani Sand Socks, I had the pleasure of seeing while they were on display in the Socks & Stockings exhibition at the Textile Research Centre in Leiden, Netherlands in 2019.
Omani Sand Socks as on display in the Socks & Stockings exhibition at the Textile Research Centre, Leiden in October 2019. Photo: Anne Marie Decker
Object: Sand socks زرابيل
Description: The socks are worked from the toe up in alternating stripes of white and black. The stripes are two rows deep and the color is carried from one row up to the next color change. The heel is a wedge heel. There is a slit in the ankle with ties at the top to close it. The bottom showing in this image shows the pads that are worked onto the sock starting from the mid-foot and sewn down on three sides. The socks are 12.6 inches long by 5.5 inches wide (32 cm long by 14 cm wide3).
Heel and toe pads sewn on TRC 2018.2807a-b Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker 2019Close up of the slit reversals TRC 2018.2807a-b Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker 2019The black yarn being carried across the white rows to the next black row TRC 2018.2807a-b Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker 2019Gauge is 2 – 2.5 rows to the inch depending on where it was measured. TRC 2018.2807a-b Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker 2019
Acknowledgements: My thanks to Diana Lankhof and Lies van de Wege for making it possible for me to visit the Socks & Stockings exhibition at TRC. My timing was soo very tight and they graciously arranged to open an hour early so that I could have time to examine the nalbound sand socks and see the displays.
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The Arabic term for camel muzzles or mouth coverings is possibly transliterated as lisama or lasama according to this video brought to my attention by Susan Elizabeth Aiken: https://youtu.be/YcKxQ0sGpr4?si=G5uO28Y9AR1lD9RY Accessed 7 June 2024 ↩︎
In 2019, my mother and I were able to travel to Leicester for a chance to see this week’s Nalbound Object of the Week; a small child’s sock from 3rd-5th century CE Antinoë/Antinoupolis. It was one of nearly a dozen found during John de Monins Johnson‘s excavations for the Egypt Exploration Fund1 in the 1913-14 season.
Leicester sock L.A63.1914.0.0 Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker 2019
Object: Leicester child’s sock
Description: Small child’s left split toed sock in many colors: green, red, purple, yellow, and blue. Comparables can be seen in my Charting the Nalbinding of the Nile presentation from 2019. At 9:39 in the recording linked in https://nalbound.com/2019/04/06/charting-the-nalbinding-of-the-nile /
Note: At the time of the excavations, the socks were presumed to be knitted as the differences between the crossed knitting and cross-knit nalbinding techniques had not yet been described.
Dated to: 300-500 CE2 (possibly earlier around the 3rd-4th centuries based on the radiocarbon dating of other socks found during the same excavation3)
Find location: Excavated from a rubbish pit at Sheikh Abada (ancient Antinoopolis), Egypt4
Leicester Museum and Art Gallery does not have an online catalog. The sock is noted in their Collections Development Policy 2019-2024, section 3.5.2. “Although intended to be a representative selection, it includes at least one rarity, a Coptic knitted sock from Antinoe, the only example in this country outside of London.” This unfortunately reflects out of date information; the technique having been recognized as nalbinding, not knitting, in the last quarter of the last century and several examples from the same excavation are located in Britain, but outside of London. This does not, however, in any way negate its rarity and importance.
Some sources in which more information can be found:
Köstner, Barbara. “Roman and Late Roman nalbinding socks from Egypt: Bringing ‘Egyptian fashion’ to the North” in Excavating, analysing, reconstructing Textiles of the 1st millennium AD from Egypt and neighbouring countries: Proceeding of the 9th conference of the research group ‘Textiles from the Nile Valley’ Antwerp, 27-29 November 2015, edited by Antoine De Moor, Cäcilia Fluck, and Petra Linscheid. Tielt, Belgium: Lannoo Publishers, 2017. ISBN 978 94 014 4399 9.
Pritchard, Frances. “A survey of textiles in the UK from the 1913-14 Egypt Exploration Fund season at Antinoupolis” in Drawing the Threads Together: Textiles and Footwear of the 1st Millenium AD from Egypt. Proceedings of the 7th Meeting of the Study Group ‘Textiles from the Nile Valley”, Antwerp, 7-9 October 2011, edited by Antoine De Moor, Cäcilia Fluck, and Petra Linscheid, 34-55. Tielt: Lannoo, 2013. ISBN 9789401410830.
Rutt, Richard. A History of Hand Knitting. London: B T Batsford Ltd, 1987 ISBN 0713451181
Anne Marie Decker taking pictures of the Leicester sock. Photo credit: Ruth Decker 2019 The display misidentifies it as a knit sock, likely due to old catalog data. Photo credit: Anne Marie Decker 2019
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British Museum EA53913 was radiocarbon dated to between 100-350 CE. EA53913 was radiocarbon dated to 200-400 CE. ACO Tx2497 in the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels was dated to 240-400 CE. See 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. ↩︎
Another type of nalbound objects we see quite frequently in museums are wig caps from Inca era Peru. Thus, this week’s Nalbound Object of the Week is an Inca wig cap. The skull cap portion is made using S-crossed Simple Looping.
Object: Inca Wig Cap
Description: A light colored skull cap with a narrower dark brown and a larger brown stripe around it with around 120 braids hanging from the lower edge. These 3 strand braids have multicolored, red, green, blue, white, brown, wrappings on their bottom half. Overall dimensions are 37 x 9 7/16 in. (94 x 24 cm).
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For today’s Nalbound Object of the Week I must tell you of the surprise I got the day I was examining the medieval Nidaros Stocking. That same day, Niina-Hannele Nuutinen brought my attention to a mid-15th century knee-length stocking from Helgeandsholmen in Stockholm, Sweden. Excavated between 1978-1980, it was recently sent to Stockholm’s Archaeological Collection from the Statens Historiska Museet. While ankle length socks are well represented, knee-length nalbound stockings are rare in the archaeological record.
Mid-15th century CE nalbound knee-length stocking. UP0717-78 HELGEANDS 21539, 21542, & 22691 Stockholm stadsmuseet collection Photo credit: Medeltidsmuseet – used with permission
Object: Helgeandsholmen stocking
Description: “The thickness suggests that it was used as a lining inside a boot. On closer inspection, it can be seen that the stocking consists of three parts and that it has been folded together several times before being pierced by something – hence the light spots and the many holes and depressions. The lower end of the sock also has tar on it, indicating that it has probably been reused as a tar swab.”1
Dated to: mid-15th century CE, “mitten av 1400-talet.”2
Find location: At the turn of 2024, Stockholm’s archaeological collections received textiles from the excavation on Helgeandsholmen (1978-1980) from the Statens Historiska Museet. This previously unknown nalbound sock was among the textiles.3
Ingela Andersson Lindberg had the opportunity to examine the stocking on May 21st this year and has graciously coordinated with the museum to allow me to share these photos with you.
The other side of UP0717-78 HELGEANDS 21539, 21542, & 22691 Stockholm stadsmuseet collections Photo credit: Ingela Andersson Lindberg – used with permissionA close-up of the foot of UP0717-78 HELGEANDS 21539, 21542, & 22691 Stockholm stadsmuseet collections Photo credit: Ingela Andersson Lindberg – used with permission
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